idea who my client was or what they wanted done except that I was to meet them in front of the radio station at six and then they would tell me what they wanted done and I’d try to get an advance from them.
Then I’d give my landlady a few bucks and tell her that an armored car bringing me the million dollars had gotten lost in a cactus fog near Phoenix, Arizona, but she shouldn’t worry because the fog was guaranteed to lift any day now and then the money would be on its way.
If she asked me what a cactus fog was, I’d tell her it was the worst kind of fog because it had sharp spines on it. It made moving around in it a very dangerous proposition. It was best to stay where you were at and just wait until it went away.
The million dollars is waiting for the fog to pass.
My Girlfriend
It was a fast hike down to the Hall of Justice. I’d gotten used to walking in San Francisco and could move around at a good clip.
I started 1941 off with a car and now a year later, here I was totally relying on my feet. Life has its ups and downs. The only place my life could go now was up. The only thing lower than me was a dead man.
It was a cold windy day in San Francisco but I enjoyed the walk down Nob Hill to the Hall of Justice.
I started to think about Babylon as I neared Chinatown but was able to change the marquee in my mind just in time. I saw some Chinese kids playing in the street. I tried to figure out what kind of game they were playing. By concentrating on the kids, I was able to avoid Babylon rolling toward me like a freight train.
Whenever I was trying to get something done and Babylon started coming upon me I’d try to focus on anything that could keep it away. It was always very hard because I really like to dream of Babylon and I have a beautiful girlfriend there. This is a hard thing to admit but I like her better than real girls. I’ve always wanted to meet a girl that interested me as much as my friend in Babylon.
I don’t know.
Maybe someday.
Maybe never.
Sergeant Rink
After the Chinese kids’ game I thought about my detective friend to keep Babylon away. He was a sergeant and his name was Rink. He was a very tough cop. I think he held the world’s record for being tough. He had perfected a slap across the face that left an exact hand print on it like a temporary brand. That slap was just a friendly greeting from Sergeant Rink compared to how things got later on if you weren’t very, very cooperative.
I met Rink when we were both trying out for the force back in ’36. I wanted to be a cop. We were very good friends back then. We might be on the force together right now, partners solving murders, if only I had managed to pass the final examination. My score was close, though. I was just five points away from being a cop.
Dreaming of Babylon got the best of me. I would have been a good cop, too. If only I had been able to stop dreaming of Babylon. Babylon has been such a delight to me and at the same time such a curse.
I didn’t answer the last twenty questions of the test. That’s why I failed. I just sat there dreaming of Babylon while everybody else answered the questions and became policemen.
The Hall of Justice
I never really cared about the way the Hall of Justice looks. It’s a huge, tomb-like gloomy-looking building and inside it always smells like rotten marble.
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s just me.
Probably.
One interesting thing, though, is: I’ve been in the Hall of Justice a couple of hundred times at least and I never think about Babylon when I’m there, so it does serve some purpose for me.
I took the elevator up to the fourth floor and found my detective friend sitting at his desk in the homicide department. My friend resembles exactly what he is: a very tough cop who’s interested in solving murder cases. The only thing he likes better than a nice juicy homicide is a sirloin steak smothered with onions. He was in his early thirties and built like a Dodge pickup.
The first thing I noticed was his shoulder holster with a nice-looking ·38 police special resting comfortably in it. I was particularly attracted to the bullets in the gun. I would have liked all six of them but settled for three.
Sergeant Rink was very carefully examining a letter opener.
He looked up.
“A sight for sore eyes,” he said.
“What do you need a letter opener for?” I said, slipping into the genre. “You know that reading isn’t one of your gifts.”
“Still selling dirty pictures?” he said, smiling. “Tijuana valentines? The ones for dog lovers?”
“No,” I said. “Too many cops kept asking for samples. They cleaned me out.”
The private detective business was very slow one time when the Worlds Fair was going on over at Treasure Island in ’40, so I supplemented my income by selling a few “art” photographs to the tourists.
Sergeant Rink always liked to kid me about them.
I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I haven’t been proud of, but the worst thing I ever did was getting as poor as I was now.
“This is a murder weapon,” Rink said, dropping the letter opener on his desk. “It was found in a prostitute’s back early this morning. No clues. Only her body in a doorway and this.”
“The murderer was confused,” I said. “Somebody should have taken them to a stationery store and pointed out the difference between an envelope and a whore.”
“Oh, boy,” Rink said, shaking his head.
He picked up the letter opener again.
He turned it very slowly over in his hand. Watching him play with a murder weapon wasn’t getting me any closer to some bullets for my gun.
“What do you want?” he said, staring at the letter opener, not bothering to look up at me. “You know the last time I loaned you a buck I said that was it, so what do you want? What can I do for you except give you directions to the Golden Gate Bridge and a few basics on how to jump? When are you going to give up this silly notion of you being a private detective and get a paying job and out of my hair? There’s a war going on. They need everybody. There must be something you can do.”
“I need your help,” I said.
“Ah, shit,” he said, finally looking up. He put the letter opener down and reached into his pocket and took out a handful of change. He very carefully selected two quarters, two dimes and a nickel. He put them down on the desk and then pushed them toward me.
“That’s it,” he said. “Last year you were worth five bucks, then you dropped to one. Now you’re a seventy-five-center. Get a job. For Christ’s sake. There must be something you can do. I know one thing for sure: detective work isn’t it. Not many people want to hire a detective who’s only wearing one sock. You could probably count them on your hand.”
I was hoping that Rink wouldn’t notice that, but of course he had. I was thinking about Babylon in the morning when I got dressed and didn’t notice that I was only wearing one sock until I walked into the Hall of Justice.
I was going to tell Rink that I didn’t need the seventy-five cents, which of course I did, but what I really wanted was some bullets for my gun.
I tried to size up the situation.
I had limited options.
I could take the seventy-five cents and be ahead of the game or I could say: No, I don’t want the money. What I want is some bullets