“I get discouraged sometimes, Mr. Harmas,” he said, shaking his
head. “That girl of mine has a split mind. One part of it says yes, the
other no. As they both operate at once, I’m kept on my toes
wondering whether to retreat or advance. It’s getting bad for my
nerves. What will you drink, sir?”
“Oh, a Scotch,” I said, glanced around the room.
I could see the crowd wasn’t the kind that’d interest me. The girls
were tough, showily dressed and on the make. The men were smooth,
looked as if they’d escaped military service, and had too much
doubtfully earned money to spend.
“Things have changed a lot, haven’t they, Sam?” I said, as I paid
twice as much for my drink as I pay elsewhere.
“They have, sir,” he agreed, “and a great pity, too. I miss the old
crowd. This bunch’s just trash. They give me a pain to waste liquor on
them.”
“Yeah,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I miss the old faces, too.”
We chatted for a few minutes about the past, and I told him what
I was doing here, then I said, “Sad about Netta. You read about it, I
guess?”
Sam’s face clouded. “I read about it. It beats me why she did it.
She seemed happy enough, and she was doing fine here. She had
Bradley eating out of her hand. Any idea why she did it?”
I shook my head. “I’ve only just arrived, Sam, I reminded him. “I
saw the thing in the newspapers, but I was hoping you could tell me
what was behind it. Poor kid. I’ll miss her. What are the other bims
like here?”
Sam pulled a face. “They’ll take the hide off your back if they
thought they could make it into a pair of gloves,” he said gloomily.
“They have a one-track mind—if you can cal what they’ve got minds.
I’d lay off ‘em if I were you, except Crystal. You should meet Crystal.
She’s quite an experience. I’ll fix it if you’re looking for a little female
society.”
“She’s new here, isn’t she?” I asked, not recal ing the name. He
grinned. “New and fresh,” he said. “Came about a year ago. Can I fix
you another drink?”
“Go ahead,” I said, pushing my glass towards him, “and buy one
for yourself. She wasn’t a friend of Netta’s, was she?”
“Well, I don’t know about being friends, but they sort of got on
together. The other dames didn’t appeal to Netta. She was always
fighting with them, but Crystal . . . well, I don’t think anyone would
fight with Crystal. She’s a real dizzy blonde.”
“She sounds what I’ve been looking for. Dizzy blondes are up my
alley. Is she a looker?”
Sam kissed his fingers, wagged his head. “She’s got a topography
like a scenic railway, and every time she comes into the bar the ice
cubes go on the boil.”
I laughed. “Well, if she’s free and would like a big guy with hair on
his chest for company, shoo her along.”
“She’ll like you,” Sam said. “She’s crazy about big muscular men;
she tells me her mother was frightened by a wrestler. I’ll get her.”
I had finished my drink by the time he returned. He nodded,
winked.
“Two minutes,” he said, began to mix a flock of martinis.
She arrived a good ten minutes later. I spotted her before she
spotted me. There was something about her that amused me. Maybe
it was her big cornflower blue eyes or her snub nose. I don’t know,
but you had only to take one look at her and you were pretty sure she
was the girl who originated the phrase “a dumb blonde.” She was all
Sam had said. Her figure made me blink: it made the male section in
the room blink too.
Sam waved, and she came over, looked at me, and her eyelids
fluttered.
“Oh!” she said. Then: “Oh, Boy!”
“Crystal, this is Mr. Steve Harmas,” Sam said, winking at me. “He
cuts the hairs on his chest with a lawn-mower.”
She put her hand into mine, squeezed it.
“There was a tea leaf in the bottom of my cup that looked just like
you,” she confided. “I knew I was going to have fun to-night.” She
looked anxiously at Sam. “Have any of the girls seen him yet?”
“You’re the first,” he returned, winking at me again.
“What a break!” she exclaimed, turning back to me. “I’ve been
dreaming about a man like you ever since I’ve had those kind of
dreams.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, kidding her. “Maybe I’d better have a
look at the other girls. I’m kind of selective.”
“You don’t have to look at them. They’re only called girls to
distinguish them from the male customers. They’ve been girls so long
they think a brassiere is a place to eat. Come on, let’s have fun.”
“What kind of fun can we have in this joint?” I asked. “It’s too
crowded for my kind of fun.”
Her blue eyes popped open. “Oh, I like lots of people. My father
says a girl can’t come to any harm so long as she stays with a crowd.”
“Your father’s crazy,” I said, grinning. “Suppose you fell in with a
crowd of sailors?”
She thought about this, frowning. “I don’t think my father knows
anything about sailors,” she said seriously. “He stuffs birds and
things.”
“You mean he’s a taxidermist?”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her blonde curls, “He can’t drive.”
“Let’s skip your father,” I said hurriedly. “Let’s talk about you.
How about a drink?”
“I could go for a large gin with a very little lime if the gin was large
enough,” she said, brightening. “Do you think I could have that?”
I nodded to Sam, pulled up a stool, patted it. “Park your weight,” I
said. “How do you like it here?”
She climbed up on the stool, sat down, rested her smal hands on
the bar. “I love it,” she told me. “It’s so sinful and nice. You’ve no idea
how dull it is at home. There’s only father and me and all the animals
that need stuffing. You’d be surprised at the animals people bring to
