Blue City

Blue City

He was a son who hadn’t known his father very well.  It was a town shaken by a grisly murder—his father’s murder.  Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering.  When he found out that his father had been assassinated on a street corner and that his father’s seductive young wife had inherited a fortune, he started knocking on doors.  The doors came open, and Johnny stepped into a world of gamblers, whores, drug-dealers, and blackmailers, a place in which his father had once moved freely.  Now Johnny Weatherly was going to solve this murder—by pitting his rage, his courage, and his lost illusions against the brutal underworld that has overtaken his hometown. “[The] American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald.” — New York Times Book Review   “Macdonald should not be limited in audience to connoisseurs of mystery fiction.  He is one of a handful of writers in the genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form.” — Los Angeles Times   “Most mystery writers merely write about crime.  Ross Macdonald writes about sin.” — The Atlantic   “Without in the least abating my admiration for Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, I should like to venture the heretical suggestion that Ross Macdonald is a better novelist than either of them.” —Anthony Boucher   “[Macdonald] carried form and style about as far as they would go, writing classic family tragedies in the guise of private detective mysteries.” — The Guardian (London)   “[Ross Macdonald] gives to the detective story that accent of class that the late Raymond Chandler did.” — Chicago Tribune Ross Macdonald’s real name was Kenneth Millar.  Born near San Francisco in 1915 and raised in Ontario, Millar returned to the U.S. as a young man and published his first novel in 1944. He served as the president of the Mystery Writers of America and was awarded their Grand Master Award as well as the Mystery Writers of Great Britain's Gold Dagger Award.  He died in 1983. Chapter 1 All the time you’ve been away from a town where you lived when you were a kid, you think about it and talk about it as if the air there were sweeter in the nostrils than other air. When you meet a man from that town you feel a kind of brotherhood with him, till the talk runs down and you can’t remember any more names. The city started sooner than I expected it to. In ten years it had crawled out along the highway, covering new farms with the concrete squares of suburban developments. On both sides of the highway I could see the rows of little frame houses, all alike, as if there were only one architect in the city and he had a magnificent obsession. “It won’t be long now,” the transport driver said. He yawned over the wheel, keeping his eyes on the road. “I don’t need any dago red to put me to sleep tonight.” “You live here?” “I got a room in a boardinghouse at this end. You could call it living, I guess.” “Don’t you like the town?” “It’s all right if you don’t know any better places.” He spat through his open window into the current of air that the truck’s movement made, and a fine spray blew across the back of my neck. “I call Chicago home. That’s where my wife is.” “That makes the difference.” “You married?” “No,” I said. “I’m traveling on my own.” “Looking for a job, eh?” “That’s right.” “You shouldn’t have any trouble here. Matter of fact, we need helpers down at the depot right now. Half the time I have to load my own truck. You strong enough?” “Yeah, I’m strong enough. But that’s not the kind of a job I was thinking about.” “Pretty good pay. Seventy cents an hour. You can’t do better than that around here.” “Maybe I can. I’ve got connections.” “You have?” He gave me a quick look. I wasn’t looking so good. I hadn’t shaved or washed that day, and my clothes had been slept in. He must have decided I was lying. He said with broad irony: “Oh well, in that case,” and stopped talking to me. The highway had changed into the east end of the main street, half residential and half business. Neighborhood grocery stores, coal yards, gas stations, cheap taverns, big old rundown houses, a few churches with blank embarrassed faces. I couldn’t remember the buildings ahead of time, but nearly everything was familiar once I saw it. I caught a whiff of the rubber factories on the south side, corrupting the spring night like an armpit odor. I watched the suppertime crowds on the street, looking for someone I might remember. The driver applied the brakes, and the truck came to a stop at the curb. “I’ll let you out here, bud. I can’t take you down to the depot.” He nodded toward the “No Riders” sticker on the windshield. “But in case your connections don’t pan out, you want to come down there. It’s on Masters Street.” “Thanks. And thanks for the ride.” I hoisted my canvas suitcase from under my feet and climbed down out of the cabin. The big truck moved away and left me standing on the