Blue City by Ross MacDonald

chattered. “He’s J.D. Weather’s son. He came to my flat tonight and made trouble.”
    I sat up again and looked up into Kerch’s bovine face. In spite of his huge head and torso his legs were veryshort and his feet were tiny. “I’m not surprised you were unwilling to give me your name,” he said. His feet moved in an awkward little dancing step and the pointed toe of one caught me under the chin. “I don’t like wretched little liars who come to me and try to take advantage of my openmindedness, worming their way into my good graces.”
    I tried to speak, but all my throat would produce was a cawing retch. Kerch leaned over me and slapped me twice, with the front and the back of his hand. It didn’t hurt me, but it was like being slapped by a dead fish.
    “Let me handle him, Mr. Kerch,” Rusty said with boyish eagerness.
    “Wait a minute. You said he made trouble, Garland?”
    “He slugged Joey Sault and tried to make him talk about what happened to his old man. I scared him off.”
    “Of course Sault didn’t talk?”
    “He just said that we’d better tell you about it—”
    “Now that was unwise, don’t you think? Garland, I’d like you to go and get Sault and bring him here.”
    “He isn’t at my flat any more—”
    “Go and find him. Rusty, bring this wretched creature into the office.” He turned and walked down the hall, wide and foreshortened like a man seen from below.
    “Get up, punk,” Rusty said, and yanked me by the collar. I got as far as my knees and he cuffed me on the back of the neck. “When I say get up, I mean in a hurry.”
    I was on my hands and knees in front of him. He raised one foot to step on my fingers. I came up fast underneath him with my head in his crotch, and kept coming up,carrying him off the floor. He let out a yelp of pain and surprise, but swung his legs together, trying to lock a scissors on my neck. I took his ankles, one in each hand, and jerked them apart. Now he was straddling my shoulders, with his body hanging head downwards on my back. I threw myself backwards onto the floor with him under me.
    Kerch was watching us around the corner of his door. He made no move to join in the fight. Instead, he took a police whistle out of his pocket and blew once.
    Rusty was still under me but his arms were around my waist. Before I could break his hold, a heavy man with curly, black hair came through the door at the end of the hall, moving at a run.
    Kerch said: “Arrest this fellow, Moffatt. He came here to try to rob my office.”
    I had enough voice to croak: “He’s a goddamn liar.”
    “Do your duty, Moffatt,” Kerch said. “Surely the two of you can handle him.”
    Rusty had twisted under me and had my throat in the crook of his elbow. I reached for his wrist with both hands to bend his arm away. Moffatt sat down on my chest and put handcuffs on me.
    “Get the hell off,” Rusty said in a muffled voice. “I’m under here.”
    Moffatt stood up and yanked me to my feet. “Do I take him down and book him, Mr. Kerch?”
    “Bring him into the office.”
    We all went into the office. Kerch hid his short legs under the desk. I stood in front of him like a prisoner at the bar, Moffatt and Rusty on either side of me.
    “What charges you want to make, Mr. Kerch?” Moffatt said.
    “I’ve been thinking about that. He’d be good for attempted robbery and aggravated assault.”
    “Resisting an officer in the performance of his duty? Assault with a deadly weapon while attempting to commit a robbery?”
    “On the other hand, I wouldn’t wish to be too hard on him, Moffatt. He’s young. He may have a future, though God knows that’s doubtful. And after all, he didn’t get away with anything, thanks to you.”
    “I was holding him, Mr. Kerch,” Rusty said anxiously. “He couldn’t get away from me.”
    “I’ll talk to you later, Rusty.”
    “What do I do with him, Mr. Kerch?” Moffatt said.
    “Take him down the highway, about three miles, I