least I got a look at the club.”
She hesitated for some additional inspection. I am conspicuously large, and I have a permanent deep-water tan, and I would not look out of place on a construction crew. But the slacks and shirt and jacket were top grade and she knew it. And I smiled at her like Stoney Burke admiring a speckled calf.
“Well, I think we can do better than that for any friend of the Hopsons,” she said, making her decision. “How long will you be in town?”
“Maybe a week. On business.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Hopson would certainly want you to use the Club.” She winked. “In fact, I
distinctly
remember Mr. Hopson saying that you should have a guest card if you ever appearedwhile they were gone.” She pulled the sheets out of her typewriter, ran a card in and filled it out. I gave her the Bahia Mar box number. She signed the club manager’s name, put her initials under it, and handed it to me with a little flourish. “These are good for two weeks, Mr. McGee. You can sign and be billed directly. The only restriction is that you can’t bring guests here. Except your wife, of course.”
“Unmarried. How about just one lady? One at a time.”
“No one could object to that. Please don’t be shy about mingling and introducing yourself. You’ll find all the members very friendly, particularly toward any friend of Mr. Hopson. And please put the card number on the chits you sign. Tonight we’re having an outdoor steak roast, buffet style. If you want to stay for it—it’s really very good—I can take your reservation.”
“Might as well. Thanks. You’ve been very kind, Miss …”
“Benedict. Francie Benedict.” The smile opened her up back to the wisdom teeth. “I do wish I could show you where everything is, but I do have to finish this.”
“I’ll just wander around.”
“You can rent swim trunks from Albie in the men’s locker room.”
She was typing again as I pulled the office door shut. I found a dark, cool, quiet bar in the Moorish part. The sedentary types were there and in the adjoining card room, several grim tables of male bridge. I stood at an empty expanse of mahogany bar. The bartender approached with one eyebrow shoved up in cautious, supercilious interrogation. I whipped out my card, and his smile of acceptance would have looked more plausible if he’d been outfitted with those stainless steel teeththe Russians have developed. After he served my Plymouth gin on ice, the clot of members down the bar motioned to him. He leaned across the bar. There was a whispered question and answer; they looked me over and got back into their argument.
A pudgy chap with a statesman’s face and careful coiffure of white locks said in liquor-slurred tones, “But you got to face facts, Roy. The fact remains, we got the evidence right in front of us, the decay of the nashal moral fiber, mob rule in the streets, violence, punks killing decen’ people. Am I right or am I right?”
I could imagine the same tired concept being stated in a thousand private clubs across the country on this May afternoon. They see the result, but they are blind to the cause of it. Forty million more Americans than we had in 1950. If one person in fifty has a tendency toward murderous violence, then we’ve got eight hundred thousand more of them now. And density alone affects the frequency with which mobs form. The intelligence of a mob can be determined by dividing the lowest IQ present by the number of people in the mob. Life gets cheaper. Cops, on a per capita basis, get fewer. And the imponderables of the bomb, of automation, of accelerating social change create a kind of urban despair that wants to break loose and crack heads. All the barroom sociologists were orating about national fiber while, every minute and every hour, the most incredible population explosion in history was rendering their views, their judgments, even their very lives more obsolete.
They should hark to the locust. When there is
She hesitated for some additional inspection. I am conspicuously large, and I have a permanent deep-water tan, and I would not look out of place on a construction crew. But the slacks and shirt and jacket were top grade and she knew it. And I smiled at her like Stoney Burke admiring a speckled calf.
“Well, I think we can do better than that for any friend of the Hopsons,” she said, making her decision. “How long will you be in town?”
“Maybe a week. On business.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Hopson would certainly want you to use the Club.” She winked. “In fact, I
distinctly
remember Mr. Hopson saying that you should have a guest card if you ever appearedwhile they were gone.” She pulled the sheets out of her typewriter, ran a card in and filled it out. I gave her the Bahia Mar box number. She signed the club manager’s name, put her initials under it, and handed it to me with a little flourish. “These are good for two weeks, Mr. McGee. You can sign and be billed directly. The only restriction is that you can’t bring guests here. Except your wife, of course.”
“Unmarried. How about just one lady? One at a time.”
“No one could object to that. Please don’t be shy about mingling and introducing yourself. You’ll find all the members very friendly, particularly toward any friend of Mr. Hopson. And please put the card number on the chits you sign. Tonight we’re having an outdoor steak roast, buffet style. If you want to stay for it—it’s really very good—I can take your reservation.”
“Might as well. Thanks. You’ve been very kind, Miss …”
“Benedict. Francie Benedict.” The smile opened her up back to the wisdom teeth. “I do wish I could show you where everything is, but I do have to finish this.”
“I’ll just wander around.”
“You can rent swim trunks from Albie in the men’s locker room.”
She was typing again as I pulled the office door shut. I found a dark, cool, quiet bar in the Moorish part. The sedentary types were there and in the adjoining card room, several grim tables of male bridge. I stood at an empty expanse of mahogany bar. The bartender approached with one eyebrow shoved up in cautious, supercilious interrogation. I whipped out my card, and his smile of acceptance would have looked more plausible if he’d been outfitted with those stainless steel teeththe Russians have developed. After he served my Plymouth gin on ice, the clot of members down the bar motioned to him. He leaned across the bar. There was a whispered question and answer; they looked me over and got back into their argument.
A pudgy chap with a statesman’s face and careful coiffure of white locks said in liquor-slurred tones, “But you got to face facts, Roy. The fact remains, we got the evidence right in front of us, the decay of the nashal moral fiber, mob rule in the streets, violence, punks killing decen’ people. Am I right or am I right?”
I could imagine the same tired concept being stated in a thousand private clubs across the country on this May afternoon. They see the result, but they are blind to the cause of it. Forty million more Americans than we had in 1950. If one person in fifty has a tendency toward murderous violence, then we’ve got eight hundred thousand more of them now. And density alone affects the frequency with which mobs form. The intelligence of a mob can be determined by dividing the lowest IQ present by the number of people in the mob. Life gets cheaper. Cops, on a per capita basis, get fewer. And the imponderables of the bomb, of automation, of accelerating social change create a kind of urban despair that wants to break loose and crack heads. All the barroom sociologists were orating about national fiber while, every minute and every hour, the most incredible population explosion in history was rendering their views, their judgments, even their very lives more obsolete.
They should hark to the locust. When there is
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