“Nowadays things aren’t like that. San Francisco’s getting petty. You hear sirens screaming and police cars tearing through the streets. You tag along to see if it’s a riot, and find a bunch of cops are picking up a streetwalker for soliciting on the wrong side of the street.
“You go up to one of the big hotels, get in with the bunch that’s in the know, and find a poker game in one of the rooms. They aren’t playing for gold pieces the way they used to. They’re playing for chips, and after you’ve won all the chips, some piker pays off with an I.O.U. You go down to the waterfront, and the old spice, the old tang, the old romance are gone, and—”
I said, “Your glass is empty, Ranigan — here, waiter.”
The waiter filled up the glasses. Ranigan tasted it and said, “Nice stuff.”
“You used to run the old Mermaid’s Roost, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I sure did. Those were the days. What’d you say your name was?”
“Lam. Donald Lam.”
“Oh, yes. Well, I’ll tell you, Lam. If you want to give people the right kind of perspective, give ’em work and give ’em money. Then’s when they work hard and play hard. They try to make their money out of business instead of out of chiselling each other. In those days money was flowing in a steady stream. All a man had to do was to get himself a bucket, throw it in the stream, and drag out a bunch of cash. Nowadays there ain’t anything like that. Money ain’t circulating. You feel there ain’t over a thousand dollars in the whole damn city, and everyone is walking around in circles trying to find the fellow that has that thousand. As soon as they find out who it is, they jump on him and take it away from him. Now I remember back in the Mermaid’s Roost—”
“You have a real memory,” I said. “By the way, someone was telling me about a girl you had working for you who was lucky enough to inherit a million dollars.”
He straightened up with surprise. “A million dollars? Working for me?”