The Secret Squad (Illustrated)

by David Goodis

  He stood up again. He moved very slowly across the room and stood near the big bronze Buddha. He looked at the Buddha, took a very deep breath, put a troubled frown on his face, then faked an impulsive move toward the front door. All the while he hadn’t looked at her, and he wasn’t looking at her now as he put his hand on the doorknob. He was thinking in that instant, it’s like in Italy, we had a C.O. who took some awful chances.

  He turned the doorknob, and heard her saying, “Where are you going?”

  Standing there at the door with his back to her, “Just getting out, that’s all. I gotta get outta here.”

  “But why? What’s wrong?”

  “Damned if I know,” he muttered. He let go of the doorknob. Then with another synthetic deep breath, expelling it with a hiss through his teeth, “—just can’t take this.”

  And again his hand was on the doorknob, and he was opening the door. She said, “Wait, don’t leave.” He hesitated a moment, then opened the door and heard her saying, “No, don’t.”

  He stepped back, slowly closed the door. You think she’s buying this? he asked himself.

  “Come here,” she said.

  “What for?” He spoke wearily. “What’s the percentage?”

  “If you mean what I think you mean—”

  “Look, it’s no use.”

  “Please,” she said. “Tell me.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Can’t you see what’s going on?” For a long while she sat still studying him. He put a blaze into his eyes and shot it at her. Without sound he said to her, this hurts. I’m really hurting. In deep.

  She got up from the sofa. Moving toward him, as though drifting toward him, she looked him up and down. Then as she came close she murmured, “Tell me. Why can’t you tell me?”

  He pushed her away, letting her feel the trembling in his hands as they gripped her shoulders. He tightened the grip, made a hissing sound, then let go of her shoulders and muttered, “I’m trying to control it. Can’t let it get started.”

  “Why not?” and she leaned toward him, but he pulled back and said, “No, don’t. For Christ’s sake, don’t.”

  “But why not?”

  “We let it get started, we’re in for grief.”

  “But if we—”

  “Look, let’s forget it,” he cut in. “We need each other like gasoline needs a lit match.”

  He was facing the bronze bulk of the Buddha. The statue’s slit eyes seemed to say, what I observe these days is considerable scheming and bluffing.

  Believe it, Mac. Corey winked at the Buddha.

  She came close behind him. She didn’t touch him. In his brain he heard her telling herself that this one would be easy. He winked again at the Buddha.

  Then he felt her hand on his side, just under his ribs. Her hand moved across and down, going toward his belt line.

  “Don’t do that,” he pleaded in a hoarse whisper, but made no move to get away from her fingers sliding under his shirt. Her hand kept going down and he grimaced slightly and the grimace wasn’t faked. What’s happening here? he asked himself.

  His head was spinning as the answer hit him. You ain’t pretending now, he told himself through the giddy feeling that was almost like floating. She’s actually got you.

  She took her hand away. Upstairs a door had been opened and Grogan’s voice barked very loudly, “—don’t tell me about prune juice. I don’t like prune juice. I ain’t gonna drink no prune juice. Now leave me alone and beat it!”

  Footsteps moved across the second floor hallway going toward the stairway. Then the high colonic crew was coming downstairs and they saw Lita seated on the sofa with a picture magazine in her lap, Corey in the ebony armchair scrutinizing a thumbnail.

  Corey glanced up, wanting to see what a high colonic crew looked like. The two nurses were scrawny, unhappy-looking. One of them appeared to have been weeping. The high colonic expert was a short pudgy middle-aged man with a gray-yellow complexion that indicated some internal trouble. He carried a large calfskin satchel. With the back of his hand he wiped perspiration from his forehead. He said to Lita, “A difficult patient, Mrs. Grogan. Very difficult indeed.”

  “And he insulted me,” the nurse with the wet red-rimmed eyes added. “He called me an imbecile.”

  “I told you to beat it,” said Grogan, rapidly coming down the steps. The nurses and the high colonic expert headed for the front door. They managed to make a dignified exit, but it was hurried. Grogan looked at Corey. “How long you been here?”

  Corey shrugged. “Not very long.”

  Lita put the picture magazine aside. She got up from the sofa and moved toward Grogan. “How did it go?”

  “It was hell,” Grogan muttered. “They damn near busted me open. They really had me scared, the way they were getting their signals mixed. D’ja hear all that racket up there? You shoulda seen them. Like the Three Stooges.”

  “You look weak,” Lita said. “Washed out.”

  “I’m washed out, all right,” Grogan said. “They call it irrigation, it’s more like a flash flood.” He turned to Corey. “What they do is, they take this hose and ram it—”

  “Please,” Lita interrupted. “Not the details.”

  Grogan glanced at his wristwatch. “Think I’ll go out for a while.”

  “Why don’t you get some rest? That’s what you need. You should get in bed and rest.”

  “I’m not tired,” Grogan said. “I could use a half-hour on the river.”

  “Rowing? You’re in no condition to go rowing. After what you’ve just been through—”

  “Look. I’m going rowing,” Grogan said with quiet finality. He moved toward the vestibule, looked back, and beckoned to Corey.

  Corey got up from the armchair and started to follow Grogan, who was already out of the house. As Corey neared the front door, Lita came close beside him and he felt her hand sliding down across his ribs, going down further and still further. Then she had him there. She held him.

  He didn’t look at her. But somehow he could see the green of her eyes. It was inside him, a green flame. It lanced through his thinking. It was her green web; he was in it.

  “No,” he hissed. “Damn it, no.” He pushed her away and moved quickly out of the house. Going down the front steps he stumbled and almost fell. He felt dizzy and it seemed everything was that green color.

  You jerk, he said to himself. He scowled at the mirror inside himself. The scowl was set hard for a moment, showing his gritting teeth. Then his face relaxed as he came up beside Grogan, who was walking across the street toward a parked car.

  Chapter 7

  It was a six-passenger custom-made sedan, dark green, conservative in styling, with very little chrome. It was imported from Spain and the original purchaser was a member of the boating club to which Grogan belonged. The original purchaser was fickle with cars and had paid seventeen thousand for this one. The first time it needed minor repair he sold it to Grogan for nine thousand. Grogan was very proud of the car and had a habit of caressing its fenders, its hood, as though the car was alive.

  Grogan stood beside the car and patted the front fender, murmuring aloud to the car, “You doll you.” He spotted a slight blemish on the gleaming waxed fender, took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the surface. He stepped back, inspected his work and said to the car, “You doll. You sweetheart.”

  Corey coughed lightly, just to let Grogan know he was there. Grogan didn’t look at him, but said to the car, “You know the way it is, don’t you? I don’t hafta explain it to you. All I gotta do is look at you and I know you’ll never let me down.”

  A dirty-faced boy, about ten, came up to Grogan and said, “I’ll put a rag on her. Wipe her down real good. Cost you fifty cents.”

  “I’ll pay you a dollar,” Grogan said, not looking at the boy.

  “A whole dollar?”

  Grogan took a roll from his pocket and peeled off a bill. As he handed it to the boy, he said loudly and fervently, “I’m
paying you this dollar to stay the hell away from her.”

  “Right,” the boy said, pocketed the dollar and scurried off. Grogan took out the handkerchief again and applied it to some dust on the hood. While doing so, he said to Corey, “You see the front page today?”

  Corey didn’t answer.

  Grogan continued to rub at the dust marks on the hood of the car. Corey looked to one side, his eyes narrow and precisely aimed, as though he was studying the tiny numbers on a slide rule.

  “I asked you something,” Grogan said quietly, still rubbing the handkerchief on the hood. Corey remained silent. Grogan whirled around and stared at him and shouted, “You gonna tell me or ain’t you gonna tell me?”

  Corey stood relaxed, his expression placid. He said softly, “What’s all the commotion?”

  Grogan opened his mouth to shout again. He checked it, then let out a grunt and gritted his teeth. He lifted his hand to his head, smoothing the silver hair. “It’s Macy and Lattimore. It says in the paper they bumped each other. Happened on a vacant lot alongside the river.”

  “Is that how you got it? You read it in the paper?”

  “Christ no,” Grogan said. “I get a call from the precinct station, from the captain. That’s early this morning, a little after five. So then I’m in the station house and from there we go to the morgue. After that it’s the Hall and they’re making a ballistics check. And sure enough—say whatcha lookin’ at me like that for?”

  “I’m just listening,” Corey said mildly. “Go on.”

  Grogan took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he said aloud to himself. “I just don’t know.” He looked at Corey. “I mean, I just can’t buy it.”

  “Did Homicide buy it?”

  Grogan nodded. “They wrapped it up and filed it away. A double shooting, period. But goddamit, I just can’t see it that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “It just don’t add,” Grogan said worriedly. “Macy and Lattimore, they always got along. They weren’t buddies exactly; and maybe now and then they’d have words. But never anything serious. So why the hell would they shoot each other?”

  “They didn’t,” Corey said.

  Grogan was quiet for some moments. And then, “What was that you said?”

  “They didn’t shoot each other.”

  There was a long silence. Grogan turned away, took a few steps, came back and said, “If you know something, why do you hide it from me?”

  “I’m not hiding anything,” Corey said. “It’s just that you weren’t ready to hear it.”

  Grogan’s eyes were high-powered lenses. “Whaddya mean— ready?”

  “To handle it. Be braced for it. This ain’t no ordinary development. This is something that when you hear it, you gotta have a good tight hold on yourself.”

  Grogan smoothed his hair again. He took a slow and deep breath. “All right, let’s have it.”

  Corey spoke matter-of-factly, “It was me who drilled them. Then I set it up so it’d look like they drilled each other.”

  Grogan took several backward steps. He looked up at the sky. Then he looked down at the cobblestones. “One of these days I’m gonna have a stroke.”

  “I hadda drill them,” Corey went on with it. “It was them or me. They had me slated for the river. They’d tailed me from the Hall.”

  “The Hall?” Grogan started to walk backward again, then came close to Corey. Grogan was pale as he said, “What the hell were you doing at the Hall?”

  “They had me there for questioning.”

  “About what?”

  “The party last night. At the Hangout, in the back room. And them two hoods—”

  “But that’s a closed case,” Grogan muttered. He turned his head a little giving Corey a side glance. “How come they opened it up again?”

  Corey shrugged. “They musta figured I’d have something more to tell them.”

  Grogan kept looking at him sideways. “So?”

  “So they sat me down and asked how it happened and I told them. Said it just like you said it. And that’s all.”

  “You sure that’s all?”

  Corey nodded slowly, wearily. And then, “It goes like this—I come outta City Hall and get in a taxi. We’re coming toward the bridge and there’s a car in back. I see it’s a tail and I wanna know what’s happening; so I’m outta the taxi on Marion Street. Then this car cruises in, and they get out, and it’s Macy and Lattimore. They wanna know what I was doing at the Hall. So right away I figured you musta told them to check all my moves.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” Grogan said. His voice was mechanical, his eyes lenses. The lenses were aimed past Corey.

  He’s adding it up already, Corey thought, then went on, “They ask what I was doing at the Hall. I tell them, and they look at each other like it ain’t good enough. Next thing I know they have me in the car. Not that I was worried. Not right then, anyway.” He shrugged. “I thought they were doing what you wanted them to do—just driving me over to your house.”

  “And instead?”

  “It’s that vacant lot along the riverfront. Lattimore has a gun on me and tells me to get outta the car. So then I know they ain’t workin’ for you no more. It hits me they’re signed in with the other outfit.”

  Grogan showed no emotion, no reaction at all.

  “You expected that?” Corey asked.

  “No,” Grogan muttered. “But then, in this game, you never know what to expect.” He opened the car door and got in behind the wheel. Corey turned away, heard the powerful hand-tooled Spanish engine catching spark and make the noise of a hundred kettle drums going full blast. Then as the noise decreased to a silk-smooth idling purr, Corey walked away from the car, saying to himself, you’ll take three or four more steps and then he’ll call you back, you’ll see.

  He took three more steps away from the car and heard Grogan calling to him.

  Facing about, he walked back to the car. For a moment Grogan merely gazed at him. Then he asked, “Wanna come along? Just for the ride?”

  “I don’t mind,” Corey shrugged. He walked around to the other side of the car and climbed in beside Grogan.

  The custom-built Spanish automobile made a U-turn and went south to Addison gliding along while various Swamp citizens yelled hello to Grogan. Through the open car window, he waved back. Then the car headed away from the Swamp, climbing along the arc of the bridge, high above the river. Grogan turned on the radio and got a ball game. The car came off the bridge and joined the slow-moving Saturday afternoon traffic on the six-lane highway that bordered the river. They were moving past factories and coal yards and freight yards. In this area the river was scummy. There was a half-sunken barge near the riverbank and some boys in swim trunks were using it for a diving board. The traffic heading north gradually thinned out. It was a residential section the Street lined with expensive apartment houses. Then it was just the green of the municipal park and some statues of Revolutionary War generals, a few of the generals saluting, one of them brandishing a sword. At the base of that statue, under the shadow of the sword, an old colored man was sleeping peacefully on the grass. Heading further north along the highway, going through the park at the side of the river, the aquarium came into view; then the immense art museum designed like the Parthenon. It had cost the city some thirty million dollars and it was used mostly as a nesting place for pigeons and flocks of nine-year-old boys who came at night to play hide-and-seek in the labyrinth of marble columns. Past the art museum there was a traffic circle, then the highway curved in very close to the river. There were some people on the banks angling for catfish and carp, some park guards on horseback and a few men wearing sweat suits practicing for walking races. Further ahead some very old but solidly constructed and well-kept houses appeared and pennants were flying above their roofs. These were the boat clubs, the members all rowers or former rowers and the boats were racing shells. In this area, the river water was clean and there were fences preventing fishermen and s
wimmers and any trespassers. The city was very proud of the boat clubs, some of which boasted rowers who’d made the Olympics. Also, many of the members were from families whose names were a tradition in the city, the lineage going back to the Seventeenth Century. The fences made certain that only the properly qualified got in. A blueblood could get in. A ditch digger could get in provided he was a first rate rower, capable of winning silver cups. There was no way for a man to buy his way in. In the city there were multi-millionaires who’d been trying for years to get in and never would. On very rare occasions a man got in because he had something on one of the bluebloods. Like a photograph showing the blueblood in an off-beat situation. That was how Grogan got in, some twelve years back. The photo had been taken at night in the zoo, and it showed the blueblood involved with a full-grown zebra.

  Grogan’s car came to a stop in the parking area adjacent to a large four-storied, colonial-style structure, its orange-and-white pennant reading Southeast Boat Club.

  “Wait here,” Grogan said, the first words he’d uttered since they started the ride.

  Grogan got out of the car. “How long you gonna be?” Corey asked.

  “Thirty-forty minutes,” Grogan said. “You mind waiting?”

  Corey shrugged. “I’ll listen to the ball game.”

  Grogan walked across the parking area and entered the clubhouse. For a few minutes Corey listened to the radio. Cincinnati and Philadelphia were tied three-three in the fifth. Robin Roberts was pitching for Philadelphia and he gave up a single. Then an infield error sent the man to third. The next man walked. The announcer said, “Now Robin’s in a lotta trouble--”

  Got my own trouble, Corey told the radio. He wondered why Grogan had brought him here. He switched off the radio and tried to think in analytical terms. It was no use. He was thinking in terms of the platinum-blonde hair and the dark green eyes.

  On the river a four-oared shell was coming toward the dock of the Southeast Boat Club. A single sculler was heading out. On the dock eight men in their late twenties and early thirties were hoisting a gleaming mahogany racing shell high above their heads. The tiny coxswain yapped instructions. They carried the shell across the planks and down the ramp to the water. Now some older members of the boat club came out the side door, walked across the parking area and along a gravel path leading to the dock. They were in their fifties and sixties, and one of them, Corey judged, was over seventy. Some wore orange jerseys and orange-striped white shorts. Others were stripped to the waist. Arriving on the dock, they moved briskly, diligently, readying their racing shells for the water. Corey shrugged and thought, some people never give up. I guess you gotta hand it to them. It’s like watching Archie Moore climbing into the ring. Archie would enjoy this demonstration. He’d understand it. Be damned if I can understand it. Well, that’s how it goes. Every cat to his own alley.