The Grifters

by Jim Thompson

  So now she knew; she must know. Her actions today proved that she did.

  The police had called her about him, yet she had not been concerned. She had known that he would be all right, that just as his front had held up for years, it would continue to hold up in this trouble whatever that trouble was. So, having found out all that she needed to, she had gone off to the races.

  The races…

  Abruptly, he sat up scowling, his mild annoyance with her turning to anger.

  She had stalled on coming to La Jolla. After being so anxious for the trip, she had unreasonably found reason to postpone it—until this week.

  Because this was the beginning of the Del Mar meet. And the tracks in the L.A. area were temporarily inactive.

  Or…maybe not. He couldn’t be absolutely sure that she was nosing into Lilly’s business as she had nosed into his. It might be that she was simply sore at him for leaving her alone so long, and that she had gone to the races as a way of expressing her displeasure.

  Moira returned to the hotel around four o’clock. Fretting humorously over the discomforts of her cab ride; pretending to pout at Roy for going off without her.

  “I just thought I’d teach you a lesson, you big stinker! You’re not mad, are you?”

  “I’m not sure. I understand that the police called you about me.”

  “Oh, that,” she shrugged. “What was the trouble, anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t have any idea?”

  “Well…” She began to draw in a little bit. Coming over to the bed, she sat down gingerly at his side. “Roy, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time. But before I could, I wanted to make sure that—”

  “Let it ride a little,” he said carelessly. “Did you see Lilly at the races?”

  “Lilly? Oh, you mean your mother. Isn’t she living in Los Angeles now?”

  Roy said that she was. “But the L.A. meets closed last week. So she’d be down here at Del Mar, wouldn’t she?”

  “How do I know? What are you getting at, anyway?”

  She started to get up. He held her, taking a grip on the front of her dress.

  “Now, I’ll ask you again. Did you see Lilly at the Del Mar track?”

  “No! How could I? I sat in the clubhouse!”

  Roy smiled thinly, pointing out her blunder. “And Lilly wouldn’t be in the clubhouse, hmm? Now how did you know that?”

  “Because I—I—” She colored guiltily. “All right, Roy, I saw her. I was snooping. But—it’s not like you think! I was just curious about her, wondering why she’d come to Los Angeles. And she was always so nasty to me! I knew she was knocking me to you every chance she got. So I just thought who is she to be so high and mighty, and I talked with a friend of mine in Baltimore and—and—”

  “I see. You must have some very knowledgeable friends.”

  “Roy,” she begged. “Don’t be angry with me. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her any more than I would you.”

  “You’d better never try,” he said. “Lilly travels in some very fast company.”

  “I know,” she nodded meekly. “I’m sorry, dear.”

  “Lilly didn’t see you today?”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t hang around, Roy. Honest.” She kissed him, smiling into his eyes. “Now, about us…”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “We may as well go back to Los Angeles, hadn’t we? You’ve found out what you wanted to know.”

  “Now, honey. Don’t take it like that. I think I must have known for a long time. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to talk to you.”

  “And just what do you know about me, anyway?”

  “I know you’re a short-con operator. A very good one, apparently.”

  “You talk the lingo. What’s your pitch?”

  “The long end. The big-con.”

  He nodded; waited. She snuggled close to him, pressing his hand against her breast. “We’d make a hell of a team, Roy. We think alike; we get along well together. Why, darling, we could work for two months out of the year and live high for the other ten! I—”

  “Wait,” he said, gently pushing her away. “This isn’t something to rush into, Moira. It’s going to take a lot of talking about.”

  “Well? So let’s talk.”

  “Not here. We didn’t come here on business. We don’t talk it here.”

  She searched his face, and her smile faded a little. “I see,” she said. “You think it might be hard to give me a turndown here. It would be easier on the home grounds.”

  “You’re smart,” he said. “Maybe you’re too smart, Moira. But I didn’t say I was turning it down.”

  “Well…” She shrugged and stood up. “If that’s the way you want it…”

  “That’s the way I want it,” he said.

  20

  They caught the six o’clock train back to Los Angeles. It was crowded, as the train coming down had been, but the composition of the crowd was different. These passengers were largely business people, men who had put in a long day in San Diego and were now returning to their Los Angeles homes, or those who lived in San Diego and were due in Los Angeles early in the morning. Then, there were those few who had overstayed their weekends, and faced reproaches—or worse—when they arrived in the California metropolis.

  The holiday spirit was definitely absent. A kind of moodiness pervaded the train, and some of it enveloped Moira and Roy.

  They had a drink in the half-empty lounge. Then, discovering that the train carried no diner, they remained in the car for the rest of their ride. Seated in the cozy closeness of a booth, her thigh pressed warmly against his, Moira looked out at the aching loneliness of the sea, the naked and hungering hills, the houses closed firmly to all but themselves. The idea that she had propounded to him, something that was merely desired, became a tigerish must—a thing that had to be. It was either that or nothing, and so it had to be that.

  She could not go on as she had the past few years, eking out her capital with her body, exchanging her body’s use for the sustenance it needed. There were not enough years left, and the body inevitably used more than it received. Always, as the years grew fewer, the more rapidly the flesh depleted itself. So, an end to things as they had been. An end to the race with self. The mind grew youthful with use, increasingly eager with the demands of its owner, anxious and able to provide for the body that gave it shelter, to imbue it with its own youth and vigor or a reasonable facsimile thereof. And thus the mind must be used from now on. The ever-lucrative schemes which the mind could concoct and put into practice. Her mind and Roy’s, the two working together as one, and the money which he could and must supply.

  Perhaps she had pushed her hand a little too hard; no man liked to be pushed. Perhaps her interest in Lilly Dillon had been a blunder; every man was sensitive about his mother. But no matter. What she suggested was right and reasonable. It would be good for both of them.

  It was what had to be. And damn him, he’d better—!

  He made some casual comment, nudging her for a response, and seething with her own thoughts she turned on him, her face aged with hatred. Startled, he drew back frowning.

  “Hey, now! What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking about something.” She smiled, dropping the mask so swiftly that he was not sure of what he had seen. “What was it you said?”

  He shook his head; he couldn’t remember what it was now. “But maybe I should know your name, lady. Your right one.”

  “How about Langley?”

  “Langley…” He puzzled over it for a moment. Then, “Langley! You mean, The Farmer? You teamed with Farmer Langley?”

  “That’s me, pal.”

  “Well, now…” He hesitated. “What happened to him, anyway? I heard a lot of stories, but—”

  “The same thing that happens to all of ’em, a lot of them I mean. He just blew up; booze, dope, the route.”

  “I see,” he said. “I see.”

  “Now, don’t you worry ab
out him.” She snuggled closer to him, misreading his attitude. “That’s all over and done with. There’s just us now, Moira Langtry and Roy Dillon.”

  “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  “Possibly. I really don’t know,” she said.

  And she might have said, And I don’t care. For the knowledge had come to her suddenly, though unsurprisingly, that she didn’t care, that she had never really cared about him. It was as though she had been hypnotized by him, overwhelmed by his personality as others had been; forced to go his way, to accept his as the right and only way. Yet always subconsciously resisting and resisting, slowly building up hatred for being forced into a life—and what kind of life was it, anyway, for an attractive young woman?—that was entirely foreign to the one she wanted.

  It was nothing clear, defined. Nothing she was consciously aware of or could admit to. But still she knew, in her secret mind, knew and felt guilty about it. And so, when the blowup came, she had tried to take care of him. But even that had been a means of striking back at him, the final firm push over the brink, and subconsciously knowing this she had felt still more guilty and was haunted by him. Yet now, her feelings brought to the surface, she saw there was not and had never been anything to feel guilty about.

  The Farmer had got what he deserved. Anyone who deprived her of something she wanted deserved what he got.

  It was nine-fifteen when the train pulled into Los Angeles. She and Roy had a good dinner in the station restaurant. Then they ran through a light rain to his car, and drove out to her apartment.

  She threw off her wraps briskly, turned to him holding out her arms. He held her for a moment, kissing her, but inwardly drawing back a little, subtly cautioned by something in her manner.

  “Now,” she said, drawing him down onto the lounge, “Now, we get down to business.”

  “Do we?” He laughed awkwardly. “Before we do that, maybe we’d better—”

  “I can scrape up ten grand without much trouble. That would leave twenty or twenty-five for your end. There’s a place in Oklahoma now, wide open if the ice is right. As good as Fort Worth was in the old days. We can move in there with a wire store, and—”

  “Wait,” said Roy. “Hold it, keed!”

  “It would be perfect, Roy! Say, ten grand for the store, ten for the ice, and another ten for—”

  “I said to hold it! Not so fast,” he said, angering a little now. “I haven’t said I was going to throw in with you.”

  “What?” She looked at him blankly, a slight glaze over her eyes. “What did you say?”

  He repeated the statement, softening it with a laugh. “You’re talking some tall figures. What makes you think I’ve got that kind of money?”

  “Why, you must have! You’re bound to!” She smiled at him firmly; a teacher reproving an errant child. “Now, you know you do, Roy.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. I watched you work on the train, as slick an operator as I ever saw. You don’t get that smooth overnight. It takes years, and you’ve been getting away with it for years. Living on a Square John income and taking the fools for—”

  “And I’ve been doing some taking myself. Twice in less than two months. Enough to put me in the hospital here, and in San Diego today—”

  “So what?” She brushed the interruption aside. “That doesn’t change anything. All it proves is that it’s time you moved up. Get up where there’s big dough at stake and you don’t have to stick your neck out every day.”

  “Maybe I like it where I am.”

  “Well, I don’t like it! What are you trying to pull on me, anyway? What the hell are you trying to hand me?”

  He stared at her, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry, his lips twitching uncertainly. He had never seen this woman before. He had never heard her before.

  The rain whispered against the window. Distantly, there was a faint whirring of an elevator. And with it, with those sounds, the sound of her heavy breathing. Labored, furious.

  “I’d better run along now,” he said. “We’ll talk about it some other time.”

  “We’ll talk about it now, by God!”

  “Then,” he said quietly, “there’s nothing to talk about, Moira. The answer is no.”

  He stood up. She jumped up with him.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Just tell me why, damn you!”

  Roy nodded, a glint coming into his eyes. He said that the best reason he could think of was that she scared the hell out of him. “I’ve seen people like you before, baby. Double-tough and sharp as a tack, and they get what they want or else. But they don’t get by with it forever.”

  “Bull!”

  “Huh-uh, history. Sooner or later the lightning hits ’em, honey. I don’t want to be around when it hits you.”

  He started for the door. Wild-eyed, her face mottled with rage, she flung herself in front of him.

  “It’s your mother, isn’t it? Sure, it is! One of those keep-it-in-the-family deals! That’s why you act so funny around each other! That’s why you were living at her apartment!”

  “Wh-aat?” He came to a dead stop. “What are you saying?”

  “Don’t act so goddamned innocent! You and your own mother, gah! I’m wise to you, I should have seen it before! Why, you rotten son-of-a-bitch! How is it, hmm? How do you like—”

  “How do you like this?” Roy said.

  He slapped her suddenly, catching her with a backhanded slap as she reeled. She leaped at him, hands clawed, and he grabbed her by the hair and flung her, and she came down sprawling on the floor.

  A little wonderingly he looked at her, as she raised her smudged and reddened face. “You see?” he said. “You see why it wouldn’t do, Moira?”

  “You d-dirty bastard! You’re going to see something!”

  “I’m sorry, Moira,” he said. “Good night and good luck?”

  21

  At the curb outside her apartment house, he lingered briefly before entering his car; relishing the rain against his face, liking the cool, clean feel of it. Here was normality, something elemental and honest. He was very glad he was out here in the rain instead of up there with her.

  Back at his hotel, he lay awake for a time, thinking about Moira; wondering at how little sense of loss he felt at losing her.

  Was tonight merely a finalizing of something that he had long intended to do? It seemed so; it had the feeling about it of the expected. It might even be that his strong attraction for Carol had been a reaction to Moira, an attempt to attach himself to another woman and thus be detached from her.

  Carol…

  He fidgeted uncomfortably, then put her out of his mind. He’d have to do something about her, he decided. Some day soon, somehow, he’d have to smooth things over with her.

  As for Moira…

  He frowned, on the point of falling asleep, then relaxed with a shake of his head. No, no danger there. She’d gotten sore and blown her top, but she was probably regretting it already. At any rate, there was nothing she could do and she was too smart to try. Her own position was too tenuous. She was wide open for a smacking-down herself.

  He fell into a deep sleep. Having slept so little the night before, he rested well. And it was after nine when he awakened.

  He sprang out of bed, feeling good and full of energy, starting to plan the day’s schedule as he reached for a robe. Then slowly, drearily, he sat back down. For here he was again as he had been last week. Here he was again, still, confronted by emptiness. Barred from his selling job, barred from any activity. Faced with a day, an endless series of days, with nothing to do.

  Dully, he cursed Kaggs.

  He cursed himself.

  Again, hopefully hopeless, as he bathed and shaved, as he dressed and went out to breakfast, he sought some way out of the impasse. And his mind came up with the same two answers—answers which were wholly unacceptable.

  One: He could take the sales manager’s job—take it without further stalling around—and give up the
grifting. Or, two: He could jump town and go to another city; begin all over again as he had begun when he first came to Los Angeles.

  Breakfast over, he got into his car and began to drive, aimlessly, without destination; the most tiresome way of driving. When this became unbearable, as it very shortly did, he pulled in to the curb and parked.

  Peevishly, his mind returned to the impossible problem.

  Kaggs, he thought bitterly. That damned Perk (for Percival) Kaggs! Why couldn’t he have left me alone? Why did he have to be so damned sure that I—

  The futile thinking interrupted itself. His frown faded, and a slow smile played around his lips.

  Kaggs was a man of snap judgment, a man who made up his mind in a hurry. So probably he would unmake it just as fast. He would take no nonsense from anyone. Given sufficient reason, and without apology, he would snatch back from the sales manager’s job as promptly as he had proffered.

  Roy called him from a nearby drugstore. He was still forbidden to work for a while (the doctor’s orders), he said, but perhaps Kaggs would like to have lunch with him? Kaggs said that he seldom took time for lunch; he usually settled for a sandwich in his office.

  “Maybe you should start going out,” Roy told him.

  “Oh? You mean on account of my ulcers? Well—”

  “I mean on account of your disposition. It might help you to get along better with people.”

  He grinned coldly, listening to the startled silence that poured over the wire. Then, Kaggs said equably, “Well, maybe it would at that. Twelve o’clock suit you?”

  “No, it doesn’t. I’d rather eat at one.”

  Kaggs said, fine, that was better for him, too. “One o’clock then. The little place across the street.”

  Roy hung up the phone. He considered the advisability of showing up late for the appointment, and decided against it. That would be simply rudeness, crudeness. It would do nothing but arouse Kaggs’ suspicions.