The Noir Novel

by Thomas B. Dewey

  “Hello, Joe, did I make it?”

  “You made it.”

  He helped get her luggage weighed in and they learned her flight had been delayed by forty-five minutes. He took her into the cocktail lounge and settled with her for what she had had to spend for the suitcase and taxi. When he gave her the Christmas bottle she showed embarrassment.

  “Gee, thanks, honey—I didn’t get you anything.”

  “I didn’t want you to. Save your money. Do you know anybody in Las Vegas?”

  “Well, there was a girl I knew in Kansas City. She went out there a couple of months ago.”

  He took two one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to her.

  “This ought to take care of you for a couple of weeks,” he said. “Do you like to gamble?”

  She grinned, suddenly, frankly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I never did.”

  “If you want some advice from an old man, don’t get the habit.”

  “Some old man,” she said. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “I can’t. Maybe I’ll look you up some day.”

  “Did you see Lou Roberts?”

  “No. I talked to him on the phone. He wasn’t interested.”

  “Why don’t you come to Las Vegas? You tired of me, Joe?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “I know sometimes I’m bitchy. I’m sorry for when I was bitchy to you.”

  “Forget it. I gave you a bad time, too.”

  “No, Joe, you never did. And you could have, easy. Because I went for you. I still could.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way. I like you too.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. Her eyes held on his for a moment, then fell away.

  “Any time you change your mind,” she said.

  Then they were calling her flight and he helped her out of the booth. She was muttering nervously. Guiding her through the crowds up the ramp, he could feel her tension in the thrust of her flexed arm against his side. A big plane nearby was revving up and she stopped suddenly and put out one hand, as if for support.

  “Joe—I never did this before. I was never on a plane.” He put an arm around her waist.

  “You don’t have to get on if you don’t want to, but it’s nothing to worry about. Like riding a bus.”

  She gazed at the swirl of passersby, ran her tongue over her lips and went along. There was time for him to see her aboard and he helped find her seat and make a disposition of her small effects. The flight was not sold out and she had a seat by the window and nobody in the aisle seat. He leaned over her, found the ends of her seat belt and showed her how to fasten it.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said.

  “Okay, Joe.”

  He kissed her face quickly, taking leave. Her face changed suddenly. She seized the lapel of his coat, tugging, and he leaned down close.

  “My God,” she said, “I almost forgot—there was a guy looking for you. He came to the hotel.”

  He felt a sensation as of a large, cold hand squeezing his belly.

  “What did he look like?” he asked.

  “Kind of a nice guy—older than you.”

  “Did he ask for me by name?”

  “Yeah. He had a picture of you.”

  “When was this?”

  “The other day—yesterday I guess.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said you checked out and I didn’t know where you were.”

  Her breath battered his face in quick, warm puffs.

  “Was that all right?” she said.

  He patted her absently.

  “That was fine.”

  The stewardess was making her way along the aisle and it was time to go. She lifted her face and he tried to kiss her cheek, but she moved her mouth to his and kissed him fully, frankly, without embarrassment.

  “So long, Joe,” she said. “Thanks for everything.”

  He waved goodbye and got off quickly. From the boarding ramp, he looked back. He found her window, but she wasn’t looking his way. The stewardess was leaning over her, probably, he thought, showing her the seat belt. He lingered until the plane pivoted and began to taxi slowly toward the runway, then turned back to the terminal.

  Carefully and over a long period of time, in the men’s room, at the newsstand and other points and in the cocktail lounge, he tried to discover whether he was being followed and, if so, by whom. After an hour, he had discovered nothing. The constant shifting of the crowds at random made it impossible to pin down suspected shadows. He considered it over a drink.

  Since leaving his home town, he had made no friends, aside from Irene, who might try to look him up. Briefly he thought of the pimp Patsy whom he had mugged in the alley on behalf of Irene (and himself). But he hadn’t done Patsy injury enough to send him on a cross-country manhunt.

  One thing that hung him up was that the guy had shown Irene a picture. There had been no circulation of his picture at any time, that he knew of. He had been “mugged” for his police I.D. card, but more than five years before. He had destroyed that I.D. card after examining the mug shots in Chicago. Or had he? He felt certain he had destroyed it, but couldn’t call up any associations connected with it, such as a hotel room, a lavatory, a city trash can. Maybe it was not a thing to remember. In a way it was like tearing up the book of his own life—a thing to forget.

  He abandoned the effort. The important thing was that Irene had warned him. Somebody was looking for him and had come within hours, maybe minutes, of stepping on his heels. Regardless of his identity, there was the chance that already somebody knew about the death of Lou Roberts. He thought it very unlikely that the shadow was Frenchy Wister. But there had been three of them in it—Roberts, Wister and a third, unknown, unrecognizable.

  He finished the drink and went outside by way of the ticket office. Nobody followed or noted his passage, that he was aware of. He joined an outgoing lane of pedestrian traffic between the terminal and the parking lot. Within sight of his own car he stopped and took time to make sure nobody was waiting for him in the vicinity. Then he went on, unlocked the car and got in, locking the door again after he was seated. He turned on the overhead light and checked his suitcase. It had not been tampered with. He pulled out of the parking slot, worked into the lane of outgoing traffic and drove back toward the city.

  He stayed with the main stream for some distance, then started an intricate maneuver of windings and switchbacks, working his way into quiet neighborhoods where a tail would be easily discernible. Eventually he found himself driving several blocks at a time without a sign of a car behind him and he began looking for a way back to the main highway. In a gas station he had the car serviced and asked for a road map and directions to the highway south toward Colorado Springs.

  He drove for about three hours and stopped at a motel on the edge of a small town. He had selected it because during the last four miles of his approach he had seen nobody behind him and because it featured closed garages, where his car would be invisible from the road. He went to bed with a feeling of some security and slept undisturbed for six hours.

  He was on the road again at daybreak and he stopped for breakfast near Trinidad. The day was cold and clear, and he made good time. He drove carefully, without pushing, and felt good about having shaken off the shadow, but refrained from congratulating himself. There was a long way to go and too much at stake to risk frustration. Still, he breathed a deep sigh of relief when he reached Highway 66 and turned west toward California.

  CHAPTER 13

  The town called Vista del Sol was a sun-swept cluster of white-stucco and simulated-adobe buildings on both sides of the highway. To the south were rolling hills of sand that put him in mind of pictures he had seen of the Sahara. Dominating the landscape was a large, rambling structure of pink stucco on a low hill about a mile north of the village. The town was connected with it by a blacktop road winding between two rows of stunted
palm trees. Driving out from Yuma he had seen signs directing travelers to the Montezuma Inn.

  It was the day after Christmas and although the temperature, in the high sixties, was normal for that time of year, it wasn’t what Mickey was used to. In Yuma that morning he had seen girls wearing shorts. Ropes of tinsel, with red-and-green wreaths suspended from them, stretched across the main street. As far as he could see, it was the only street in town, except for the road leading up to the inn. The buildings, all but two or three, appeared to have been built within the last eight or ten years. There was a uniformity of design about them, as if they had been conceived by one man for a single purpose.

  Through a casual inquiry in a local cafe, he learned that Frenchy Wister was manager of the Yucca Tree Motel at the west end of town. It was an L-shaped, two-story structure, with a large swimming pool, surrounded by the defiantly green, stiff grass of an irrigated desert lawn. There was a large, odd-looking tree made of plywood, and a sign hanging from it read: “VACANCY.”

  The office was the first unit at the front, downstairs.

  He saw a bell on a small desk and rang it lightly. Beyond the desk, through an opening between drapes in a narrow doorway, he could see part of a room containing a sofa and some chairs. He was braced to confront Frenchy Wister as he had confronted Lou Roberts at the mountain hotel, to meet the issue of recognition or non-recognition at once and get it settled. So he was unprepared when the door opened behind him and a young woman came in from outside.

  “Sí? Yes, mister?” she said, coming to the desk.

  She was a Mexican girl, very dark-skinned, of twenty or twenty-one. She wore a white blouse with a red trim and a full peasant skirt, gaily colored. Her long black hair was tied with a red ribbon and hung straight down her back. Her eyes were smoky-dark, almost black, though the pupils actually were brown. Her features were regular and somewhat less refined than many he had seen along the way, but the bold modeling of her face gave her a stronger, more vigorous look. She had large breasts under the thin blouse and he could see by the way she moved, in spite of the full skirt, that she was lithe and young in body.

  “You’re the manager?” Mickey asked.

  “No, señor. My ’usband. He is not here.”

  “I would like a single room.”

  “Yes. You sign here please?”

  He signed the registration card she gave him, using the name Joe Marine. When he finished, she studied the card carefully, underscoring his name with a strong, work-worn finger.

  “Mister—Mah-ree-nay?”

  “Muh-reen,” he said.

  “Mah-reen. Okay. How long you want to stay?”

  “I don’t know. A few days.”

  “Seis—six dollar a day, Mister Marine.”

  He paid her for one day. She put the money in a drawer, picked a key from a rack and handed it to him.

  Stepping outside with him, she pointed along the paved veranda, formed by the overhang of the second story.

  “Numero fourteen, señor,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  As he got into his car and started up the drive toward the garage that adjoined his room, he saw her stride vigorously along the veranda to a cart piled with linens and cleaning implements. She was carrying the entire load of the establishment without help that he could see.

  * * * *

  He opened his suitcase on the bed, hung up his spare suit and put the rest of his clothes away in a bureau designed in bleached maple to match the modern, low-slung bedstead. The room was clean and insidiously comfortable. He sat down on the bed and suddenly he was desperately tired and apprehensive about his undertaking.

  It had been simple enough, even aside from the lucky and wholly unpredictable circumstances of location and isolation, once he had traced him, to get what he wanted from Roberts. But Frenchy Wister was another matter. If what Roberts had said was true—and all he had told him, with minor deviations, had checked out so far—Wister, too, had been a hired hand. Therefore, information would have to be wrung out of Wister, who might be tougher than Roberts. There was the difference, too, that Wister apparently had a wife. And there was the big difference that he would be dealing with Wister, not in a remote, deserted cul-de-sac, but in Wister’s own community, where probably everybody knew what everbody else was doing most of the time, or ought to be doing.

  But the new, unexpected fear in him he laid to the unknown shadow. For the first time he had to look behind as well as ahead. The greatest danger was that he might let himself be pushed. If he grew edgy, feeling time at his heels, he could blunder badly; and one blunder might be the total of his allotment…

  He went to the window, opened the blinds with his fingers and looked out. The Mexican woman was still at work with her cleaning. There were two women lying by the pool in the sun. As he watched, they got up, gathered their things and moved toward the motel in his direction. The blond one, he thought, looked a little overgrown and flabby, but the dark one, much smaller, was in good shape. She had nice legs and a good bust—better than Irene’s, as he remembered. He watched them turn into a room three doors from his own. The blonde entered first and the brunette glanced toward his room for a moment before she disappeared.

  …because it would be intricate and hazardous. He would have to force himself to take time, develop a groundwork that wouldn’t shift on him just when he had come to count on it. A direct approach to Wister could be self-defeating. He would have to be broken down, demoralized in advance.

  He watched the Mexican woman trundle the cart along the veranda, her long, gay skirt swishing from side to side with the action of her sturdy hips.

  One of the most effective ways to demoralize a man, as he knew too well, was to destroy his home. But before he could attack Wister’s home, he would have to find out what “home” involved for him. The Montezuma Inn appeared to be the nerve center of the village and was likely to be the main source of information.

  He locked the door of his room, knowing it was a haphazard precaution in a commercial building. He lay down on the bed fully dressed. Within five minutes he was asleep and when he woke, the sun had gone down and it was dark in the room.

  He got up, took a shower, shaved and dressed in his better suit. He was surprised at the sharp cold when he stepped outside, but decided not to return for his overcoat. He walked along the veranda toward the office. There were no lights in the room occupied by the two women from the pool. He went on to the office and inside. A dim light burned on the desk. He could smell food cooking in another room. He waited a minute, then rang the bell.

  The drapes in the doorway billowed gently and the Mexican girl appeared between them. She was wearing a loose, unbelted wrapper that she held together with one hand over her breasts. Her feet were bare.

  “Yes, señor—Mister Mah-reen?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “I was wondering about a place to eat.”

  She lifted her arm wearily, pointing.

  “Is a little place downtown, pretty good. Only other place is the inn.”

  She blinked slowly, shifted her feet and settled her body carefully, as if to make sure she could stand. He lingered, watching her, and she remained, waiting stoically. When she blinked again, her eyes failed to open immediately and she swayed.

  “You’re very tired,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  He moved past the desk toward her and she showed neither shyness nor welcome.

  “I am all right, señor,” she said. “I think you like the inn okay.” (She pronounced it Een.) “Very good food.” He touched her arm gently. She drew away.

  “You ought not to work so hard,” he said. “Don’t you have any help?”

  “In season,” she said. “Need no ’elp now.”

  “When your husband is here, does he help?”

  “Need no ’elp, Mr. Marine.”

  “How long will he be gone—this time?”

  She closed her eyes, put her head back and he thought for a
moment she was going to fall. Then she shook her head briskly.

  “Tres, cuatro days,” she said. “I will be all right, señor, gracias.”

  He gazed at her till she returned his look.

  “Tell you what,” he said, “why don’t you have dinner with me?”

  “Me, señor?” she said, her face coming alive with surprise. “No—mus’ stay here. People come.”

  “We won’t be gone long. You need a good meal, a little time off.”

  She retreated in stoical silence, shook her head firmly.

  “No. Gracias. Mus’ stay.”

  He hadn’t expected her to accept his invitation, had only wanted to plant an idea. Studying her impassive brown face, he couldn’t tell whether he had succeeded.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” he said, smiling.

  As he moved to go out, somewhere in the building a door slammed suddenly. He saw her start violently and the quick flutter of a pulse in her throat. It told him something, but he didn’t get the message until later.

  “Good night,” he said, and he went out quickly.

  * * * *

  There were no more than half a dozen people being served in the dining room at the Montezuma Inn. It was a large room and the scattered diners appeared isolated and remote from one another. A small, worried-looking man wearing glasses and a tuxedo scurried to greet him and led him to a table. Mickey ordered a highball and the little man snapped his fingers imperiously and dashed off.

  The design and decor of the resort owed something to the Aztecs, but not much. Pseudo-primitive figurines adorned the walls and a few niches, and above a giant fireplace was a brass disk symbolizing the sun. But the carpeting and furniture and the expanse of plate glass in the outside wall were strictly modern U.S.A. Outside the window, hidden spotlights threw into relief jagged rock formations, a desert landscape. In the foreground was a large swimming pool with cabanas at one end. Facing it on three sides were detached cottages, designed to match the main building. Beyond, toward the rear, other cottages flanked a wide, curving drive.