The Noir Novel

by Thomas B. Dewey

  Mickey waited until the Captain had stationed himself behind the big chair and was leaning on it in an attitude of casual curiosity, then opened the door slowly, moving back with it, a thin shield from shoulder to toe.

  Two men stepped inside. They were of medium height, adequately set up, dressed in trench coats and soft hats. One of them, slightly taller and stockier than the other, did the talking.

  “You have a Mexican national here named Margarita Sandoval?” he said.

  Mickey closed the door behind them and walked out around them till he stood between them and the bedroom and could watch the Captain, still leaning on the chair a few feet away and slightly to the rear of the nearer of the two. The Captain nodded slightly.

  “What if I have?” Mickey said.

  “She’s in the country illegally,” the one said. “We’ll have to take her with us.”

  The Captain shrugged and nodded again.

  “Well,” Mickey said, “it was bound to happen. She’s in the bedroom. I’ll ask her to get dressed.”

  “All right,” the one said. “The sooner the better.”

  Mickey swung as if to turn, then paused, looking at them.

  “A—como se llama, señor?” he said.

  They glanced at each other. The spokesman looked impatient.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re American officers.”

  Mickey looked at the Captain, who shook his head faintly.

  “I happen to be a police officer myself,” the Captain said. “You gentlemen won’t object to showing some identification, will you?”

  The one nearer the Captain, the more slender one, took half a stride back and turned, his knees crowding the armchair seat opposite the Captain.

  “No objection,” he said.

  He reached inside his coat. When he brought his hand out, there was a gun in it, stubby and lethal, aimed at the Captain’s head, just out of reach over the back of the chair.

  “Now let’s get the girl,” the other one said.

  Mickey’s hands were cold. He calculated the Captain’s chances at zero. His own were slightly better. Margarita’s he didn’t dare think about.

  The stocky one advanced on him, reaching for his own gun as he came. It was the same as the other.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “I’ll tell her to get dressed,” Mickey said.

  He turned his back on the gun and went to the bedroom door, listening to the steps of the one behind him, not too close. He rapped on the door.

  “Margarita,” he said sharply. “El baño!”

  The one behind him had stopped. He stood at the door, waiting an endless time, finally heard the bedsprings lurch softly, the gentle padding of her feet toward the bathroom.

  “Come on,” the stocky one said tightly behind him.

  “Give her a chance to get dressed—”

  “Never mind that.”

  Mickey turned, with one hand on the doorknob, and the fellow was out of reach, with the gun leveled. He saw that no change had taken place at the armchair where the Captain leaned, looking into the other gun. Mickey didn’t doubt they would use the guns. It would make a disturbance, but by the time any neighbors might rouse, the two of them could be long gone with Margarita. It explained—a flash thought in his mind—why Teller and Wister had waited. They would import this expert help only after careful thought.

  The stocky one grimaced.

  “Come on,” he said. “Don’t make me blast you out of the way.”

  Mickey shrugged, twisted the knob and opened the door into the dark bedroom, stepping back with it quickly to come abreast of the one with the gun. The ruse worked; not for long, but long enough. The stocky one took two steps toward the open doorway before he thought. Then he stopped, but by then Mickey was behind him. He hit him with the heels of both hands in the small of the back, with all his weight. The guy’s head snapped backward; he screamed faintly and fell, clawing, across the room into the wall beside the bed. Mickey heard the violent outbreak behind him as the Captain pushed the big chair into the other one and the gun exploded.

  He had fallen on his knees with the impetus of his push into the bedroom. He had heard the gun drop, but it took him some time in the dark to get his hand on it. When he found it, the other one had started up, gasping for breath and was clubbing at him, wild in the dark and in pain. Mickey slashed at him with the gun barrel till he fell away and lay still.

  When he got into the lighted living room, the slender one had his knee in the Captain’s groin, on the floor, with his gun raised to smash at his head. Mickey got there in two strides, kicked the guy off at the shoulder and hurdled the Captain to follow through. Pain knifed through his head as he struck the wall at an odd angle pinning the other down along the baseboard. The gun waggled toward his face. He used the one he had to club the other’s wrist and the gun dropped. There was still some fight left and they rolled over once. Then Mickey found the soft of the other’s throat and his thumbs dug deep, pushing. He twisted, heaving, got on his knees. The guy was reaching for Mickey’s throat. Mickey released the pressure for a split second. The head flopped forward and he dug again with his thumbs. The guy gasped and rolled away, clutching at his neck. Getting up, Mickey bumped into the Captain, who was reaching for the gun on the floor. There was blood on the Captain’s face.

  Mickey’s breath was sour in his throat. He went to the bedroom, where the other one was rolling from side to side, face down, trying to get up. Mickey helped him with a hand at his belt. The fellow crawled a short distance on his knees, then pushed up to his feet and stumbled into the living room, where he stood blinking in the harsh light. The Captain had the other one near the door.

  They racked the two of them against the wall. The Captain, standing off a little, checked the state of the gun in his hand. He brushed at the blood on his face. He was panting heavily, but his voice came out even and clear and quiet.

  “I’m a police officer,” he said, “and if you make any more trouble, I can kill you in the line of duty and it will look all right in the book. Now we got some questions, Mickey?”

  Mickey wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Where’s Teller?” he said. “And Wister?”

  They stared at him, blinking. The Captain brushed off some more of the blood and shrugged in his rumpled suit jacket. His eyes were chunks of broken glass between the slits of his eyelids.

  “So far,” he said, “the only rap against you is impersonating Federal officers and maybe simple assault. Teller and Wister are up for murder. You help us and they’ll never touch you.”

  Mickey picked up the cue.

  “You want to walk out there, without the girl,” he said, “and explain to Teller how you fouled up? Okay, go ahead.”

  He pulled the stocky one clear of the door, twisting him to face it. He opened the door wide and reached for the other one. The guy tried to pull back along the wall and the Captain grabbed his coat collar and brought him around fast behind the other. The one in front looked outside and worked his mouth.

  “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “Shut the goddam door.”

  Mickey closed the door with his foot.

  “Talk to us,” Mickey said.

  As in the beginning, the stocky one did the talking.

  “We don’t know—only about the girl. They told us to pick up the girl and get her out of the house. That’s all.”

  “Where were you supposed to take her?” the Captain asked. “Just stand around on the grass with her?”

  “Just down the street.”

  “Which way down the street?”

  “That way.”

  He pointed to his left. It would be down toward a section of abandoned stores, and there was a wash down there, Mickey remembered, that you crossed by an old concrete bridge. After that you were heading into the desert.

  “How far?” Mickey said.

  “I don’t know. Just walk her down the street till they met us.”

  “Where
are they now?”

  “I don’t know, for God’s sake!”

  Mickey’s right fist knotted.

  “Where are Teller and Wister?” he said.

  The stocky one, watching the fist, tried to back away, but he was against the wall and had no place to go. He shook his head dumbly.

  “Honest to Christ!” the other one said. “We don’t know!”

  Mickey hit him in the mouth with the back of his hand. The Captain straightened him back up.

  “That’s true,” the stocky one said. “All they told us—get the girl and walk down the street toward the gully.”

  Mickey looked at the Captain, who nodded. The Captain covered them with the gun while Mickey went to the bedroom and found one of the felt hats. The other one was lying under the overturned armchair where the Captain had made his bid. Mickey pulled it out, shaped it roughly. He put the hats on them, pulling them down tight. He switched off the light, pulled them clear of the door, opened it and gave the stocky one a push.

  “All right,” he said, “get walking.”

  “Listen—” the stocky one said.

  “More words?” Mickey said.

  “No—I don’t know no more—”

  “Then start thinking. Think while you walk.”

  He gave the stocky one another push and he stumbled outside. The other one followed. They stood on the flagstones, looking up and down the deserted street. Mickey slammed the door behind them and locked it.

  “Stay here,” he said to the Captain. “They’ll run into Teller and Wister sooner or later.”

  “Mickey—”

  “I’ll do it right this time, Captain,” he said. “You just see that nobody gets to Margarita.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the bathroom.”

  Mickey went through the kitchen, unlocked the back door and opened it silently. He unhooked the screen door on the service porch, opened that and stepped out onto wet grass. He studied the court carefully and saw nobody. None of the units was lighted.

  He looked around the corner of the house toward the front door. The two hired guns were halfway down the walk, standing close together. Mickey guessed that by the kind of deal they probably had with Teller, they had collected half of whatever they would get and, to get the other half, they would have to show up with the girl. Teller would see to it that whatever transportation they had was under his control, so they wouldn’t be inclined to run out on him. Therefore, Mickey reasoned, they now had no way to get anywhere except on foot. Teller surely wouldn’t let them get far.

  Rain dripped from the eaves and ran down his neck. The gun he held was slick with wet and he kept drying his hands alternately on the inside of his coat pockets and shifting the gun from one hand to the other. The stocky one moved forward a couple of paces, but the other held back. The first one gestured vigorously and finally the other went along. They went to the sidewalk, looked down toward the gully, then turned in the opposite direction and walked rapidly toward the more densely settled part of town. It would be a long walk, Mickey thought.

  Or maybe, he thought then, a very short one.

  They were getting away fast and he sprinted through the wet grass, staying close to the houses along the street, in the deep shadows. He was halfway across the yard of the second house from his own when he heard a car start down the street behind him. The two on the sidewalk heard it at the same time and stopped, then went on, at a dogtrot. Mickey kept step with them, a few paces back. Unexpectedly, the grass left off, there was a stretch of mud and he slipped in it, nearly fell, then caught himself in time and moved more cautiously.

  The car seemed a long time coming. There were no headlights yet. He veered closer to the next house he came to and ducked into the shelter of a high shrub growing off the near front corner. A second later the headlights came on and the car swerved, sweeping the walk with light. The two fugitives halted on the walk, turned into a paved driveway and raced to an eight-foot steel-wire gate, nearly invisible in the dark.

  It was the end of their trip. The car nosed sharply into the curb. The headlights picked them out against the gate, then went dark. Mickey recognized Tellers car. The two front doors opened simultaneously and Teller got out from under the wheel and walked around the car and up the drive toward the gate, light and quick on his feet for a big man.

  Wister got out from the other side. He was wearing the French cap set square on his head and Mickey could see the glint of his thick glasses as he joined Teller on the drive. He dried his left hand in his pocket, put the gun in it, dried his right hand and shifted the gun back again.

  There were bushes and a couple of scrubby trees at random in the front yard of the house between him and the four men at the gate. He began to work his way across the wet lawn toward where the big car was nosed in at the drive, both doors still open. The four of them at the gate were talking in low voices. Mickey didn’t try to hear what they were saying. It didn’t matter very much anymore. By the time he reached the nearer of the open car doors, he couldn’t see the two hirelings. They were blocked by Teller’s huge frame and Wister’s wide, thick one.

  He slid into the front seat of the car, found the light switch and slid on under the wheel and got one foot on the ground. Then he turned on the lights and moved clear of the car, staying in the shadow of the open door behind the light beam. At the gate, Teller and Wister had twisted and were looking back, shading their eyes against the sudden light. Teller took two steps toward the car. “Hold it,” Mickey said. “I’ve got a gun and I’ll use it.” Teller’s heavy face contorted.

  “Mr. Marine?” he said.

  “My name is Mickey Phillips.”

  Wister’s right hand moved down over his chest.

  “Keep it up there,” Mickey said. “Now there are four of you. I want you to get in line, Teller first, and walk very slow down this way, till I say stop. You start right now and the first one that gets out of line, I start shooting. I’m a good shot. Now come on!”

  There was some shuffling about, but the line didn’t form. Mickey squeezed off and under the echo of the report he could hear the whining ricochet over the concrete drive. The four went stiff. Teller started to walk toward him. The two hired hands jumped to follow, but Wister remained to one side, hanging back.

  “Come on!” Mickey barked.

  Lights went on in the house to his right. A man and woman in night dress appeared in the doorway. They gabbled in excited Spanish.

  “Poleecy!” Mickey yelled. “Call the police!”

  Wister appeared to slide into line behind Teller. Then suddenly, they had split far apart. Teller was charging straight down the drive toward the car, his frame shaking. Wister had veered off to Mickey’s right. The other two ran off toward town, their feet pounding on the wet cement.

  Mickey aimed carefully and shot Teller low in the belly. The big man buckled, fell forward, rolled onto the grass. Wister was coming at him across the hood of the car, scrambling. There was a knife in his hand. Mickey, blocked now by the open car door, backed off to get in the clear. Wister slid over the hood, grabbed the door for support and managed to get his balance. He formed a target momentarily, then, as Mickey aimed to shoot, he dived at Mickey’s ankles, slashed upward with the knife.

  Mickey fell hard in the street. He rolled to keep his head from striking the concrete and felt the knife blade deep in his thigh, a red-hot pain. Wister was clawing his way up over his legs. Mickey twisted desperately, clubbed at the other’s head. The blow glanced off to Wister’s shoulder and he was still coming. The knife was up in Wister’s right hand. Mickey dropped the gun, caught Wister’s forearm in both hands and swung it up in a long arc against the normal articulation of the ball-and-socket joint. Wister screamed with pain and rolled away. The knife clattered wetly on the pavement. Mickey reached the car, pulled himself up and stood against the fender, sucking air in huge gasps. Teller crawled around the front of the car on his knees and one hand, holding his belly with the other. Obliv
ious of Mickey, he groped for the gun Mickey had dropped. Mickey watched him. Nearby he could hear Wister moaning over his broken arm.

  Mickey waited till Teller’s hand had reached to close on the gun, then he limped over there and kicked the gun away. It slid across the street, banged dully against the opposite curb. Teller’s big face looked up at him vaguely.

  “You better lie down, Mr. Teller,” Mickey said. “You’ll bleed to death inside, crawling around like that.”

  Teller gazed at him for a long moment, then, on his knees, he shook his head to clear it, and found Wister with his eyes. His mouth twisted.

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” he said, “You dirty white trash scum…”

  Mickey turned away and started back toward the house. He felt little pain in his leg now, but it was stiff and he could feel it bleeding badly. He was glad he wouldn’t have to walk very far.

  The Captain was waiting in the open doorway, the gun dangling from his right hand. Distantly, Mickey could hear a siren. He slipped, entering, and the Captain put out a hand to support him.

  “They won’t go anywhere,” Mickey said. “They’re down there—where the car is. Where’s Margarita?”

  “Wherever that was you said,” the Captain said.

  Mickey headed for the bedroom. Behind him, he heard the Captain go outside and start down the flagstone walk. The siren was much closer now.

  He found his way through the dark bedroom, knocked lightly on the bathroom door.

  “Sí?” Margarita said.

  “It’s me—Joe,” Mickey said.

  “Gracias, Madre de Dios,” he heard her say.

  He opened the door and went in. She was sitting, fully dressed, in the bathtub, clutching the edge with both hands, staring at him with her big black eyes. His leg would no longer support him. He went down on his knees beside the tub and reached for her. When the Captain found them sometime later, he had his head on Margarita’s shoulder and they were whispering to each other, things about “Meh-hico,” and “pueblo,” and Margarita was brushing the mud out of his hair and off the back of his torn, wet jacket, so he would be clean when the time came to start home; the long way home…