The Noir Novel

by Thomas B. Dewey

  Back in the driver’s seat of the car I whistled, lit a cigarette and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke and watched it fade away into nothing. What I deserved was a crack in the mouth for the beautiful way I was lousing the detail. I’d tipped my hand to Talmadge, I’d let my best killer suspect get away twice, and managed to drag Vicki into it right up to her lovely neck. Probably the guy in the garage had spotted me and turned me in. He had worried me.

  Now the blue convertible was hot, and safe or not, I was going to have to yell for help. I started the engine and headed toward the ocean.

  Tooling west on Sunset I got the impulse when I saw the Bel Air entrance, turned in, then pulled over to check the time and Talmadge’s address in my little black book. It was getting toward five and I pulled out and started ahead.

  The district was an expensive green and carefully manicured jungle; a good setting for Talmadge, a manicured jungle. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Maybe I just wanted to see where Talmadge lived. But in the back of my head was the hope that Haggart might be there making a report to the boss.

  Most of the places I passed were behind big stone or concrete walls and most of them had gates that could be locked at night. I knew Talmadge’s place even before I checked the number: it had the highest wall and the biggest gate, a massive affair of ornamental iron, closed and locked. Beyond the gate and seen through the shrubs was a glimpse of a big two-storied pink stucco house. With that wall Talmadge had given himself all the curb protection he could get. For a guy who made his enemies in round numbers he probably needed it and a lot more.

  I pulled to a stop further down the street, beyond a curve that was shielded by foliage and got out to look at the estate. The house was built at the foot of a hill that rose nearly straight up beyond the wall at the rear of the place.

  I ignored my dull headache and continued around the bend and along the wall toward the main entrance, meanwhile judging the height of the wall at about ten feet. Closer examination of the imposing gate revealed that it swung on oversize hinges anchored into the big posts on either side. And there were tall formal bushes on both sides of the gate to give me cover. It was after five now and darkness had almost filled the ravine but I knew the need for patience so I returned to the car and sat there.

  The sun disappeared behind the hills; darkness fell, and up ahead a street lamp went on. A car rounded the curve, drew up short before Talmadge’s gate and I got out of the car and legged it toward the entrance, but by the time I got there they had already pulled in. The gate was closed and I could hear the car moving up Talmadge’s graveled drive.

  I hugged the wall, heard voices, and thought I recognized Talmadge’s before a door opened and closed again. Then everything was quiet.

  I reached through the darkness for the first of the big gate hinges, found it, groped for a bar in the grillwork and pulled myself up to rest my weight on top of the hinge.

  Somewhere inside the grounds a dog barked, a monstrous barking, heavy and final like the clapping of an iron door, and I froze in place and waited until the dog quieted.

  I felt for the second hinge, boosted myself again and was nearly up and secure when my foot slipped. Clawing the face of the wall with one hand I gripped the grill with the other. The dog began to bark in earnest and was joined by a companion. By main force I pulled myself up again, secured my foot on the hinge, and rested to catch my breath. The dogs continued their heavy barking. By now, however, because reason had a chance to catch up with me, I’d lost most of my desire to see the inside of Talmadge’s establishment.

  I clung to the grill with my left hand to maintain my balance and stretched for the top of the wall with my right. There was no higher footing so I tensed, leaped over and gripped the top corner of the post and hung there until I could steady myself. My arms ached as I wedged the toe of my shoe into the grill and rested for a bit, then I started my uncertain crawling up the gate. The dogs were barking in wild unison as I linked my arm over the top of the wall and hung there until I straddled the wall with a leg, thankful to discover that the wall apparently hadn’t been wired.

  Darkness protected the garden as the vicious, challenging barking of the dogs continued. The odds were stacked too heavily against me and the smart and safest thing to do was get out of there. I had just decided to do this when all hell broke loose: a door slammed somewhere at the rear of the house, the dogs bayed with savage frenzy and the lawns were suddenly set ablaze by the batteries of floodlights anchored in the trees.

  For a moment I was a live target in the blaze of light, then I deliberately let go, dropped, and landed heavily as a shrub caught my right cuff and threw me off balance into the soft dirt where I spun around and fell on my back. I rolled over quickly, crawled for cover beneath the nearest bank of greenery and lay still for a moment as I peered toward the house and saw a thick-jawed, heavy-set character with an automatic in his hand coming cautiously toward me.

  Apparently I’d touched off an alarm set into the top of the wall. Right now I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t like the sound of those dogs. I drew the .38 and kept crawling as I kept my eye on the guy at the corner. Now he remained motionless, his gun steady. I put as much space as possible between us. Suddenly I stopped and a chill raced up my spine for the night had become very still. The dogs had stopped barking, which could mean that someone was turning them loose. I started to crawl again.

  By the time I reached the corner of the house the dogs were barking again as they strained against their leashes. I prayed the dogs were circling around in the opposite direction along the drive. I crouched low, waiting, my gun ready. My prayers were answered. I could hear the dogs yelping on the other side of the house, their full-throated roars echoing crazily against the wall behind me. Then someone yelled and the guy at the corner turned around with his fist tight around his gun.

  Rising from the shrubs I ran and hugged the side of the house, made it to the backyard, and stopped. The dogs were in the front now. In a second they’d pick up my trail.

  The backyard was a real pasture with a running brook across one corner and a four-stall garage at the extreme rear, diagonally across from me, with the doors open on the first two. I made a dash for the open doors, reached the garage, and swung inside to plaster myself against the wall just in time, because a split-second later the rear door of the house opened and Talmadge came out and he carried a rifle. Crowded into the shadows, holding the .38 on his fat belly and relishing the feeling that with the flick of a finger I could rid the world of him forever, I saw him make his way to the corner of the house. The baying of the dogs came to me from the other side of the house.

  I held still, looking for a way out. My gaze shifted from Talmadge to the three cars in the garage. There was the black Cad next to me, next to that was a low bug-like foreign job, and the third car was a red Buick convertible. No tan coupe. I glanced again at Talmadge and scraped my right shoe across the cement floor. The sound rasped out into the night, above the barking dogs, and Talmadge swung sharply around.

  I waited for a pause in the barking, scraped the floor again, then edged toward the rear of the garage and the front of the black Cad.

  Talmadge started forward, accompanied by the sound of the dogs who had picked up my scent and were on their way.

  Knowing that speed was my only safety, I chose an avenue of flight between the Cad and the foreign job. Only a couple of feet wide. I wouldn’t be exposed too long. Edging around to the opposite side of the car, I again gave it the scraping business, then darted between the cars, reached the right fender of the foreigner, and ducked down. This maneuver brought Talmadge forward toward the doorway. He had probably recognized me. Now I kept low and started crawling back to where I had come from. Talmadge stalked me on a diagonal to keep himself out of range. For a big man he moved quickly but in a break in the barking I could hear him wheeze from the excitement.

  I made the wall and hugging it edged toward the entrance straining for the so
und of his first step onto the concrete. By now the dogs sounded as though they were almost directly behind him.

  A shadow, a nice fat shadow, began to grow cautiously at the edge of the doorway and this time as I slid closer to him I was careful not to drag my feet. Gripping the .38 I drew strength and patience from the hard, cold feel of steel in my hand as the shadow paused, listened, then darted forward.

  Talmadge ducked into the garage directly in front of me, rushed to the side of the Cad, and pushed himself up against it. I gave him time enough to edge his face even with the window of the car before I moved in on him with a leap to grab his arm and whirl him around before me so that he faced out to the doorway. He grunted like a startled pig, dropped the rifle, and it clattered to the concrete floor.

  “Didn’t you know you were giving a party tonight, Talmadge?” I said and felt the jelly around his gut quiver as I gripped him.

  “Look, Walters,” he said quickly, “I only wanted to make a deal—”

  I shoved the rod into his ribs. “Only you didn’t make it,” I said and steered him toward the door.

  They were there, just beside the corner of the house, two bummers and two dogs, but only the men were frozen with surprise. The man holding the leash on the dogs was an old bird, older than anyone you’d expect Talmadge to keep around, and I wondered how he managed to hold the brute mastiffs, all muscle and teeth, whose eyes revealed that murder had been bred into them. The guy with the heavy jaw stood just behind the man and the dogs, his face blank and stupid with indecision, the gun limp in his hand.

  “Tell them to beat it,” I told Talmadge. “Tell them to get inside before I blow your head off.”

  “What’re you going to do to me?”

  “Tell them to get inside,” I snapped.

  Talmadge gulped as the old man reached out a hand to quiet the dogs. “Go on inside,” he said to them. “Take the dogs too.” They remained motionless and I prodded Talmadge.

  “Well, go on, you dumb bastards!” he yelped. “You want me to get killed?”

  They moved on that one, backing toward the house.

  “Tell them to kill the lights,” I said.

  “Kill the lights, Howie!” Talmadge called after the thug who turned and nodded over his shoulder before he followed the man and the dogs into the house.

  “We can still make a deal,” Talmadge wheezed.

  “We made it, fat boy,” I said. “This is it.”

  The floodlights dimmed and went out. Talmadge squirmed in my grasp, but held still again when I shoved the gun against his ribs.

  “Stay still, slob,” I said and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, although it was unlikely they’d use the dark to rush me with Talmadge under the axe. I shoved him ahead of me, down the drive toward the main gate, and he wheezed like a punctured bagpipe. “I dropped in to thank you for giving the signal to the cops,” I said.

  “The bartender did that,” he said. “You messed up my man pretty bad and you can’t do things like that without people getting excited.”

  “That reminds me,” I said. “I haven’t thanked you for sending that gorilla after me either. I’ve got no manners at all.”

  “It was for your own good, Walters. That’s the trouble with you. You don’t know what’s good for you.”

  “Would a slug in the back be good for you?”

  “For Chrissakes, Walters, what do you want?”

  “I want the bastard who killed Mike French and the girl.”

  “I don’t know who did those jobs.”

  “Playing dumb doesn’t become you.” I jabbed him with the muzzle. “Open the gate.”

  He moved heavily toward the gate, reached toward the lock, and pressed a mechanism that noiselessly and automatically swung back the gates.

  “Okay,” I said, “come on.”

  He resisted. “Where to?”

  “To pay a call on Bernie Haggart,” I said. “If anyone knows his hideout you do.”

  He stiffened. “Haggart? No. Lay off, Walters, you don’t know what you’re fooling with!”

  “Then I’m going to find out. Haggart doesn’t look so hard to me.”

  I shoved Talmadge ahead of me and his feet shuffled as we started across the pavement. I tried to figure out his reaction. Maybe he had heard from Haggart. Maybe the guy was scared and ready to spill. Maybe there was something about Haggart that gave him a leverage I didn’t know about. I wheeled and shoved him in the direction of the car.

  We were just rounding the bend when I heard voices ahead. I stopped short, stepped back into the bushes, and dragged Talmadge with me. A police prowl car was parked behind the blue Olds. Two cops were inside the convertible and one of them was training a flashlight inside the glove compartment.

  “You’ll never get out of this jam,” Talmadge sighed with relief.

  “Pick up your feet,” I snapped and guided him in the direction we’d come from.

  He didn’t resist and we moved along the street, past the gate, and toward the vacant but overgrown lot on the far side. The hill in back was steep but it was the best way out. The only trouble was I couldn’t take Talmadge with me, although for a moment I considered going back for one of Talmadge’s cars, but this was too risky. We made it across the field to the bottom of the incline, Talmadge panting like a steam engine on a mountain grade.

  “I can’t go up there, Walters,” he gasped. “I’ve got a bad heart.”

  “You haven’t got any heart at all,” I said. “But don’t worry, I’m not dragging any dead weight.” I released him but held the gun on him. “So stay put if you know what’s good for you because I’ll have this rod on you all the way. One move, just one,” I warned him and meant it, “and you’re as dead as you’ll ever get.”

  “I won’t do anything,” he gasped.

  “You know you won’t,” I said and backed away from him. “So long, slob.”

  I started up the hill, moving as fast as I could. Ahead, above me, I could see the glimmer of a street lamp through the trees. That was good: I could make a little time on the pavement. I caught my foot on a fallen branch and stumbled. I looked back at Talmadge who was a faint silhouette in the dark. He hadn’t moved. I got to my feet and kept on climbing.

  When I finally reached the street, I stopped, crouched down, and waited for my breath to come back to me and noted that the air was sharp with the smell of eucalyptus.

  There was the flash of car fights down in the street where I’d parked the Olds. The cops—one of them anyway—was turning around and heading back down the street. Talmadge suddenly let out a yell, and for a moment he appeared in the street below in the path of the approaching lights. I put my gun back in the holster and started to climb the second hill beyond the road. The hill was undeveloped, but the lights of a house shone high above the next rise and as I turned I saw a random pattern of lights below me. This was the middle ground. I had only a few minutes to get out of there before the place would be swarming. I hit the pavement above the lone house and started running downhill. Wasn’t it just my luck, which was running consistently bad, to draw Talmadge and the cops at the same time.

  Panting, I stopped at the bottom of the grade. The street branched in three directions and all three went up. I started to the left, my breath burning in my lungs as I plugged uphill.

  I continued climbing and the farther I climbed the clearer it was that I’d made the wrong choice. There were no houses ahead; I was climbing back up the hill. Below me, somewhere in the dark, a siren screamed. I had to get out of there.

  I started forward, then stopped, for above me I heard the sound of running footsteps. That meant that one of the cops had followed me on foot. I continued up the incline and saw the street ahead of me level for a curve. I paused for a moment, staring ahead, thinking wildly, with hope, when I saw the car parked on the siding.

  It was a sedan, a new Chevy, the lights were out, and there wasn’t much question what it was doing there. The view of the lights from the side
of the hill was sensational, but only incidental. I moved up on the car, taking it slow and quiet, and was just even with the rear window when I heard a girlish giggle from the back seat. It was a dirty trick but I pulled the .38 and rapped on the car with the muzzle.

  “Okay, kids,” I muffled my voice, “break it up.”

  There was only silence, then hasty scuffling sounds as a pair of young, frightened faces rose guiltily out of the inner darkness. The girl was disheveled and white with fright. The boy looked sore, which was understandable, but scared, too. “What’s the pitch, mister?” he asked with false bravado.

  “Shut up,” I said and showed them the gun. “Get up in the front seat. Hurry.”

  The girl gasped and put her hand to her mouth. The boy moved toward her.

  “Do what I say and neither of you’ll get hurt,” I urged them and as the boy started to say something, I wagged the gun at him. “No arguments. Get up behind the wheel.”

  “Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.”

  He opened the door and got out. He was a skinny kid, about seventeen, not quite out of the gawky stage. I motioned to the girl. “You, too,” I said, “get up front.”

  They silently got into the front seat. I slammed the door after them and got into the back.

  “Get going,” I said. “Head for Sunset.”

  “Okay,” the boy nodded, started the engine, backed out, and wheeled around into the street. He glanced into the rearview and our eyes met.

  “There’s a cop down there. On foot,” I said. “If he stops you tell him you’ve been up here necking and you haven’t seen anybody.” I crouched down on the floor. “Don’t try anything brave. I’ve got a rod aimed at the back of your girlfriend’s head. Understand?”

  “He understands,” the girl trembled. “He does!”

  We started down the hill and I kept a lookout for the cop or cops as we rolled down the incline. Just when I thought we were all going to be spared the ordeal we entered the intersection and a voice yelled out for us to stop. The kid pulled over to the side of the street, and I slid down farther onto the floor.