The waiter came back and gave Jimmy the two five-thousand-franc notes. Dimly, Barber wondered how much they weighed.
“If ever you’re in a hole,” Jimmy said, giving him one of the notes, “you know where to come, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Barber said. He put the note in his pocket.
He started to sneeze then, and ten minutes later he said he was sorry but he didn’t think he could last the evening with a cold like that. Both Jimmy and Maureen tried to get him to stay, but he could tell that they were going to be happier without him.
He finished a second glass of champagne, and said he’d keep in touch, and went out of the bar, feeling his toes squish in his wet shoes. He was hungry and he was very fond of pheasant and actually the cold wasn’t so bad, even if his nose kept running all the time. But he knew he couldn’t bear to sit between Maureen and Jimmy Richardson all night and watch the way they kept looking at each other.
He walked back to his hotel, because he was through with taxis, and went up and sat on the edge of his bed in his room, in the dark, without taking his coat off. I better get out of here, he thought, rubbing the wet off the end of his nose with the back of his hand. This continent is not for me.
Criminal’s Mark
JOHN HAWKINS & WARD HAWKINS
THE STORY
Original publication: The Saturday Evening Post, April 8, 1950
JOHN HAWKINS (1910–1978) wrote western and crime novels with his brother, Ward Hawkins (1912–1990), including such collaborations as We Will Meet Again (1940), Pilebuck (1943), Broken River (1944), Devil on His Trail (1944), The Floods of Fear (1954), and Violent City (1957).
The brothers began their writing careers by writing for the pulps but almost immediately had their stories accepted by the most important (and best-paying) “slick” magazines (so-called to distinguish their paper from the cheaper pulps), notably the Saturday Evening Post but also Collier’s and Cosmopolitan, as well as their share of pulps and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
They did, however, sometimes write individually when they turned to the short form, though most of their work was still collaborative. It was common for them to write novels that were serialized in magazines but that never found their way into hardcover book publications.
On his own, Ward Hawkins wrote works of fantasy and science fiction, beginning with “Men Must Die” which appeared in the April 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, a pulp. Even after he and his brother had enjoyed successful television writing and producing careers, Ward wrote fantasy novels, notably the popular Borg and Guss series, humorous adventure tales featuring Harry Borg and his sidekick Guss, the lizard-man, set in an alternate universe. The novels, all published by the prestigious alternative fiction house Ballantine/Del Rey, were Red Flame Burning (1985), Sword of Fire (1985), Blaze of Wrath (1986), and Torch of Fear (1987).
In “Criminal’s Mark,” an ex-con is attempting to go straight but a criminal with whom he worked in the past comes to his home, asking to stay a short time but soon making it clear that he intends to stay as long as he likes. Hiding a fugitive puts him at risk with the police, but he and his wife are at even greater risk from the hoodlum.
THE FILM
Title: Crime Wave, 1954
Studio: Warner Brothers
Director: André De Toth
Screenwriter: Crane Wilbur
Producer: Bryan Foy
THE CAST
• Sterling Hayden (Detective-Lieutenant Sims)
• Gene Nelson (Steve Lacey)
• Phyllis Kirk (Ellen Lacey)
• Ted de Corsia (“Doc” Penny)
• Charles Buchinsky (Ben Hastings)
• Jay Novello (Dr. Otto Hessler)
Although filming was concluded in 1952, and most references describe Crime Wave as a 1953 motion picture, it actually was not released until January 12, 1954, in the United States.
As with the film version of The Killer Is Loose, the dramatization of “Criminal’s Mark” was fortunate to have a close adaptation with Crime Wave, though it dramatically increases the action with an exciting bank robbery scene that does not appear in the story.
One of the thuggish characters, Ben Hastings, was played by Charles Buchinsky, the first film in which he had a credit. He became far better known as Charles Bronson, for many years one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Jack Warner had wanted Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner as the stars for this motion picture, but director André De Toth, famous for his skill at casting roles perfectly, was adamant about having Sterling Hayden as the tough cop. Warner and De Toth battled for weeks before the director got his way. He even cast Gene Nelson as the tough ex-con, though his major fame in the movie business was as a song-and-dance man in light musicals; he starred with Doris Day in four films.
A couple of years ago, Paste selected Crime Wave as number thirty-three on its list of The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time, and crime writer James Ellroy named it as one of his favorite films.
The Hawkins brothers were able to create story lines that, intentionally or not, were highly cinematic. In addition to Crime Wave, they wrote the books and stories for the following movies: Secret Command (1944), based on their novel Pilebuck (1943); The Killer Is Loose (1956), based on their short story of the same name (1953);The Shadow on the Window (1957), based on their original story; Hidden Fear (1957), based on John Hawkins’s original story; and The Floods of Fear (1958), based on their 1954 novel of the same title.
The 1985 Coen brothers film titled Crimewave, directed by Sam Raimi, is a comedy with no connection to the 1953 noir classic or to the 1985 John Pailz film titled Crime Wave.
CRIMINAL’S MARK
John Hawkins & Ward Hawkins
THE THING WAS A CARBON COPY—that’s what got him. It was an echo, not exact, but so close it made your hair stand up. The same room, the same chair, the same time of night. Over there by the radio, the guy with the squeeze. Doc Pennypacker this time—full of butter, full of the old oil, “Trouble, boy? I wouldn’t get you in trouble for the world….” Holding his voice down so Ella, asleep in the bedroom, wouldn’t hear what he had to say.
A week ago, Pat Simms had been in the chair by the radio. A fat guy with shiny eyes and a beard four shaves a day couldn’t whip. Two of them, just a week apart, building their fences, setting their traps.
“An old friend like me,” Pennypacker said. “Stevie, boy, you couldn’t refuse an old friend like me a blanket and a meal or two.”
Steve Lacy said, “I’ll spot you hotel money. I’ll give you that.”
“Generous,” Pennypacker said. “That’s what I told Devers, no more than a month ago. Stevie’ll go all the way for a friend—that’s what I said.” He cocked his head and looked at his shoes, admiring them. “Devers will be on the street in another six weeks.”
“I didn’t know,” Steve said.
Pennypacker smiled. “Now you do.”
Devers was part of the squeeze. Two hundred pounds of trained ape—muddy eyes and a knife where his heart ought to be. Six weeks and he’d be outside the walls, walking the streets like any other man. Devers was Doc Pennypacker’s insurance, Doc’s way of saying, “Hold still, Stevie. Do like I say, or Devers’ll be around to see you.”
And that was the way it worked. There was always somebody coming out. It was Devers, but it could’ve been Jackson or Morgan or Benny Hastle. Devers was wrong, but that Benny Hastle was really dirt.
“I’ll stake you to hotel money,” Steve said. “An’ some besides.”
“Just a blanket. The use of the davenport. A couple of meals.”
Pennypacker admired his shoes. After seven years of seeing his feet in state clodhoppers, a pair of shoes like Doc’s were something to admire—brown wingtips, made-to-order, thirty bucks the copy. His suit was
tailor-made and his tie was a ten-dollar job. He sat there rubbing his nose—that Doc had plenty of nose to rub—smiling like a cat in an ocean of cream. His eyes had lights in them, hot little lights. Things were popping inside that narrow head, under that gray hair.
“I’m clean,” Steve Lacy said. “I want to stay that way.”
Pennypacker said, “I know what you mean, Stevie. You got a little home, a nice little wife, a job. Maybe not a good job, but one that puts beans on the table. A nice setup for a guy without any muscle, for a man gone soft. I can understand you’d turn an old friend away.”
“I offered to pay for your hotel.”
“So you did,” Pennypacker said. “But this isn’t a big town—not as big as some. Hotels got guys with buzzers. They got badges and notions about pushing people around. I don’t want to be pushed. I just want a blanket and a couple of meals and the use of the davenport.”
“For how long?” Steve asked.
“A day,” Doc said. “Maybe two. What’s the difference?”
He sat there and smiled at his shoes—a man of fifty, gray hair and a narrow skull. Blue eyes, pale as smoke. He smiled and the squeeze clamped down.
Steve Lacy’s chest got tight and the hair crawled on the back of his neck. Pat Simms had been bad enough—stubble on his sweating face—but Simms had come right out with it: “Do what I tell you, Lacy, unless you want to go back.” Doc Pennypacker was cat-and-mouse. He’d say please before he put a knife in you, before he had Devers put a knife in you. Maybe he got his kicks that way, roping a man who could break his back, doing it with names. “Devers’ll be around to see you.” Letting that soak in while he sat there and smiled. While he said things with his eyes. “You can’t shake us, Steve. Not ever. You did a double fin with the rest of us. Ten years down there with the rest of us. You wore the coat, Stevie. Like burlap, that coat, with a number stenciled on the back. You’re one of the boys, Stevie. You knew what was coming as soon as you heard me trailing along behind you.”
“Tonight only,” Steve Lacy said. “In the morning you’re gone.”
Pennypacker said, “How do you like my shoes?”
Steve Lacy left his chair. His head hurt. His hair felt like wire. He wanted to take Doc Pennypacker by the throat. Instead, he knelt by the cedar chest and piled his arms full of company bedding. Ella’s best for a guy like Doc. Pennypacker watched Steve make a bed on the davenport.
“Clean sheets,” he said. “Nothing’s too good for a friend of yours.”
He got out of his coat and folded it carefully. He took his shoulders off when he got out of that coat. His shirt was beautiful. Movie actors wore shirts like that. He loosened the knot of his tie.
“You look tired,” he said. “Good night, Stevie.”
“In the morning, Doc. You’re gone in the morning. Remember that.”
Steve Lacy turned off the lights, all but one. He went into the hall and closed the door. In the bathroom he peeled off his shirt—war surplus, two for a buck, a grease rag with a collar. He soaped his hands and arms. His hands were big, scarred in a dozen places. Like rocks. Four years in a state quarry with a sledge and a single jack; six years of mauling castings in a foundry. He could slug a wall and not hurt those hands. He could cock one and throw it at Doc, right on the end of that big nose. He could spread Doc’s nose all over his face, and then Devers would be around. That’s the way it worked. Doc was only one of them. Behind Doc there was Devers and all the rest of them.
“In the morning,” Steve said, “he’ll be gone.”
He watched his mouth say that in the mirror. His face looked back at him—a face to frighten kids. Bent nose, heavy jaw, heavy beard. You look like that and people don’t want to meet you in an alley. A tough face—a false front for the shakes. Right now he was hollow inside, trembling inside, just thinking what trouble with Devers could mean to him and Ella. But none of that showed in his face. Faces didn’t tell what went on inside. Take that Doc Pennypacker. Big nose and all, he looked as nice as a preacher. A skinny preacher with gray hair and a soft smile. Harder than tool steel, harder than diamonds, and still he looked like one of the uptown citizens and an all-right guy.
“One night,” Steve said. “I can take it for that long.”
He went into the bedroom on tiptoe. He didn’t want to wake Ella. He was careful not to bump the corner of the dressing table. He didn’t drop his shoes. She was curled in the center of the bed, warm as a kitten. She turned to make room for him. He could feel her breath against his shoulder.
“You must’ve had a lot to talk about,” she said. “It’s late.”
“Old times, Ella. You know—places we been, people we knew.”
“He didn’t leave, did he? I didn’t hear him go.”
“Like you said, it’s late.” Steve wet his lips. “The buses aren’t running. I made him a bed on the davenport.”
She kissed his shoulder. “Good night, Steve.”
He lay on his side, staring into the dark. He could hear Doc out in the living room. Doc bubbled in his sleep. Something about the bone in that beak of his. A thousand guys in the cell block, you could pick Doc Pennypacker every time. A thousand guys muttering and turning and groaning in their sleep. And that Doc, bubbling all night long.
He lay there in the dark, Ella’s breath warm on his shoulder. The window was a dim square in the wall. No bars on that window, but Steve could almost see them there. All the remembered sounds were coming back, filling the room: the mutter and groan and turn of the men in the cell blocks, the tramping of the walkers—the wall guards, the block guards—going about their rounds.
He’d done his time. He’d done it all, every day of it. Four years in the quarry, swinging a twelve-pound sledge; six years on the foundry floor. No breaks. But he’d kept his nose clean and his mouth shut—never a scramble, never a beef—and one day they’d opened the gate and let him out. “A free man,” they’d said. “Lacy, you’ve got a new suit. New shoes. A new life. You’re as free as a bird.” And he’d believed them. He’d stood on the corner and watched the shining cars go by, and he’d ached to get his hands inside one. After ten years his hands were hungry for tools and motors.
“A free man.”
The suit was cheesecloth. The shoes fell apart the first time it rained. And the freedom had a string on it—that freedom had more strings on it than a harp. He’d learned about those; one by one they’d yanked him up. “A little thing,” they’d said the day he left the pen. “Nothing much,” they’d said. “Just report to O’Keefe once a month and tell him how it is with Lacy.” Daniel O’Keefe, state probation officer, second floor, Woodlawn Building. Once a month Steve had climbed the stairs, thirty-six times he’d climbed the stairs. “Mr. O’Keefe, sir,” he’d said. “Steve Lacy reporting.”
* * *
—
And he’d stood there with his hat in his sweating hands while O’Keefe looked at him. A dusty man, O’Keefe, glasses, timid eyes and a pencil he tapped against his teeth. Once a month he hauled on the string. “Your appearance is against you, Lacy.” Thirty-six times he’d mentioned that. “Above all, we don’t want you to go back. You’ll have to be very careful, Lacy. Avoid trouble like a well man avoids the plague.”
That freedom fell apart faster than the cardboard shoes. They let you out, but they didn’t let go. O’Keefe, once a month, and O’Keefe was only the beginning. Simms had a string on him. Pat Simms, plain-clothes. A hog of a man. Shiny eyes and a toothpick and a beard like barbed wire. He’d known Steve Lacy when. He knew too much. The string in his fat hand went back a lot of years—back to the Apex Garage and Johnny Dianco.
Simms had come into the Apex plenty of times after the city had gone to sleep, walking light and easy, that toothpick in the corner of his mouth. He stood around. He leaned against the wall and watched Steve Lacy build his car. Steve Lacy, nineteen then, night floorman, six
to six, twenty-three bucks a week. A big kid off the farm, smart with motors and dumb with people, building himself a car after the grease racks had been cleaned and the floors swept. A bolt at a time, from the floor up, from nothing. Parts from a dozen wrecks; frame from one, wheels from another, fenders from still another. And that motor—three weeks’ pay and six months’ work went into that big, beautiful motor before he had it right. Simms was there the night he turned it fine—let it idle, let it roar—then cut the switch and put his tools away.
“Funny,” Simms said. “A kid like you—a big hayshaker—comin’ up with a thing like that. How fast’ll it go?”
“I figure a hundred and ten,” Steve said. “Maybe better.”
“But not on the streets.” Simms’s shiny eyes lost interest in the car. “You work here,” he said. “That Johnny Dianco, would you know what time of night he puts that crate of his away?”
“Different times,” Steve said. “Different nights.”
“Don’t cover,” Simms said. “Stick to your motors, kid.” That toothpick went from right to left. “Don’t get in any trouble, kid. With that ugly face of yours, don’t ever get in trouble, kid. They’ll throw the bench at you.”
He went away. He dropped his toothpick on the floor and went away. Steve stood there wondering why he hadn’t opened up for Simms. He knew when Dianco’s bright, red job came and went; he had it all written down on the check sheet in the floorman’s stall. And he knew Dianco was a racket guy. Even a hayshacker off the farm couldn’t be so dumb he wouldn’t know Dianco was a racket guy. His clothes, his car, the place he lived; all that money when everybody else was broke. He tipped a buck; twice every day he tipped a buck. But it wasn’t the money. Steve hadn’t kept his mouth shut because of the tips. You don’t blow the whistle on a friend, and Johnny Dianco was a friend. A big shot, but he always had time to stop and talk. “How’s our car? When’re you goin’ to take me for a ride?” Johnny wasn’t afraid of Simms. He laughed when Steve told him Simms had been nosing around.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 129