The Best American Noir of the Century

by James Ellroy

  "I'll make sure." Julia walked to the hallway. "Good night."

  "Try to get some sleep." Louise smiled. "And don't think about him, hear? We're perfectly safe. He couldn't possibly get in, even if he tried. Besides," she said, "I'll be awake."

  (He stopped and leaned against a pole and looked up at the deaf and swollen sky. It was a movement of dark shapes, a hurrying, a running.

  He closed his eyes.

  "The moon is the shepherd,

  The clouds are his sheep..."

  He tried to hold the words, tried very hard, but they scattered and were gone.

  "No."

  He pushed away from the pole, turned, and walked back to the gravel bed.

  The hunger grew: with every step it grew. He thought that it had died, that he had killed it at last and now he could rest, but it had not died. It sat inside him, inside his mind, gnawing, calling, howling to be released. Stronger than before. Stronger than ever before.

  "The moon is the shepherd ..."

  A cold wind raced across the surrounding fields of wild grass, turning the land into a heavy dark green ocean. It sighed up through the branches of cherry trees and rattled the thick leaves. Sometimes a cherry would break loose, tumble in the gale, fall, and split, filling the night with its fragrance. The air was iron and loam and growth.

  He walked and tried to pull these things into his lungs, the silence and coolness of them.

  But someone was screaming, deep inside him. Someone was talking.

  "What are you going to do—"

  He balled his fingers into fists.

  "Get away from me! Get away!"

  "Don't—"

  The scream faded.

  The girl's face remained. Her lips and her smooth white skin and her eyes, her eyes...

  He shook the vision away.

  The hunger continued to grow. It wrapped his body in sheets of living fire. It got inside his mind and bubbled in hot acids, filling and filling him.

  He stumbled, fell, plunged his hands deep into the gravel, withdrew fists full of the grit and sharp stones, and squeezed them until blood trailed down his wrists.

  He groaned softly.

  Ahead, the light glowed and pulsed and whispered, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here.

  He dropped the stones and opened his mouth to the wind and walked on...)

  Julia closed the door and slipped the lock noiselessly. She could no longer hear the drone of voices: it was quiet, still, but for the sighing breeze.

  What kind of a man...

  She did not move, waiting for her heart to stop throbbing. But it would not stop.

  She went to the bed and sat down. Her eyes traveled to the window, held there.

  "He's out there somewhere..."

  Julia felt her hands move along her dress. It was an old dress, once purple, now gray with faded gray flowers. The cloth was tissue-thin. Her fingers touched it and moved upward to her throat. They undid the top button.

  For some reason, her body trembled. The chill had turned to heat, tiny needles of heat, puncturing her all over.

  She threw the dress over a chair and removed the underclothing. Then she walked to the bureau and took from the top drawer a flannel nightdress, and turned.

  What she saw in the tall mirror caused her to stop and make a small sound.

  Julia Landon stared back at her from the polished glass.

  Julia Landon, thirty-eight, neither young nor old, attractive nor unattractive, a woman so plain she was almost invisible. All angles and sharpnesses, and flesh that would once have been called milky but was now only white, pale white. A little too tall. A little too thin. And faded.

  Only the eyes had softness. Only the eyes burned with life and youth and—

  Julia moved away from the mirror. She snapped off the light. She touched the window shade, pulled it slightly, guided it soundlessly upward.

  Then she unfastened the window latch.

  Night came into the room and filled it. Outside, giant clouds roved across the moon, obscuring it, revealing it, obscuring it again.

  It was cold. Soon there would be rain.

  Julia looked out beyond the yard, in the direction of the depot, dark and silent now, and the tracks and the jungles beyond the tracks where lost people lived.

  "I wonder if he can see me."

  She thought of the man who had brought terror and excitement to the town. She thought of him openly, for the first time, trying to imagine his features.

  He was probably miles away.

  Or perhaps he was nearby. Behind the tree, there, or under the hedge...

  "I'm afraid of you, Robert Oakes," she whispered to the night. "You're insane, and a killer. You would frighten the wits out of me."

  The fresh smell swept into Julia's mind. She wished she were surrounded by it, in it, just for a little while.

  Just for a few minutes.

  A walk. A short walk in the evening.

  She felt the urge strengthening.

  "You're dirty, young man. And heartless—ask Mick, if you don't believe me. You want love so badly you must kill for it—but nevertheless, you're heartless. Understand? And you're not terribly bright, either, they say. Have you read Shakespeare's sonnets? Herrick? How about Shelley, then? There, you see! I'd detest you on sight. Just look at your fingernails!"

  She said these things silently, but as she said them she moved toward her clothes.

  She paused, went to the closet.

  The green dress. It was warmer.

  A warm dress and a short walk—that will clear my head. Then I'll come back and sleep.

  It's perfectly safe.

  She started for the door, stopped, returned to the window. Maud and Louise would still be up, talking.

  She slid one leg over the sill; then the other leg.

  Softly she dropped to the frosted lawn.

  The gate did not creak.

  She walked into the darkness.

  Better! So much better. Good clean air that you can breathe!

  The town was a silence. A few lights gleamed in distant houses, up ahead; behind, there was only blackness. And the wind.

  In the heavy green frock, which was still too light to keep out the cold —though she felt no cold; only the needled heat—she walked away from the house and toward the depot.

  It was a small structure, unchanged by passing years, like the Landon home and most of the homes in Burlington. There were tracks on either side of it.

  Now it was deserted. Perhaps Mr. Gaffey was inside, making insect sounds on the wireless. Perhaps he was not.

  Julia stepped over the first track and stood, wondering what had happened and why she was here. Vaguely she understood something. Something about the yellow thread that had made her late and forced her to return home through the gathering dusk. And this dress — had she chosen it because it was warmer than the others ... or because it was prettier?

  Beyond this point there was wilderness, for miles. Marshes and fields overgrown with weeds and thick foliage. The hobo jungles: some tents, dead campfires, empty tins of canned heat.

  She stepped over the second rail and began to follow the gravel bed. Heat consumed her. She could not keep her hands still.

  In a dim way, she realized —with a tiny part of her—why she had come out tonight.

  She was looking for someone.

  The words formed in her mind, unwilled: "Robert Oakes, listen, listen to me. You're not the only one who is lonely. But you can't steal what we're lonely for, you can't take it by force. Don't you know that? Haven't you learned that yet?"

  I'll talk to him, she thought, and he'll go along with me and give himself up...

  No.

  That isn't why you're out tonight. You don't care whether he gives himself up or not. You ... only want him to know that you understand. Isn't that it?

  You couldn't have any other reason.

  It isn't possible that you're seeking out a lunatic for any other reason.

  Certainly yo
u don't want him to touch you.

  Assuredly you don't want him to put his arms around you and kiss you, because no man has ever done that—assuredly, assuredly.

  It isn't you he wants. It isn't love. He wouldn't be taking Julia Landon...

  "But what if he doesn't!" The words spilled out in a small choked cry. "What if he sees me and runs away! Or I don't find him. Others have been looking. What makes me think I'll—"

  Now the air swelled with sounds of life: frogs and birds and locusts, moving; and the wind, running across the trees and reeds and foliage at immense speed, whining, sighing.

  Everywhere there was this loudness, and a dark like none Julia had ever known. The moon was gone entirely. Shadowless, the surrounding fields were great pools of liquid black, stretching infinitely, without horizon.

  Fear came up in her chest, clutching.

  She tried to scream.

  She stood paralyzed, moveless, a pale terror drying into her throat and into her heart.

  Then, from far away, indistinctly, there came a sound. A sound like footsteps on gravel.

  Julia listened, and tried to pierce the darkness. The sounds grew louder. And louder. Someone was on the tracks. Coming closer.

  She waited. Years passed, slowly. Her breath turned into a ball of expanding ice in her lungs.

  Now she could see, just a bit.

  It was a man. A black man-form. Perhaps—the thought increased her fear—a hobo. It mustn't be one of the hoboes.

  No. It was a young man. Mick! Mick, come to tell her, "Well, we got the bastard!" and to ask, narrowly, "What the devil you doing out here, Julie?" Was it?

  She saw the sweater. The ball of ice in her lungs began to melt a little. A sweater. And shoes that seemed almost white.

  Not a hobo. Not Mick. Not anyone she knew.

  She waited an instant longer. Then, at once, she knew without question who the young man was.

  And she knew that he had seen her.

  The fear went away. She moved to the center of the tracks.

  "I've been looking for you," she said soundlessly. "Every night I've thought of you. I have." She walked toward the man. "Don't be afraid, Mr. Oakes. Please don't be afraid. I'm not."

  The young man stopped. He seemed to freeze, like an animal prepared for flight.

  He did not move for several seconds.

  Then he began to walk toward Julia, lightly, hesitantly, rubbing his hands along his trousers.

  When Julia was close enough to see his eyes, she relaxed, and smiled.

  Perhaps, she thought, feeling the first drops of rain upon her face, perhaps if I don't scream he'll let me live.

  That would be nice.

  THE GESTURE

  1956: Gil Brewer

  GIL(BERT) BREWER (1922–1983) was born in Canandaigua, New York. While he was serving in the Army during World War II, his family moved to Florida; he joined them after his discharge. He decided to become a writer like his father when he was nine years old, dropping out of school to work at various blue-collar jobs while practicing his craft. Although his bibliography shows numerous sales to pulps such as Zeppelin Stories in 1929 and to various detective magazines between 1931 and 1934, they are obviously inaccurate. His first book, 13 French Street, was published in 1951 —the first of his twenty-three novels to be issued in that decade—the same year in which he sold what is probably his first published short story, "With This Gun," to Detective Tales. He published nearly one hundred stories in all, mostly under his own name, but also under the pseudonyms Eric Fitzgerald and Bailey Morgan. He also ghost-wrote novels for Ellery Queen, Hal Ellson, Al Conroy, and five novels for an Israeli soldier named Harry Arvay.

  Early in his career, Brewer came to the attention of Joseph T. Shaw, who became his agent. The famous editor of Black Mask saw in Brewer a special talent and thought he could rival the biggest names, but Shaw died of a heart attack in 1952, soon after their association began. Thereafter Brewer cranked out paperback originals at a prodigious rate, often completing a book in a week or less. They are generally dark stories, compared by the editor Anthony Boucher to the work of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson, mostly about ordinary men led down the road to ruin by unscrupulous women. His best-selling book, The Red Scarf (1958), one of two hardcover books he published, sold more than a million copies. After the 1950s, however, his output diminished, both quantitatively and qualitatively, largely due to alcoholism and serious injuries sustained in a car crash—a good career that, with better advice and a little more luck, could have been a great one.

  "The Gesture" was originally published in the March 1956 issue of The Saint Mystery Magazine.

  ***

  NOLAN PLACED BOTH hands on the railing of the veranda, and unconsciously squeezed the wood until the muscles in his arms corded and ached. He looked down, across the immaculately trimmed green lawn, past the palms and the Australian pines, to the beach, gleaming whitely under the late-morning sun.

  The Gulf was crisply green today, and calm, broken only by the happy frolicking of the man and woman—laughing, swimming. His wife, Helen, and Latimer, the photographer from the magazine in New York, down to do a picture story of the island.

  Nolan turned his gaze away, lifted his hands, and stared at his palms. His hands were trembling and his thin cotton shirt was soaked with perspiration.

  He couldn't stand it. He left the veranda and walked swiftly into the sprawling living room of his home. He paced back and forth for a moment, his feet whispering on the grass rug. Then he stood quietly in the center of the room, trying to think. For two weeks it had been going on. At first he'd thought he would last. Now he knew it no longer mattered, about lasting.

  He would have to do something. He strode rapidly across the room into his study, opened the top drawer of his desk, and looked down at the .45 automatic. He slammed the drawer shut, whirled, and went back into the living room.

  Why had he ever allowed the man entrance to the island?

  Oh, he knew why, well enough. Because Helen had wanted it. And now he couldn't order Latimer away. It would be as good as telling Helen the reason. She knew how much he loved her; why did she act this way? Why did she torture him? She must realize, after all these years, that he couldn't stand another man even looking at her beauty.

  Why did she think they lived here—severed from all mainland life?

  He stiffened, making an effort to wipe away the frown on his face. He reached for his handkerchief and swabbed at the perspiration on his arms and forehead. They were coming, laughing and talking, up across the lawn.

  Quickly, he selected a magazine from the rack and settled into a wicker chair with his back to the front entrance. He flipped the periodical open and was engrossed in a month-old mystery story when they stomped loudly across the veranda.

  Every step was a kind of unbearable thunder to Nolan. He was reaching such a pitch of helpless irritability that he nearly screamed.

  "Darling!" Helen called. "Where are you—oh, there!"

  She stepped toward him, her bare feet softly thumping the grass rug. He half-glanced up at her. She was coffee-brown, her eyes excited and happier than he'd seen them in a long time. She wore one of the violenthued red, yellow, and green cloth swimming suits that she'd designed for herself.

  He abruptly realized how meager the suit was and his neck burned. He had contrived to have her make the suit with the least expenditure of material. It was his pleasure to look at her.

  But not now—not with Latimer here!

  "What have you been doing?" she asked.

  He started to reply, looking across at Latimer standing at the entranceway, but she rippled on. "You really should have come swimming with us, dear. It was wonderful this morning"' She reached out and tousled his hair. "You haven't been near the water in days."

  Nolan cleared his throat. "Well," he said. "Well, Mr. Latimer. About caught up? About ready with your story?"

  He wanted to shout: When are you leaving! He could not. He sat there, st
aring at Latimer. The sunny days here on the island had done the man good. He was bronzed and healthy and young and abrim with a vitality that had not been present when he'd first come over from the mainland.

  "A few more days, I guess," Latimer said. "I wish you'd call me Jack. And I sure wish you two would pose for a few pictures. It's nice enough, the way you've been about letting me photograph the island, your home, but—" Latimer left the protest unspoken, smiling halfheartedly.

  Nolan glanced at his wife. She reached down and touched his arm, her fingers trembling. "After lunch Jack and I are going to take a walk, clear around the island"' she said. "You know, we haven't done that in a terribly long while. Why don't you come along?"

  "Sorry," Nolan said quickly. "I've some things I've got to attend to."

  "Sure wish you'd come," Latimer said.

  Nolan said nothing.

  "Well," Latimer said. "I've got to write a letter. Guess I'll do it while you're fixing lunch, Helen."

  "Right," Helen said. "I'd better get busy." She turned and hurried off toward the kitchen, humming softly.

  "By the way," Latimer said to Nolan. "Anything you'd like done in town? I'll be taking the boat across this evening, so I can mail some stuff off."

  "Thank you," Nolan said. "There's nothing."

  "Well," Latimer said. He sighed and started across the room toward the hallway leading to his bedroom. It had been a storage room, but Nolan had fixed it up with a bed and a table for Latimer's typewriter when Helen insisted the photographer stay on the island. Latimer paused by the hallway. "Sure you won't come with us this afternoon?"

  Nolan didn't bother to answer. He couldn't answer. If he had tried, he knew he might have shouted, even cursed—maybe actually gone at the man with his bare hands.

  He would not use his bare hands. He wouldn't soil them. He would use the gun. He listened as Latimer left the room, and sat there breathing stiffly, his fingers clenched into the magazine's crumpled pages.

  Yes, that's what he would do. Latimer's saying he was going to remain on the island longer still clinched it. Nolan knew why Latimer had said that. He wasn't fooling anybody. Taking advantage of hospitality for his own sneaking reasons. Didn't Helen see what kind of a man Latimer was? Was she blind? Or did she want it this way?