The Best American Noir of the Century

by James Ellroy

  The very thought of such a thing sent Nolan out of the chair, stalking back and forth across the room. He could hear Latimer's typewriter ticking away from the far side of the house.

  Their paradise. Their home. Their love. Torn and twisted and broken by this insensitive person. He heard Helen call them to lunch then, and moving toward the table in the dining room, he felt slightly relieved. He knew that while they were gone this afternoon, he would get everything ready.

  With Latimer's unconscious aid, Nolan knew exactly how he was going to do it. He sat at the table, picking at his food, listening to them talk and laugh. He tried vainly to concentrate away from the sounds of their voices.

  "This salad's terrific," Latimer said. "Helen, you're wonderful! You two've got it made out here!"

  Helen lowered her gaze to her plate. Nolan stared directly at Latimer and Latimer reddened and looked away. Nolan grinned inside. He had caught the man. But the victory was empty. The long afternoon, thinking about her out there with Latimer, would be painful.

  They finished lunch in silence. Almost before Nolan realized it, the house was again empty. He could hear them laughing still, their voices growing faint as they moved down along the beach.

  Helen had even insisted on taking several bottles of cold beer wrapped in insulated bags to keep cool, and carried in the old musette.

  Nolan could not stand still. He paced back and forth across the extent of the house, thinking about tonight. If he didn't do it tonight, it might be too late. He did not want Helen too attached to Latimer, and he felt sure it had gone very far already.

  He knew Latimer intended to stay on and stay on—until he could take Helen away with him. But tonight would end it. He would go along with Latimer to the mainland. Only, Latimer would never reach the mainland. The boat would swamp.

  Nolan knew how to swamp a boat. He knew Latimer wasn't much of a swimmer, and anyhow, a man couldn't swim with a .45 slug in his heart. But Nolan could swim well. He would kill Latimer, take him out into the Gulf, weight him, and sink him. Then he'd bring the boat in and swamp it and swim ashore. He would report it, and rent a boat and come home. He knew they were in for a bit of heavy weather tonight. It would be just perfect.

  And Helen and he would be happy again. The way they had always been.

  He looked back, thinking over the good times. The time before they'd come to the island, when he'd been hard-working at the glass-cutting business he'd inherited from his father. Then more and more he'd become conscious of Helen's beauty and the effect she had on men. And loving her as wildly as he did, he could no longer bear the endless suspense; the knowledge that sooner or later she would leave him. So he sold the business, retired. His little lie. So far as she knew, he simply wanted island life—quiet, unhurried, alone with her. It was true. But not a complete truth.

  All this time they had been happy. Until now. Somebody'd got wind of the beauty of the island and Latimer had shown up to do his story. Under conditions imposed by Nolan—no pictures of either himself or Helen. He had allowed one fuzzy negative of them standing against a blossoming hibiscus near the house, at twilight—that was all.

  Wandering through the house, trying not to think of what they were doing now, he found himself in Latimer's room. The unmade bed, the photographic equipment, the typewriter set up on the table.

  Beside the machine was a typewritten letter.

  Nolan turned away. But something drew him over to the table. Pure curiosity in this man Latimer. He stood there, staring down at the obviously unfinished letter. An addressed envelope lay beside it. There was a half-completed sentence on the sheet in the typewriter, numbered [>].

  The letter was addressed to the editor of the magazine where Latimer worked.

  Nolan began reading, at first leisurely, then feverishly.

  Dear Bart:

  Really have this thing wrapped up, but I'm staying on a while longer, just to settle a few things in my own mind and maybe I'll come up with a bunch of pix and a yarn that'll knock your head off ... sure beautiful scenery on the island ...house is a regular bamboo and cypress mansion ... unhealthy, Bart, really sick ... he watches her like a hawk. He's ripped with jealousy and it would be laughable, except that they're both so very old. He must be in his eighties, but she's a bit harder to read. I did a lousy thing. I confronted her with it. You would have, too. She's so obviously just enduring everything for his sake. Humoring him. My God, think of it! All these years he's kept her out here, away from everybody, imprisoned. It's pure hell. She as much as admitted it. I'm staying on, just to see if I can't work it somehow. Get her back to civilization, if only for a vacation, Bart. She deserves it. You should hear her ask how things are out there—it would break your damned heart...

  There was more, and Nolan read all of it through twice. For a moment longer he stood there, seeing everything clearly for the first time in nearly a half century.

  Then he walked through the house to his study, opened the desk drawer, took out the .45 automatic. He sat down in his chair by the desk, put the muzzle of the gun into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

  THE LAST SPIN

  1956: Evan Hunter

  EVAN HUNTER (1926–2005) was born Salvatore A. Lombino, legally changing his name in 1952. He was admitted to New York's Cooper Union after winning a scholarship to the Art Students League, then served in the Navy during World War II; he graduated from Hunter College after his return from the Pacific theater. He had begun writing stories while based on a destroyer, then wrote numerous short stories and several novels in the years after the war. After several unsuccessful adult and children's books, he published The Blackboard Jungle in 1954, which was an instant success, filmed the following year and starring Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, and Sidney Poitier. In 1956 he created the Ed McBain byline, which became more famous than his own, as he wrote the iconic Eighty-seventh Precinct series, in which the members of an entire squad room, rather than a single police officer, serve as the hero. Fifty-four novels succeeded Cop Hater, the first book in the series. Under the McBain name, he also produced thirteen novels about Matthew Hope, a Florida lawyer, and several standalone mysteries. Hunter also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Marston, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Curt Cannon, and John Abbott, producing more than one hundred books. Other films made from his works include Strangers When We Meet (1960), High and Low (1962), Last Summer (1969), Fuzz (1972), Blood Relatives (1977), and The Chisholms (1979). He also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).

  The Blackboard Jungle was the first significant book to deal with juvenile delinquents and gang violence in New York, and many of Hunter's early short stories, collected in Learning to Kill (2006), deal with these subjects, often in a sympathetic manner.

  "The Last Spin" was first published in the September 1956 issue of Manhunt; it was collected in Hunter's The Jungle Kids the same year.

  ***

  THE BOY SITTING opposite him was his enemy.

  The boy sitting opposite him was called Tigo, and he wore a green silk jacket with an orange stripe on each sleeve. The jacket told Danny that Tigo was his enemy. The jacket shrieked, "Enemy, enemy!"

  "This is a good piece," Tigo said, indicating the gun on the table. "This runs you close to forty-five bucks, you try to buy it in a store. That's a lot of money."

  The gun on the table was a Smith & Wesson .38 Police Special.

  It rested exactly in the center of the table, its sawed-off, two-inch barrel abruptly terminating the otherwise lethal grace of the weapon. There was a checked walnut stock on the gun, and the gun was finished in a flat blue. Alongside the gun were three .38 Special cartridges.

  Danny looked at the gun disinterestedly. He was nervous and apprehensive, but he kept tight control of his face. He could not show Tigo what he was feeling. Tigo was the enemy, and so he presented a mask to the enemy, cocking one eyebrow and saying, "I seen pieces before. There's nothing special about this one."

  "Except what we got to do with
it," Tigo said. Tigo was studying him with large brown eyes. The eyes were moist-looking. He was not a bad-looking kid, Tigo, with thick black hair and maybe a nose that was too long, but his mouth and chin were good. You could usually tell a cat by his mouth and his chin. Tigo would not turkey out of this particular rumble. Of that, Danny was sure.

  "Why don't we start?" Danny asked. He wet his lips and looked across at Tigo.

  "You understand"' Tigo said, "I got no bad blood for you."

  "I understand."

  "This is what the club said. This is how the club said we should settle it. Without a big street diddlebop, you dig? But I want you to know I don't know you from a hole in the wall—except you wear a blue and gold jacket."

  "And you wear a green and orange one," Danny said, "and that's enough for me."

  "Sure, but what I was trying to say ..."

  "We going to sit and talk all night, or we going to get this thing rolling?" Danny asked.

  "What I'm trying to say," Tigo went on, "is that I just happened to be picked for this, you know? Like to settle this thing that's between the two clubs. I mean, you got to admit your boys shouldn't have come in our territory last night."

  "I got to admit nothing"' Danny said flatly.

  "Well, anyway, they shot at the candy store. That wasn't right. There's supposed to be a truce on."

  "OK, OK," Danny said.

  "So like ... like this is the way we agreed to settle it. I mean, one of us and ...and one of you. Fair and square. Without any street boppin', and without any law trouble."

  "Let's get on with it," Danny said.

  "I'm trying to say, I never even seen you on the street before this. So this ain't nothin' personal with me. Whichever way it turns out, like..."

  "I never seen you neither," Danny said.

  Tigo stared at him for a long time. "That's cause you're new around here. Where you from originally?"

  "My people come down from the Bronx."

  "You got a big family?"

  "A sister and two brothers, that's all."

  "Yeah, I only got a sister." Tigo shrugged. "Well." He sighed. "So." He sighed again. "Let's make it, huh?"

  "I'm waitin'," Danny said.

  Tigo picked up the gun, and then he took one of the cartridges from the tabletop. He broke open the gun, slid the cartridge into the cylinder, and then snapped the gun shut and twirled the cylinder. "Round and round she goes," he said, "and where she stops, nobody knows. There's six chambers in the cylinder and only one cartridge. That makes the odds five to one that the cartridge'll be in firing position when the cylinder stops whirling. You dig?"

  "I dig."

  "I'll go first," Tigo said.

  Danny looked at him suspiciously. "Why?"

  "You want to go first?"

  "I don't know."

  "I'm giving you a break." Tigo grinned. "I may blow my head off first time out."

  "Why you giving me a break?" Danny asked.

  Tigo shrugged. "What the hell's the difference?" He gave the cylinder a fast twirl.

  "The Russians invented this, huh?" Danny asked.

  "Yeah."

  "I always said they was crazy bastards."

  "Yeah, I always..." Tigo stopped talking. The cylinder was stopped now. He took a deep breath, put the barrel of the .38 to his temple, and then squeezed the trigger.

  The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber.

  "Well, that was easy, wasn't it?" he asked. He shoved the gun across the table. "Your turn, Danny."

  Danny reached for the gun. It was cold in the basement room, but he was sweating now. He pulled the gun toward him, then left it on the table while he dried his palms on his trousers. He picked up the gun then and stared at it.

  "It's a nifty piece," Tigo said. "I like a good piece."

  "Yeah, I do too," Danny said. "You can tell a good piece just by the way it feels in your hand."

  Tigo looked surprised. "I mentioned that to one of the guys yesterday, and he thought I was nuts."

  "Lots of guys don't know about pieces," Danny said, shrugging.

  "I was thinking"' Tigo said, "when I get old enough, I'll join the Army, you know? I'd like to work around pieces."

  "I thought of that, too. I'd join now only my old lady won't give me permission. She's got to sign if I join now."

  "Yeah, they're all the same," Tigo said, smiling. "Your old lady born here or the old country?"

  "The old country," Danny said.

  "Yeah, well, you know they got these old-fashioned ideas."

  "I better spin," Danny said.

  "Yeah," Tigo agreed.

  Danny slapped the cylinder with his left hand. The cylinder whirled, whirled, and then stopped. Slowly, Danny put the gun to his head. He wanted to close his eyes, but he didn't dare. Tigo, the enemy, was watching him. He returned Tigo's stare, and then he squeezed the trigger.

  His heart skipped a beat, and then over the roar of his blood he heard the empty click. Hastily, he put the gun down on the table.

  "Makes you sweat, don't it?" Tigo said.

  Danny nodded, saying nothing. He watched Tigo. Tigo was looking at the gun.

  "Me now, huh?" Tigo said. He took a deep breath, then picked up the .38. He twirled the cylinder, waited for it to stop, and then put the gun to his head.

  "Bang!" Tigo said, and then he squeezed the trigger. Again the firing pin clicked on an empty chamber. Tigo let out his breath and put the gun down.

  "I thought I was dead that time," he said.

  "I could hear the harps," Danny said.

  "This is a good way to lose weight, you know that?" Tigo laughed nervously, and then his laugh became honest when he saw Danny was laughing with him. "Ain't it the truth? You could lose ten pounds this way."

  "My old lady's like a house," Danny said, laughing. "She ought to try this kind of diet." He laughed at his own humor, pleased when Tigo joined him.

  "That's the trouble," Tigo said. "You see a nice deb in the street, you think it's crazy, you know? Then they get to be our people's age, and they turn to fat." He shook his head.

  "You got a chick?" Danny asked.

  "Yeah, I got one."

  "What's her name?"

  "Aw, you don't know her."

  "Maybe I do," Danny said.

  "Her name is Juana." Tigo watched him. "She's about five-two, got these brown eyes..."

  "I think I know her," Danny said. He nodded. "Yeah, I think I know her."

  "She's nice, ain't she?" Tigo asked. He leaned forward, as if Danny's answer was of great importance to him.

  "Yeah, she's nice," Danny said.

  "The guys rib me about her. You know, all they're after ... well, you know ... they don't understand something like Juana."

  "I got a chick, too," Danny said.

  "Yeah. Hey, maybe sometime we could ..." Tigo cut himself short. He looked down at the gun, and his sudden enthusiasm seemed to ebb completely. "It's your turn," he said.

  "Here goes nothing," Danny said. He twirled the cylinder, sucked in his breath, and then fired.

  The empty click was loud in the stillness of the room.

  "Man!" Danny said.

  "We're pretty lucky, you know?" Tigo said.

  "So far."

  "We better lower the odds. The boys won't like it if we..." He stopped himself again, and then reached for one of the cartridges on the table. He broke open the gun again, and slipped the second cartridge into the cylinder. "Now we got two cartridges in here," he said. "Two cartridges, six chambers. That's four to two. Divide it, and you get two to one." He paused. "You game?"

  "That's ... that's what we're here for, ain't it?"

  "Sure."

  "OK then."

  "Gone," Tigo said, nodding his head. "You got courage, Danny."

  "You're the one needs the courage," Danny said gently. "It's your spin."

  Tigo lifted the gun. Idly, he began spinning the cylinder.

  "You live on the next block, don't you?" Danny asked.
>
  "Yeah." Tigo kept slapping the cylinder. It spun with a gently whirring sound.

  "That's how come we never crossed paths, I guess. Also, I'm new on the scene."

  "Yeah, well you know, you get hooked up with one club, that's the way it is."

  "You like the guys on your club?" Danny asked, wondering why he was asking such a stupid question, listening to the whirring of the cylinder at the same time.

  "They're OK." Tigo shrugged. "None of them really send me, but that's the club on my block, so what're you gonna do, huh?" His hand left the cylinder. It stopped spinning. He put the gun to his head.

  "Wait!" Danny said.

  Tigo looked puzzled. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. I just wanted to say... I mean ..." Danny frowned. "I don't dig too many of the guys on my club, either."

  Tigo nodded. For a moment, their eyes locked. Then Tigo shrugged, and fired.

  The empty click filled the basement room.

  "Phew," Tigo said.

  "Man, you can say that again."

  Tigo slid the gun across the table.

  Danny hesitated an instant. He did not want to pick up the gun. He felt sure that this time the firing pin would strike the percussion cap of one of the cartridges. He was sure that this time he would shoot himself.

  "Sometimes I think I'm turkey," he said to Tigo, surprised that his thoughts had found voice.

  "I feel that way sometimes, too," Tigo said.

  "I never told that to nobody" Danny said. "The guys on my club would laugh at me, I ever told them that."

  "Some things you got to keep to yourself. There ain't nobody you can trust in this world"'

  "There should be somebody you can trust," Danny said. "Hell, you can't tell nothing to your people. They don't understand."

  Tigo laughed. "That's an old story. But that's the way things are. What're you gonna do?"