The Best American Noir of the Century

by James Ellroy

  Brad wanted to become a lawyer and I wanted to write history books.

  "Feel it," he said, his voice low, rocking back and forth. "Feel how it's strangling us?"

  I felt it. If we didn't go to State, then next summer we'd be on that slippery slope where we couldn't get off, a life at the mill, a life of praying and hoping for a nickel-an-hour wage increase, of waiting for the five o'clock whistle. A life where we would find our friends and amusement at the Legion Hall, Drake's Pub, or Pete's Saloon, where we would sit comfortable on the barstools, swapping stories about who scored what winning touchdown at what state tournament, sipping our beers and feeling ourselves and our tongues getting thick with age and fear. Just getting along, getting older and slower, the old report cards with the perfect marks hidden away in some desk drawer, buried under old bills, a marriage certificate, and insurance policies.

  "We gotta get out," I said.

  "We do. And I know how." Brad had gotten to his feet, brushing potato-chip crumbs from his pants. "Monroe, we're going to become thieves."

  The next day we were at Outland Rock, tossing pebbles into the river. We were upstream from the mills, and the waters flowed fast and clean. About another mile south, after the river passed through town, the waters were slow and slate-gray, clogged with chemical foam and wood chips and scraps of leather. Outland Rock was a large boulder that hung over the riverbank. We were too lazy to swim, so we sat and tossed pebbles into the river, watching the wide arcs of the ripples rise up and fade away.

  "What are we going to steal?" I asked. "Gold? Diamonds? The bank president's Cadillac?"

  Brad was on his stomach, his feet heading up to the bank, his head over the water. "Don't screw with me, Monroe. I'm serious."

  I shook my head, tossing another rock in. "OK, so you're serious. Answer the question."

  "Cash." He had a stick in his hand, a broken piece of pine, and he stirred it in the water like he was casting for something. "Anything else can be traced. We steal cash and we're set."

  The day was warm and maybe it was the lazy August mood I was in—the comfortable, hazy feeling that the day would last forever and school and September would never come—but I decided to go along with him.

  "OK, cash. But you gotta realize what we're working with."

  He looked up at me, his eyes unblinking behind the thick glasses. "Go ahead, Monroe."

  "Our parents still won't let us drive by ourselves, so we're stuck with our bikes. Unless you want to steal a car to get out of town—which doubles the danger. So whatever we go after has to be in Boston Falls."

  "I hadn't thought of that."

  "There's another thing," I said. "We can't go into the National Bank or Trussen's Jewelers in broad daylight and rob 'em. In an hour they'd be looking for two kids our age and they wouldn't have a hard time tracking us down." I lay back on the rock, the surface warm against my back, and closed my eyes, listening to some birds on the other side of the river and the swish-swish as Brad moved the stick back and forth in the water.

  "Burglary," he said. I sat up, shading my face with one hand. "Burglary?"

  "Yeah. We find someone who's got a lot of cash and break into their house. Do it when no one's home and they'll blame it on some drifters or something."

  Somewhere a dog barked. "Do you realize we're actually talking about stealing, Brad? Not only is it a crime, but it's wrong. Are you thinking about that?"

  He turned to me and his face changed—I had the strange feeling I knew what he'd look like in ten years.

  "Don't get soft on me, Monroe. In another three weeks we'll be back at school. If we don't get more money this summer we're done for. 'Wrong.' Isn't it wrong that you and me have to grow up in a place like this? Isn't it wrong that we have to live alongside people who haven't read a book in years? Don't you think it's wrong that for lack of a few measly bucks we have to rot here?"

  He bent over the rock and pointed. "Look." In the shallow water I saw a nesting of mussels, their shells wide open. "There you have," he continued, "the population of Boston Falls, New Hampshire. Sitting still, dumb and happy and open, letting everything go by them, ready to snap at anything that comes within reach." He pushed his stick into one of the mussels and it snapped shut against the wood. He pulled the stick out, the mussel hanging onto the stick, dripping water. "See how they grab the first thing that comes their way?"

  He slammed the end of the stick onto the rock and the mussel exploded into black shards.

  "We're not going to grab the first thing that comes our way, Monroe. We're going to plan and get the hell out of here. That will take cash, and if that means stealing from the fat, dumb mussels in this town, that's what we'll do."

  On the ride home, Brad slowed and stopped and I pulled my rusty five-speed up next to him. A thick bank of rolling gray clouds over the hills promised a thunderstorm soon. Our T-shirts were off and tied around our waists. I was tanned from working in our garden all sum-mer but Brad was thin and white, and his chest was a bit sunken, like he'd been punched hard there and never recovered.

  "Look there," he said. I did and my stomach tightened up.

  A dead woodchuck was in the middle of the road, its legs stiff. Two large black grackles hopped around the swollen brown body, their sharp beaks at work.

  "So it's a burglary," I said. "Whose house?"

  He shrugged his bony shoulders. "I'll find the right one. I'll go roaming."

  Roaming. It was one of Brad's favorite things to do. At night, after everyone at his house was asleep, he would sneak out and roam around the dark streets and empty backyards of Boston Falls. The one time I'd gone with him, I thought he was just being a Peeping Tom or something, but it wasn't that simple. He just liked watching what people did, I think, and he moved silently from one lighted window to another. I didn't like it at all. I wasn't comfortable out on the streets or in the fields at night, and I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was trespassing.

  Brad rolled his bike closer to the dead woodchuck. "Are you in, Monroe? We're running out of time."

  Thunder boomed from the hills and I glanced up and saw a flash of lightning. "We better get going if we're going to beat the storm."

  "I said, are you with me?"

  The wind shifted, blowing the leaves on the trees in great gusts. "Brad, we gotta get moving."

  "You get moving," he said, his lips tense. "You get moving wherever you're going. I'm staying here for a bit."

  I pedaled away as fast as I could, pumping my legs up and down, thinking, I'll save a bit here and there, maybe deliver some papers, maybe just work an extra summer—there's got to be another way to get the money.

  A week later. Suppertime at my house. My brothers Jim and Henry had eaten early and gone out, leaving me alone with my parents. My brother Tom was still in the hospital in Hanover. My parents visited him every Saturday and Sunday, bringing me along when I wasn't smart enough to leave the house early. I guess you could say I loved my brother, but the curled-over, thin figure with wires and tubes in the noisy hospital ward didn't seem to be him anymore.

  We sat in the kitchen, a plastic tablecloth on the table, my mother, looking worn and tired, still wearing her apron. My dad wore his shirt and tie. His crewcut looked sweaty and he smelled of the mill. On his right shirt pocket was a plastic penholder that said PARKER DOES IT RIGHT with four pens. Supper was fried baloney, leftover mashed potatoes, and canned yellow string beans. I tried to talk about what went on at the mill that day—a pile of boxes stuffed full of leather hiking boots had fallen and almost hit me—but my parents nodded and said nothing and I finally concentrated on quietly cleaning my plate. The fried baloney left a puddle of grease that flowed into the lumpy white potatoes.

  My father looked over at Mom and she hung her head, and he seemed to shrug his shoulders before he said, "Monroe?"

  "Yes?"

  He put his knife and fork down and folded his hands, as if we were suddenly in church.

  "At work today they announced a
cutback." He looked at me and then looked away, as if someone had walked past the kitchen window. "Some people are being laid off and the rest of us are having a pay cut."

  "Oh." The baloney and potatoes were now very cold.

  "Tom is still very sick, and until he—gets better, we still have to pay the bills. With the cutback—well, Monroe, we need the money you've saved."

  I looked at my mother, but she didn't look up. "Oh," I said, feeling dumb, feeling blank.

  "I know you've got your heart set on college, but this is a family emergency—that has to come first, a family has to stick together. Jim and Henry have agreed to help—"

  "With what?" I said, clenching my knife and fork tight. "They don't save anything at all."

  "No, but they're giving up part of their paychecks. All we ask is that you do your part."

  Then Mom spoke up. "There's always next year," she said. "Not all of your friends are going to college, are they? You'll be with them next summer."

  Dad gave me a weak smile. "Besides, I never went to college, and I'm doing all right. Monroe, it's just temporary, until things improve with Tom."

  Until he gets better or until he dies, I thought. I didn't know what to say next, so I finished eating and went down the hallway to my bedroom and got the dark brown passbook from First Merchants of Boston Falls and brought it back and gave it to my father.

  Back in my bedroom, I lay on the bed, staring up at the models of airplanes and rocket ships hanging from thin black threads attached to the ceiling. I looked at my textbooks and other books on the bookshelves I made myself. I curled up and didn't think of much at all, and after a while I fell asleep.

  There was a tapping at my window and I threw the top sheet off and went over, lifting up the window screen. I stood there in my shorts, looking at Brad on the back lawn. My glow-in-the-dark clock said it was two in the morning.

  "What is it?" I whispered.

  "I found it," he whispered back, leaning forward so his head was almost through the open window. "I found the place."

  "Whose house is it?"

  "Mike Willard's."

  "Mike? The ex-Marine?"

  "That's right," Brad said. "I've watched him two nights in a row. He goes into his bedroom and underneath his bed he's got this little strong-box—before shutting off the light and going to bed he opens it up and goes through it. Monroe, he's got tons of money in there. Wads as big as your fist."

  "You saw it?"

  "Of course I did. I was in a tree in his yard. He must've been saving up all his life. You never saw so much money."

  The night air was warm but goose bumps traveled up and down my arms. "How do we do it?"

  "Easy. He lives out on Tanner Avenue. We can get to it by cutting through the woods. His house has hedges all around. It'll be a cinch."

  I chewed on my lip. "When?" I asked.

  Brad grinned at me. I could almost smell the sense of excitement. "Tomorrow. It's Saturday—your parents will be in Hanover and Mike goes to the Legion Hall every afternoon. We'll do it while he's there."

  I didn't argue. "Fine," I said.

  The next afternoon we were in a stand of trees facing a well-mowed backyard. Tall green hedges flanked both sides of the yard, and the two-story white house with the tall gables was quiet. Beside me, Brad was hunched over, peering around a tree trunk. We heard a door slam and saw Mike Willard walk down his drive and down the street. His posture was straight as a pine, his white hair cut in a crewcut.

  "Let's give him a few minutes," Brad said. "Make sure he didn't forget anything."

  I nodded. My heart was pounding so hard I wondered if Brad could hear it. I knew what we were doing was wrong, I knew it wouldn't be right to steal Mike Willard's money, but money was all I could think of. Wa ds as big as my fist, Brad had said.

  "Go time," Brad said, and he set off across the yard. I followed. There were no toys or picnic tables or barbecue sets in Mike Willard's backyard, just a fine lawn, as if he mowed it every other day. Up on the back porch I had the strange feeling we should knock or something. I was scared Mike would come back and yell, "Boys, what the hell do you want?" or that a mailman would walk up the drive and ask if Mike was home. I almost hoped a mailman would come, but Brad picked up a rock and went to the door and it was too late. He smashed a pane of glass—the sound was so loud it seemed like every police cruiser within miles would be sent around—then he reached in and unlocked the door, motioning me to follow him inside. A small voice told me to stay outside and let him go in alone, but I followed him into the kitchen, my sneakers crunching on the glass.

  The kitchen smelled clean and everything was shiny and still. There weren't even any dishes in the sink.

  "God, look how clean it is," I said.

  "Tell me about it. My mom should keep our house so clean."

  The kitchen table was small and square, with only two chairs. There was one placemat out, a blue woven thing with stars and anchors, and I thought of Mike Willard coming home every night to this empty house, opening a can of spaghetti maybe and eating alone at his table. I looked at Brad and wanted to say, "Come on, let's not do it," because I got a bad feeling at the thought of Mike coming home and finding he'd been robbed, that someone had been in his house, but Brad looked at me hard and I followed him down the hallway.

  The bedroom was small and cramped, with neatly labeled cardboard boxes piled on one side of the room and a long bureau on the other, on the other side of the bed. The labels on the boxes read CHINA 34, IWO 45, OCC, and things like that. Brad pointed at the walls, where pictures and other items were hanging. "Look, there's Mike there, I think. I wonder where it was taken. Guadalcanal, maybe?"

  The faded black-and-white picture showed a group of young men standing in a jungle clearing, tired-looking, in uniforms and beards, holding rifles and automatic weapons. There was no name on the picture but I recognized a younger Mike Willard, hair short and ears sticking out, standing off to one side.

  I heard a board creak. "Shh!" I said. "Did you hear that?"

  "Yeah. This is an old house, Monroe."

  "Well, let's get going"' I said, rubbing my palms against my jeans. They were very sweaty.

  "What's the rush?" Brad said, his eyes laughing at me from behind his glasses. "Old Mike's down at the Legion, telling the boys how he won the big one back in '45. Look here."

  Below an American flag and a furled Japanese flag was a sheathed curved sword resting on two wooden pegs. Brad took it down and slid it out of its scabbard. He ran a thumb across the blade and took a few swings through the air. "I wonder if Mike bought it or got it off some dead Jap."

  By now I was glancing out the window, wondering if anyone could see us. Brad put the sword down and climbed onto the bed. "Hold on a sec," he said.

  The bed was a brown four-poster. Brad reached under the pillows and pulled out a handgun, large and oily-looking. "A .45. Can you believe it? Old Mike sleeps with a .45 under his pillow."

  "Brad, stop fooling around"' I said. "Let's get the box and go." But I could tell he was enjoying himself too much.

  "Hold it, I just want to see if it works." He moved his hand across the top of the gun and part of it slid back and forth with a loud click-clack. "There," he said. "Just call me John Wayne. This sucker's ready to fire. I might take it with me when we leave."

  He took the gun and stuck it in his waistband, then reached over and pulled a dull gray strongbox with a simple clasp lock from under the bed. My mouth felt dry and suddenly I was no longer nervous. I was thinking of all the money.

  Brad rubbed his hands across the box. "Look, partner. In here's our ticket out."

  Then Mike Willard was at the bedroom door, his face red, and I could smell the beer from where I was standing, almost five feet away. "You!" he roared. "What the hell are you doing in here? I'm gonna beat the crap out of you boys!"

  I back-stepped quickly, tripping over the cardboard boxes and falling flat on my butt, wondering what to do next, wondering what I coul
d say. Brad scampered across the other side of the bed, pulling out the gun and saying in a squeaky voice, "Hold it." Mike Willard swore and took two large steps, grabbing the sword and swinging it at Brad. I closed my eyes and there was a loud boom that jarred my teeth. There was a crash and an awful grunt, and another crash, then a sharp scent of smoke that seemed to cut right through me.

  When I opened my eyes, Brad was sitting across from me, the gun in his lap, both of his hands pressed against his neck. He was very pale and his glasses had been knocked off—without them he looked five years younger.

  "It hurts," he said. And then I saw the bright redness seep through his fingers and trickle down his bare arms.

  "God," I breathed.

  "I can't see," he said. "Where's Mike?"

  I got up, weaving slightly, and saw Mike's feet sticking out from the other side of the bed. I crawled across the bed and peered over. Mike was on his back, his arms splayed out, his mouth open like he was still trying to yell, but his eyes were closed and there was a blossom of red spreading across his green work shirt. I stared at him for what seemed hours but his chest didn't move. When I looked up, Brad was resting his back against the bed. Both of his arms were soaked red and I gazed at him, almost fascinated by the flow of blood down his thin wrists. His face was now the color of chalk.

  "Wait, I'll get a towel," I said.

  "No, you idiot. If I take my hands away, I'm dead. An artery's gone. Listen. Take the box and call an ambulance."

  "I think Mike's dead, Brad."

  "Shut up," he said, his teeth clenched. "Just grab the box, hide it, and get help! We're juveniles—nothing's going to happen to us! Get going!" I grabbed the box and was out of the house, running through the woods, the strongbox tight against my chest. The air was fresh and smelled wonderful, and I ran all the way home.