The Best American Noir of the Century

by James Ellroy

  Kirxy drove to the highway. The big .30–06 he hadn't touched in years was on the seat next to him, and as he steered he pushed cartridges into the clip, then shoved the clip into the gun's underbelly. He pulled the lever that injected a cartridge into the chamber and took a long drink of whiskey to wash down three of the pills that helped dull the ache in his knees, and the one in his gut.

  It was almost dark when he arrived at the edge of a large field. He parked facing the grass. This was a place a few hundred yards from a fairly well-traveled blacktop, a spot no sane poacher would dare use. There were already two or three deer creeping into the open from the woods across the field. They came to eat the tall grass, looking up only when a car passed, their ears swiveling, jaws frozen, sprigs of grass twitching in their lips like the legs of insects.

  Kirxy sat watching. He sipped his whiskey and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. Both truck doors were locked and he knew this was a very stupid thing he was doing. Several times he told himself to go home, let things unfold as they would. Then he saw the faces of the two dead boys. And the face of the live one.

  When Boo had killed himself, the oldest two had barely been teenagers, but it was eleven-year-old Wayne who'd found him. That truck still had windows then, and the back windshield had been sprayed red with blood. Flies had gathered at the top of the truck in what Wayne discovered was a twenty-two-caliber hole. Kirxy frowned, thinking of it. Boo's hat still on his head, a small hole through the hat, too. The back of the truck was full of wood Boo'd been cutting, and the three boys had unloaded the wood and stacked it neatly beside the road. Kirxy shifted in his seat, imagining the boys pushing that truck for two miles over dirt roads, somehow finding the leverage or whatever, the goddamn strength, to get it home. To pull their father from inside and bury him. To clean out the truck. Kirxy shuddered and thought of Frank David, then made himself think of his wife instead. He rubbed his biceps and watched the shadows creep across the field, the tree line dim and begin to disappear.

  Soon it was full dark. He unscrewed the interior light bulb from the ceiling, pulled the door lock up quietly. Holding his breath, he opened the door. Outside, he propped the rifle on the side mirror, flicked the safety off. He reached through the window, felt along the dash for the headlight switch, pulled it.

  The field blazed with the eyes of deer—red hovering dots staring back at him. Kirxy aimed and squeezed the trigger at the first pair of eyes. Not waiting to see if he'd hit the deer, he moved the gun to another pair. He'd gotten off five shots before the eyes began to disappear. When the last echo from the gun faded, at least three deer lay dead or wounded in the glow of his headlights. One doe bleated weakly and bleated again. Kirxy coughed and took the gun back into the truck, closed the door, and reloaded in the dark. Then he waited. The doe kept bleating and things in the woods took shape, detached, and whisked toward Kirxy over the grass like spooks. And the little noises. Things like footsteps. And the stories. Frank David appearing in the bed of somebody's moving truck and punching through the back glass, grabbing and breaking the driver's arm. Leaping from the truck and watching while it wrecked.

  "Quit it," Kirxy croaked. "You damn schoolgirl."

  Several more times that night he summoned his nerve and flicked on the headlights, firing at any eyes he saw or firing at nothing. When he finally fell asleep just after two A.M., his body numb with painkillers and whiskey, he dreamed of his wife on the day of her first miscarriage. The way the nurses couldn't find the vein in her arm, how they'd kept trying with the needle, the way she'd cried and held his fingers tightly, like a woman giving birth.

  He started awake, terrified, as if he'd fallen asleep driving.

  Caring less for silence, he stumbled from the truck and flicked on the lights and fired at the eyes, though now they were doubling up, floating in the air. He lowered the gun and for no good reason found himself thinking of a time when he'd tried fly-fishing, standing in his yard with his wife watching from the porch, Tarzan of the Apes in her lap, him whipping the line in the air, showing off, and then the strange pulling you get when you catch a fish, Betty jumping to her feet, the book falling, and her yelling that he'd caught a bat, for heaven's sake, a bat!

  He climbed back into the truck. His hands shook so hard he had trouble getting the door locked. He bowed his head, missing her so much that he cried, softly and for a long time.

  Dawn found him staring at a field littered with dead does, yearlings, and fawns. One of the deer, only wounded, tried to crawl toward the safety of the trees. Kirxy got out of the truck and vomited colorless water, then stood looking around at the foggy morning. He lifted his rifle and limped into the grass in the drizzle and, a quick hip shot, put the deer out of its misery.

  He was sitting on the open tailgate trying to light a cigarette when Goodloe and a deputy passed in their Blazer and stopped.

  The sheriff stepped out, signaling for the deputy to stay put. He sat beside Kirxy on the tailgate, the truck dipping with his weight. His stomach was growling and he patted it absently.

  "You old fool," Goodloe said, staring at Kirxy and then at the field. "You figured to make Frank David show himself?" He shook his head. "Good Lord Almighty, Kirxy. What'll it take to prove to you there ain't no damn game warden out there? Not yet, anyhow."

  Kirxy didn't answer. Goodloe went to the Blazer and told the deputy to pick him up at Kirxy's store. Then he helped the old man into the passenger seat and went around and got in the driver's side. He took the rifle and unloaded it, put its clip in his pocket.

  "We'll talk about them deer later," he said. "Now I'd better get you back."

  They'd gone a silent mile when Kirxy said, "Would you mind running me by Esther's?"

  Goodloe shrugged and turned that way. His stomach made a strangling noise. The rain and wind were picking up, rocking the truck. The sheriff took a bottle of whiskey from his pocket. "Medicinal," he said, handing the bottle to Kirxy. "It's just been two freak accidents, is all, Kirxy. I've seen some strange shit, a lot stranger than this. Them Gateses is just a unlucky bunch. Period. I ain't one to go believing in curses, but I swear to God if they ain't downright snakebit."

  Soon Goodloe had parked in front of Esther's and they sat waiting for the rain to slack. Kirxy rubbed his knees and looked out the windows where the trees were half-submerged in the rising floodwaters.

  "They say old Esther has her a root cellar," Goodloe said, taking a sip. "Shit. I expect it's full of water this time of year. She's probably got cottonmouths wrapped around her plumbing"' He shuddered and offered the bottle. Kirxy took it and sipped. He gave it back and Goodloe took it and drank, then drank again. "Lord if that don't hit the spot.

  "When I was in the service," Goodloe went on, "over in Thailand? They had them little bitty snakes, them banded kraits. Poison as cobras, what they told us. Used to hide up under the commode lid. Every time you took you a shit, you had to lift up the lid, see was one there." He drank. "Yep. It was many a time I kicked one off in the water, flushed it down."

  "Wait here," Kirxy said. He opened the door, his pants leg darkening as the rain poured in, cold as needles. He set his knee out deliberately, planted his cane in the mud and pulled himself up, stood in water to his ankles. He limped across the yard with his hand blocking the rain. There were two chickens on the front porch, their feathers fluffed out so that they looked strange, menacing. Kirxy climbed the porch steps with the pain so strong in his knees that stars popped near his face by the time he reached the top. He leaned against the house, breathing hard. Touched himself at the throat where a tie might've gone. Then he rapped gently with the hook of his cane. The door opened immediately. Dark inside. She stood there, looking at him.

  "How come you don't ever stop by the store anymore?" he asked.

  She folded her arms.

  "Scott's dead," he said.

  "I heard," Esther said. "And I'm leaving. Fuck this place and every one of you."

  She closed the door and Kirxy would never
see her again.

  At the store, Goodloe nodded for the deputy to stay in the Blazer, then he took Kirxy by the elbow and helped him up the steps. He unlocked the door for him and held his hand as the old man sank in his chair.

  "Want those boots off?" Goodloe asked, spreading a blanket over Kirxy's lap.

  He bent and unlaced the left, then the right.

  "Pick up your foot.

  "Now the other one."

  He set the wet boots by the stove.

  "It's a little damp in here. I'll light this thing"

  He found a box of kitchen matches on a shelf under the counter among the glass figurines Kirxy's wife had collected. The little deer. The figure skater. The unicorn. Goodloe got a fire going in the stove and stood warming the backs of his legs.

  "I'll bring Wayne by a little later," he said, but Kirxy didn't seem to hear.

  ***

  Goodloe sat in his office with his feet on the desk, rolling a cartridge between his fingers. Despite himself, he was beginning to think Kirxy might be right. Maybe Frank David was out there on the prowl. He stood, put on his pistol belt and walked to the back, pushed open the swinging door and had Roy buzz him through. So far he'd had zero luck getting anything out of Wayne. The boy just sat in his cell wrapped in a blanket, not talking to anybody. Goodloe had told him about his brother's death, and he'd seen no emotion cross the boy's face. Goodloe figured that it wasn't this youngest one who'd killed that game warden, it'd probably been the others. He knew that this boy wasn't carrying a full cylinder, the way he never talked, but he had most likely been a witness. He'd been considering calling in the state psychologist from the Searcy Mental Hospital to give the boy an evaluation.

  "Come on," Goodloe said, stopping by Wayne's cell. "I'm fixing to put your talent to some good use."

  He kept the boy cuffed as the deputy drove them toward the trestle.

  "Turn your head, Dave," Goodloe said, handing Wayne a pint of Old Crow. The boy took it in both hands and unscrewed the lid, began to drink too fast.

  "Slow down there, partner," Goodloe said, taking back the bottle. "You need to be alert."

  Soon they stood near the trestle, gazing at the flat shapes of the boat on the bank. Wayne knelt and examined the ground. The deputy came up and started to say something, but Goodloe motioned for quiet.

  "Just like a goddern bloodhound"' he whispered. "Maybe I oughta give him your job."

  "Reckon what he's after?" the deputy asked.

  Wayne scrabbled up the trestle, and the two men followed. The boy walked slowly over the rails, examining the spaces between the crossties. He stopped, bent down, and peered at something. Picked it up.

  "What you got there, boy?" Goodloe called, going and squatting beside him. He took a sip of Old Crow.

  When Wayne hit him, two-handed, the bottle flew one way and Goodloe the other. Both landed in the river, Goodloe with his hand clapped to his head to keep his hat on. He came up immediately, bobbing and sputtering. On the trestle, the deputy tackled Wayne and they went down fighting on the crossties. Below, Goodloe dredged himself out of the water. He came ashore dripping and tugged his pistol from its holster. He held it up so that a thin trickle of orange water fell. He took off his hat and looked up to see the deputy disappear belly-first into the face of the river.

  Wayne ran down the track, toward the swamp. The deputy came boiling ashore. He had his own pistol drawn and was looking around vengefully.

  Goodloe climbed the trestle in time to see Wayne disappear into the woods. The sheriff chased him for a while, ducking limbs and vines, but stopped, breathing hard. The deputy passed him.

  Wayne circled back through the woods and went quickly over the soft ground, half-crawling up the sides of hills and sliding down the other sides. Two hollows over, he heard the deputy heading the wrong direction. Wayne slowed a little and just trotted for a long time in the rain, the cuffs rubbing his wrists raw. He stopped once and looked at what he'd been carrying in one hand: a match, limp and black now with water, nearly dissolved. He stood looking at the trees around him, the hanging Spanish moss and the cypress knees rising from the stagnant creek to his left.

  The hair on the back of his neck rose. He knelt, tilting his head, closing his eyes, and listened. He heard the rain, heard it hit leaves and wood and heard the puddles lapping at their tiny banks, but beyond those sounds there were other muffled noises. A mockingbird mocking a blue jay. A squirrel barking and another answering. The deputy falling, a quarter mile away. Then another sound, this one close. A match striking. Wayne began to run before opening his eyes and crashed into a tree. He rolled and ran again, tearing through limbs and briars. He leaped small creeks and slipped and got up and kept running. At every turn he expected Frank David, and he was near tears when he finally stumbled into his family graveyard.

  The first thing he saw was that Kent had been dug up. Woo den stakes surrounded the hole and fenced it in with yellow tape that had words on it. Wayne approached slowly, hugging himself. Something floated in the grave. With his heart pounding, he peered inside. A dog.

  Wary of the trees behind him, he crept toward their backyard, stopping at the edge. He crouched and blew into his hands to warm his cheeks. He gazed at the dark windows of their cabin, then circled the house, keeping to the woods. He saw the pine tree with the low limb they used for stringing up larger animals to clean, the rusty chain hanging and the iron pipe they stuck through the back legs of a deer or the rare wild pig. Kent and Scott had usually done the cleaning while Wayne fed the guts to their dogs and tried to keep the dogs from fighting.

  And there, past the tree, lay the rest of the dogs. Shot dead. Partially eaten. Buzzards standing in the mud, staring boldly at him with their heads bloody and their beaks open.

  It was dark when Kirxy woke in his chair; he'd heard the door creak. Someone stood there, and the storekeeper was afraid until he smelled the river.

  "Hey, boy," he said.

  Wayne ate two cans of potted meat with his fingers and a candy bar and a box of saltines. Kirxy gave him a Coke from the red cooler and he drank it and took another one while Kirxy got a hacksaw from the rack of tools behind the counter. He slipped the cardboard wrapping off and nodded for Wayne to sit. The storekeeper pulled up another chair and faced the boy and began sawing the handcuff chain. The match dropped out of Wayne's hand but neither saw it. Wayne sat with his head down and his palms up, his wrists on his knees, breathing heavily, while Kirxy worked and the silver shavings accumulated in a pile between their boots. The boy didn't lift his head the entire time, and he'd been asleep for quite a while when Kirxy finally sawed through. The old man rose, flexing his sore hands, and got a blanket from a shelf. He unfolded it, shook out the dust, and spread it over Wayne. He went to the door and turned the dead bolt.

  The phone rang later. It was Goodloe, asking about the boy.

  "He's asleep," Kirxy said. "You been lost all this time, Sugarbaby?"

  "That I have," Goodloe said, "and we still ain't found old Dave yet."

  For a week they stayed there together. Kirxy could barely walk now, and the pain in his side was worse than ever, but he put the boy to work, sweeping, dusting, and scrubbing the shelves. He had Wayne pull a table next to his chair, and Kirxy did something he hadn't done in years: took inventory. With the boy's help, he counted and ledgered each item, marking them in his long green book. The back shelf contained canned soups, vegetables, sardines, and tins of meat. Many of the cans were so old that the labels flaked off in Kirxy's hand, so they were unmarked when Wayne replaced them in the rings they'd made not only in the dust but on the wood itself. In the back of that last shelf, Wayne discovered four tins of Underwood Deviled Ham, and as their labels fell away at Kirxy's touch, he remembered a time when he'd purposely unwrapped the paper from these cans because each label showed several red dancing devils, and some of his Negro customers had refused to buy anything that advertised the devil.

  Kirxy now understood that his store was dead, t
hat it no longer provided a service. His Negro customers had stopped coming years before. The same with Esther. For the past few years, except for the rare hunter, he'd been in business for the Gates boys alone. He looked across the room at Wayne, spraying the windows with Windex and wiping at them absently, gazing outside. The boy wore the last of the new denim overalls Kirxy had in stock. Once, when the store had thrived, he'd had many sizes, but for the longest time now the only ones he'd stocked were the boys'.

  That night, beneath his standing lamp, Kirxy began again to read his wife's copy of Tarzan of the Apes to Wayne. He sipped his whiskey and spoke clearly, to be heard over the rain. When he paused to turn a page, he saw that the boy lay asleep across the row of chairs they'd arranged in the shape of a bed. Looking down through his bifocals, Kirxy flipped to the back of the book to the list of other Tarzan novels—twenty-four in all—and he decided to order them through the mail so Wayne would hear the complete adventures of Tarzan of the Apes.

  In the morning, Goodloe called and said that Frank David had officially arrived— the sheriff himself had witnessed the swearing-in—and he was now this district's game warden.

  "Pretty nice fellow," Goodloe said. "Kinda quiet. Polite. He asked me how the fishing was."

  Then it's over, Kirxy thought.

  A week later, Kirxy told Wayne he had to run some errands in Grove Hill. He'd spent the night before trying to decide whether to take the boy with him but had decided not to, that he couldn't watch him forever. Before he left he gave Wayne his .30–06 and told him to stay put, not to leave for anything. For himself, Kirxy took an old .22 bolt action and placed it in the back window rack of his truck. He waved to Wayne and drove off.

  He thought that if the boy wanted to run away, it was his own choice. Kirxy owed him the chance, at least.