Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  The more he said it, the more he knew it was true. What had he done, frightening the girl half to death? Marco cursed the slowness of the treadles as the boat bumped its way out of the tunnel. The mechanism wasn’t working properly. But there was no time to bother about that. He had to bring Dolores around.

  He kissed her hair. He kissed her ear. She was still cold. “Come on, honey,” he whispered. “Brace up. This is the Tunnel of Love, remember?”

  The boat bumped out into the daylight. Marco stared ahead. They were safe now. Safe from the tunnel, safe from Belle. He and Dolores . . .

  Dolores.

  Marco peered at the prow of the bumping gondola as it creaked over the treadles. He peered at the obstruction floating in its path; floating face upward in the water as if tied to the boat with a red string running from its gashed forehead.

  Dolores!

  She had fallen in the water when she jumped out of the gondola, fallen and struck her head the way Belle had struck her head. It was Dolores’s body that bumped against the front of the boat and retarded its progress. She was dead.

  But if that was Dolores out there in the water, then what . . .

  Marco turned his head, ever so slowly. For the first time he glanced down at the seat beside him, at what lay cradled in his arms.

  For the first time Marco saw what he had been kissing . . .

  . . . the boat glided back into the Tunnel of Love.

  Tony

  William Relling

  William Relling is currently a screenwriter in Hollywood where he continues to write quite good horror stories that seem, slowly, to be edging more toward the crime category. He has his own style and it is nowhere more evident than in his fine horror novels.

  First published in 1990.

  They found what was left of the night nurse, the pretty one named Theresa, stuffed in a linen closet near the tub room on the second floor. She wasn’t very pretty when they found her. One of the housekeepers opened the door and saw her first, and she screamed and screamed. They let her go home early for the day.

  Judy, the head nurse on the day shift, called the police. A couple of orderlies took Theresa’s body down to the hospital morgue on a stretcher, covered with a white sheet that they brought with them. They couldn’t use any of the ones from the closet where they found Theresa. They were all red and sticky.

  The orderlies didn’t take her body away until after the first policemen came, the ones who wore uniforms. The policemen who came later wore suits and ties. One of them had a camera, and another had something that looked kind of like a fishing tackle box. He took out some kind of powder and they brushed it around the closet. He was looking for fingerprints, just like they do on television.

  Another one was with Dr. Woodburn when he came to do his rounds. The policeman went into the conference room with Dr. Woodburn after the doctor had stopped off at the nurses’ station and got all of his patients’ charts. I didn’t find out that the man with Dr. Woodburn was a policeman until later.

  Dr. Woodburn called me into conference after he had talked to Lila. I sat down in my same seat as always. Dr. Woodburn sat in his seat at the other end of the table. The policeman was sitting next to him. I pulled an ashtray over next to me and lit a cigarette.

  “Are you feeling all right today, John?” asked Dr. Woodburn. He had my chart open in front of him.

  “Not so bad now,” I said.

  He paged through my chart. Then he looked at me, and he made a noise like he was clearing his throat. “John,” Dr. Woodburn said, “this man is a police detective. A homicide detective. I think it will be all right if he asks you some questions.”

  I sort of smiled, then nodded to them.

  “My name is Sergeant Stephens,” said the policeman.

  “How do you do,” I said.

  “I’m fine,” he answered. He had a funny look on his face, like he wasn’t sure what to say to me.

  “You don’t have to be afraid to talk to me, Sergeant,” I said. “I know where I am and why I’m here. And I don’t rant or rave or hit myself or make trouble. And I know why you’re here, too.” He looked at Dr. Woodburn.

  “He didn’t tell me anything,” I went on. “We all know. And I’m not stupid. I’m just crazy.”

  Sgt. Stephens got that funny look again.

  “Mr. Garbo knows what he’s saying, Sergeant,” Dr. Woodburn said softly.

  The policeman took a deep breath. “Okay, Mr. Garbo,” he said to me. “You know about Nurse Caputo?”

  I nodded.

  “Did you know her personally?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I answered. “She’d been here for almost a year.” Sgt. Stephens looked surprised. “You’ve been here that long?” I laughed. “Of course not,” I said. “At least not this time. But I’ve been here before. They do allow us to talk to the nurses, Sergeant. Even at night.”

  “John,” Dr. Woodburn warned me.

  “Sorry,” I said. I turned back to Sgt. Stephens. “Yes. I knew Theresa.”

  “Did you know her very well?”

  I shrugged. “As well as any of the rest of the staff, I suppose.

  She was a pleasant enough person. Not really any different from anybody else.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “We weren’t friends, Sergeant, if that’s what you mean. I’m a patient. She’s a nurse. She had her job . . .” I smiled again. “And I have mine.”

  He was writing in a brown notebook that he’d pulled from one of the pockets in his suit coat. “Is there anything else you can tell me about last night?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Like did you see anything or did you hear anything—”

  “You mean ‘out of the ordinary’?” I cut in. I was smiling again. “You know, Sergeant,” I said, “this is really a lot more like television than I thought it would be.”

  “Did you see anything, Mr. Garbo?” he asked.

  I crushed my cigarette in the ashtray.

  “Answer him please, John,” said Dr. Woodburn.

  “All right,” I said, giving in. I was angry with them. “There was nothing unusual about last night. Lila had a fit because she was out-voted and didn’t get to watch Happy Days. And my brother Rod and his wife came to see me, but they left about eight-thirty. I went to my room and read until about eleven o’clock, and then I feel asleep. I woke up when I heard Mrs. Thompson screaming, which was about six this morning. They made us all stay in our rooms, and we didn’t get breakfast until after eight. My cereal was soggy.” I pointed at his notebook. “Be sure you get that down, Sergeant,” I said. “I want to register a complaint.”

  He frowned at me and closed the notebook. “Thank you, Mr. Garbo,” he said. He wasn’t happy.

  “That’s all, John,” Dr. Woodburn said, dismissing me.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “ ‘That’s all’? You’re not going to talk to me, Doctor . . . ?”

  “Not today.”

  “Now just hold on . . .”

  I paused. They were looking at me sternly. They wanted me to leave.

  I looked down at the ashtray. “I know who killed Theresa,” I said.

  “I didn’t hear you, John,” said Dr. Woodburn.

  “I said I know who killed Theresa, dammit!” I slammed a fist on the table. They both jumped.

  The policeman looked from Dr. Woodburn to me, then back to Dr. Woodburn again. I thought for a minute that he looked scared.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry . . .”

  “It’s all right, John,” said Dr. Woodburn.

  “Do you?” Sgt. Stephens asked me. “Do you know who killed Miss Caputo?”

  I lit another cigarette. Neither of them saw my hand shaking. I made it stop before they could see it.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” I said calmly. “I know.”

  “Who?” he asked. He was leaning way forward over the table. I looked to Dr. Woodburn. “Do you know something, John?” he asked me.

  The policeman was
staring hard at me. He began to push himself up out of his chair, but Dr. Woodburn put a hand on his arm to stop him. He shook it off and stood up.

  “Mr. Garbo,” the policeman said in a voice that was very official, “you didn’t see Miss Caputo’s body, did you? But you knew her. Do you want to know how she looked when we found her?” Dr. Woodburn said, “Hold on, Sergeant—”

  The policeman snapped at him: “No, Doctor! If he knows something then I want to know!”

  Sgt. Stephens turned to me again. “An animal killed her, Mr. Garbo,” he said. “She was ripped to pieces.”

  I was still calm. “An animal?” I said.

  “That’s right. Now, I don’t know anything more about you than what your doctor told me before you came in—”

  “Paranoid schizophrenia,” I said helpfully.

  His eyes flashed angrily. “I don’t care about that!” he shouted. “But I don’t think that you’re too crazy to understand that everybody here is in danger until we catch Theresa Caputo’s killers!”

  “Touché, Sergeant,” I said.

  He demanded: “If you know something about this maniac—” Dr. Woodburn grabbed the policeman by the arm. “That’s enough, Sergeant,” he said harshly. “This is a psychiatric unit and John is a patient. He’s not a criminal. I’d appreciate it if you would keep that in mind.”

  The policeman fell back into his chair. “I apologize, Mr. Garbo,” he said.

  Dr. Woodburn looked down the table at me. “Do you know something, John?” he asked quietly.

  I was looking down at the ashtray again. “I know,” I said. Dr. Woodburn said, “I can’t hear you when you mumble.”

  “I said ‘I know’.”

  The policeman leaned forward “You know who killed her?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I know. He told me.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Tony.”

  “Tony who?”

  It surprised me that he was so stupid. “Tony, Tony,” I said. “How many Tonys are there here?”

  The policeman turned to Dr. Woodburn and questioned the doctor with his eyes. Dr. Woodburn shrugged. “I don’t have any patients named Tony in the unit,” he said.

  “A woman’s name, maybe?”

  “Perhaps,” said Dr. Woodburn. He got up out of his chair. “It may be another patient, belonging to another doctor. I can check the register at the nurses’ station.”

  On his way out of the conference room Dr. Woodburn paused when he reached my chair. “Help him, John,” he whispered. “Tell him what you know.” Dr. Woodburn walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  I was turned around in my chair, looking at the door.

  “Tony who?” the policeman said to my back.

  I spun around.

  He was glaring at me. “Tony who?” he repeated.

  I shook my head. “You know, Sergeant,” I said, “you’re not as smart as I first thought you were.”

  He came out of his chair. “Listen to me,” he spat angrily. “If you’re just screwing around with me . . . I don’t give a damn if you’re supposed to be sick or not—but you know something and you’re gonna tell me!”

  He was shaking a finger at me and his eyes were popping. I thought that his face would explode.

  “I told you already,” I said. “Tony.”

  His face was bright red with rage. “Tony who!?!”

  I gave him as hard a look as I could manage. “You’re so stupid,” I said.

  That’s when he slapped me.

  Like last night, in the middle of the night, when Theresa slapped me. When all I wanted to do was touch her, and she slapped me and called me an animal.

  So Tony killed her. Like an animal.

  The conference room was soundproofed, but that didn’t matter. Tony never gave Sgt. Stephens a chance to scream.

  Dr. Woodburn was the first one in there. The other policemen were still on the unit, and the doctor called them in right away.

  Sgt. Stephens lay on the table. His head hung over the edge, right at the point where his throat had been chewed open, after he had been strangled. His throat was gaping, and the air from his windpipe made the blood bubble over his suit. His eyes were open.

  Then they saw me.

  I was sitting in Dr. Woodburn’s chair. I smiled at them.

  They were staring at my face.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand then looked down at it. My hand was bloody. I smiled again.

  I told them. It was an animal, just like Sgt. Stephens said. It was Tony.

  Like in Tony the Tiger. You know: Grrrrrrrreeeeeaat!

  Then I growled.

  By the Hair of

  the Head

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Joe R. Lansdale is the Mark Twain of the suspense field—dark as he gets, there’s always laughter in the grief; and violent as he gets, there’s always dignity, and even redemption, in the finale. There’s nobody else like him. He’s going to be big-big, and soon.

  First published in 1983.

  The lighthouse was grey and brutally weathered, kissed each morning by a cold, salt spray. Perched there among the rocks and sand, it seemed a last, weak sentinel against an encroaching sea; a relentless, pounding surf that had slowly swallowed up the shoreline and deposited it in the all-consuming belly of the ocean.

  Once the lighthouse had been bright-colored, candy-striped like a barber’s pole, with a high beacon light and a horn that honked out to the ships on the sea. No more. The lighthouse director, the last of a long line of sea watchers, had cashed in the job ten years back when the need died, but the lighthouse was now his and he lived there alone, bunked down nightly to the tune of the wind and the raging sea.

  Below he had renovated the bottom of the tower and built rooms, and one of these he had locked away from all persons, from all eyes but his own.

  I came there fresh from college to write my novel, dreams of being the new Norman Mailer dancing in my head. I rented in with him, as he needed a boarder to help him pay for the place, for he no longer worked and his pension was as meager as stale bread.

  High up in the top was where we lived, a bamboo partition drawn between our cots each night, giving us some semblance of privacy, and dark curtains were pulled round the thick, foggy windows that traveled the tower completely around.

  By day the curtains were drawn and the partition was pulled and I sat at my typewriter, and he, Howard Machen, sat with his book and his pipe, swelled the room full of grey smoke the thickness of his beard. Sometimes he rose and went below, but he was always quiet and never disturbed my work.

  It was a pleasant life. Agreeable to both of us. Mornings we had coffee outside on the little railed walkway and had a word or two as well, then I went to my work and he to his book, and at dinner we had food and talk and brandies; sometimes one, sometimes two, depending on mood and the content of our chatter.

  We sometimes spoke of the lighthouse and he told me of the old days, of how he had shone that light out many times on the sea. Out like a great, bright fishing line to snag the ships and guide them in; let them follow the light in the manner that Theseus followed Ariadne’s thread.

  “Was fine,” he’d say. “That pretty old light flashing out there. Best job I had in all my born days. Just couldn’t leave her when she shut down, so I bought her.”

  “It is beautiful up here, but lonely at times.”

  “I have my company.”

  I took that as a compliment, and we tossed off another brandy. Any idea of my writing later I cast aside. I had done four good pages and was content to spit the rest of the day away in talk and dreams.

  “You say this was your best job,” I said as a way of conversation. “What did you do before this?”

  He lifted his head and looked at me over the briar and its smoke. His eyes squinted against the tinge of the tobacco. “A good many things. I was born in Wales. Moved to Ireland with my family, was brought up there, and went to work there. Learned the car
pentry trade from my father. Later I was a tailor. I’ve also been a mason—note the rooms I built below with my own two hands—and I’ve been a boat builder and a ventriloquist in a magician’s show.”

  “A ventriloquist?”

  “Correct,” he said, and his voice danced around me and seemed not to come from where he sat.

  “Hey, that’s good.”

  “Not so good really. I was never good, just sort of fell into it. I’m worse now. No practice, but I’ve no urge to take it up again.”

  “I’ve an interest in such things.”

  “Have you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever tried a bit of voice throwing?”

  “No. But it interests me. The magic stuff interests me more. You said you worked in a magician’s show?”

  “That I did. I was the lead-up act.”

  “Learn any of the magic tricks, being an insider and all?”

  “That I did, but that’s not something I’m interested in,” he said flatly.

  “Was the magician you worked for good?”

  “Damn good, m’boy. But his wife was better.”

  “His wife?”

  “Marilyn was her name. A beautiful woman.” He winked at me. “Claimed to be a witch.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “I do, I do. Said her father was a witch and she learned it and inherited it from him.”

  “Her father?”

  “That’s right. Not just women can be witches. Men too.”

  We poured ourselves another and exchanged sloppy grins, hooked elbows, and tossed it down.

  “And another to meet the first,” the old man said and poured. Then: “Here’s to company.” We tossed it off.

  “She taught me the ventriloquism, you know,” the old man said, relighting his pipe.

  “Marilyn?”

  “Right, Marilyn.”

  “She seems to have been a rather all-round lady.”

  “She was at that. And pretty as an Irish morning.”