Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  “I forgot,” he said.

  “Now, Sammy!”

  He did not want to leave the room again but he did not want her to leave either. “Wait five minutes,” he said and she said, “Naturally, Sammy,” and laughed again.

  He left and went to the liquor store on his block. If she looks around, he thought, she’ll find laundry, that’s all.

  When he came back with the bottle she was standing and dressed as before, holding the purse against her belly. When Jordan had closed the door and put the liquor bottle next to the bed, she was still standing and holding the purse as before. She clicked the catch and the purse jumped open. So did her smile.

  Jordan put money into her purse and she snapped it shut again.

  He sat down on a chair near the bed and picked up the bottle, holding it in his lap. He worked the cap off the bottle while the woman undressed. “You been out of town, Sammy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You just come back?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I’m flattered,” she said and laughed. She sat down on the bed which made metal sounds under the mattress.

  “You’re sitting on your hat,” he told her.

  She pulled it out from under her and said, “Damn it to hell. Damn it to hell, will you look at that!”

  “I—you want me to buy you a new one?”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like me to curse?”

  “I ask you, if you want me to buy you a new one, I’d buy you a new one.”

  “Don’t talk crap,” she said.

  He did not answer and watched her roll down her stocking. She rolled down one but not the other. The other one she pulled off, making it look like a skin hanging down.

  When she was naked she lay down on the bed and made a long, end-of-the-day sigh. Then she held out her hand.

  “So give it here,” she said.

  He gave her the full bottle, and she put the neck into her mouth. After the first swallow she gave a little shudder, but none after that. She took a rest and then drank more every so often.

  “Sammy?”

  “Yes?”

  “What you looking at?”

  He had been looking at the window. He could not see anything there because it was night outside but the position had been easy on his neck.

  “Just that way,” he said.

  “That way? You can’t see out, that way.”

  “You ever ride in trains much, Ruth?”

  “No,” she said. She said nothing else and drank.

  Jordan took out a cigarette and held it in his teeth. He did not know what else to say either.

  “What you looking at, Sammy?”

  “I was looking at your feet.”

  “Jeesisgawd.” Then she said he should start taking his clothes off.

  He held the cigarette in his mouth and watched her drink. The bottle gave a spark every so often, depending on how she moved it in the light. The spark from the glass was the brightest thing in the room. Then she put the bottle on top of the night stand, doing this just with her arm and without moving anything else. Her eyes were closed now and she lay still.

  He got up, took his jacket off, pulled the shirt out of his pants. He unbuttoned the shirt. “How you feeling?” he asked her.

  “Just fine, Sammy.”

  “Tell me something.”

  “What?”

  “Why come here?”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s it?” he asked her.

  “Huh?”

  “Why you come here, is what I asked you.”

  “Because nobody wants me either.” And then she laughed hard again, without opening her eyes.

  Chapter 5

  He had her the way it had been with others, not much difference anywhere and when she left, it’s a shame, he thought, but it’s of no particular importance at all. Though he knew that it could be. It could matter that the woman left him, or that she stayed. However, as at other times where he needed to know how he would feel ahead of time, he had the trick. Where he clicked over to knowing where everything was—head over here, guts over there in a box—and kept only what he could manage. It was like looking at himself under glass.

  When he had learned the trick is hard to say, but he had known it already when he had come to New York. The point is that he used it.

  It was the worst in him, he felt for a while, and then he felt it was the best, for being so useful.

  When he came to New York he lived with a relative whom he had never grown to know and who never knew him. The relative was an old woman and Jordan was no longer a child, and if they wanted anything from each other, it would not have been easy. He slept and he ate at her house and on Saturday, if he had money, he gave her some of it. He and the old woman never had any friction, which was the way Jordan managed it.

  He worked on the East Side loading boxes in somebody’s shipping department, and later he set pins in one of the nine alleys at Bandstand Bowling. Sandy had hired him and was somebody who always wore a hat. And an overcoat, most of the time.

  After work, Jordan hung around the way it was done. They did not hang around the candy store, which was the place for younger ones, but outside a bar. As if they might all have come out of the bar or were thinking about going in, though not anxiously. They were six or seven, looking bored, even about Jordan who was new and when it was not clear yet how he fit in.

  Jordan seemed no different from the others except the bully thought Jordan might be different. Who’s who was important to the bully, because of his constant worry over matters of prestige.

  “California, wasn’t it?” said the bully.

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t say why you lammed out of there.”

  “I didn’t lam. I just left.”

  “You left a long way. Why New York?”

  “It was a place to go,” said Jordan.

  “Always wanted to see the bright lights, huh?”

  That was not what Jordan had meant. New York was a place to go and so it just happened that way.

  “So how do you like the bright lights?” And the bully spat in the street. As he spat he saw two men coming out of the night club, so he did it again.

  “I don’t know,” said Jordan and looked at all the steps coming down out of the brownstones.

  “Not good enough. That what you mean?”

  “I wasn’t . . .”

  “You got uptown habits, huh?”

  “Which?”

  “You cop a feel or a lay or a candy bar, ain’t good enough for you, is what I mean.”

  It was not good enough for the bully, which was what he had meant, but Jordan was only concerned with having no friction.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I got no kicks.”

  “That you don’t,” said the bully and laughed. “That you don’t.” They all laughed with him, at Jordan, but it did not lead anywhere because Jordan did not take it up.

  This meant to the bully, Jordan was going to be easy, though the puzzlement was that Jordan did not seem to care how he looked. The bully did not understand this. It needed demonstration.

  “Except for that job you got,” he said. “That’s great kicks, isn’t it? I mean, you set ‘em up and somebody keeps knocking them down.”

  Jordan did not answer. Maybe he could leave.

  “And working right up alongside the boss. Yessir,” said the bully and laughed.

  “You don’t have to act that way,” said Jordan.

  They saw that he wanted to leave and all of a sudden there was a ring around him.

  “You know Sandy, don’t you?” said the bully.

  “Yes.”

  “But he don’t know you.”

  “Why should he?” said Jordan, but the evasion made the bully that much more insistent.

  “Why? Don’t you watch the breaks?”

  “All I’m doing there . . .”

  “Is working up to setting two alleys instead of one, right
? I mean, ambitious.”

  “Sure,” said Jordan. “Sure.”

  “You know Jay?” asked the bully. “No. He left before you come in. That boy now, there was ambition.”

  “Listen. I want . . .”

  “Shut up,” said the bully. “I’m telling this story.”

  They all waited for Jordan to say something, or do something, but he held still.

  “Like, working alongside Sandy is big time, didn’t you know that, Jordan? Like, take Jay. He does this and that for Sandy, and that once, he runs an errand. Fifty bucks to run a parcel up to Harlem, that’s all. You didn’t know Sandy does other things, huh?”

  “No,” said Jordan, he didn’t know anything about what Sandy did.

  “Jay takes the fifty, runs the errand, opens up the parcel on the way. Know what was in it? I said, do you know what was in it?”

  “No. I don’t know what was in it.”

  “Half a grand, feller. Half a grand in sawbucks and singles.”

  “All right,” said Jordan. “So Sandy is big.”

  “That’s right. And there you are setting up pins and marking time for retirement, is what I’m talking about. But you know what Jay did?”

  “All right. What?”

  “Jay kept it. I got robbed on the way, he says, but he kept it.” Then he said, “Jay was from California too. Looks like some in California aren’t so dumb like some others, huh, Jordan?”

  “Where’s Jay now?” said Jordan.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jordan turned away, looking for a way to leave the ring. “It looks to me,” he said, “that guy wasn’t so smart after all.”

  They all thought about that for a moment, what might have happened to Jay or if Sandy might have done something to him.

  “But smart and scared ain’t the same thing,” said the bully. “You smart or scared, Jordan, huh?”

  “Depends when,” said Jordan and tried to leave again.

  They would not let him through. Somebody came out of the night club, and somebody stood on the fire escape of the house opposite. Jordan saw this and felt how cut off he was and that it could not be worse.

  “But I want to know something,” said the bully. He took Jordan’s arm, thumb hooked into a muscle. “And you don’t answer me straight.”

  “Cut it out,” said Jordan, and tried to get his arm away.

  “You smart or scared, Jordan. Which?”

  “Just cut it out,” said Jordan, but it came out dull because he felt dull now. And when Jordan did not give the bully a good opening for the next thing to do, the bully went ahead without the opening. “I’m going to ask you again and you show me . . .”

  Jordan walked to the alley in the middle of all of them and then, against a brick wall, he got his beating.

  It was painful, and a weird kind of fight, because the bully was running it. He ran it as a demonstration. He was big enough to keep Jordan well checked but the whole thing was just vanity fodder. That’s why it took long, and so gave Jordan time.

  Jordan, of course, fought for different reasons and did not even understand the other’s delays.

  He kicked the other one in the shin, when the time came. He now had five seconds or more to turn the fight his way, to make his demonstration. There were a number of ways, delaying and painful, to keep up what the bully had done so far. The other one was now doubled up and his face free for the moment.

  Jordan grabbed his hair, held on; then his knee came up. The bully’s jaw made a wooden sound. Jordan let go of the hair, let the head drop, watched till the other one fell flat on the ground. Finished.

  Jordan stepped back. He looked at the others standing there, but they did not move. And the one on the ground was done. It felt so right that for one moment Jordan felt almost upset.

  The others started to leave, walking sideways and with their hands in their pockets. They kept looking back until Jordan caught on.

  At the mouth of the alley, by the wall, was a man. He wore hat and overcoat and he slowly walked up.

  “Well,” he said, and stopped by the one on the ground. “I’ve been watching you.” Sandy looked up and then at the one on the ground again.

  “Broke the jaw, I think.”

  Jordan wiped one hand across his mouth and said nothing.

  “How’d you do it, Sam?”

  “Do it? You mean, how did . . .”

  “So quick. You were like a heap of clothes up against that wall, and then this.”

  “I was watching for it,” said Jordan.

  “How’s your eye?” said Sandy.

  “I think it’s closing.”

  Sandy nodded and then he took Jordan’s arm. They walked out of the alley, past the night club, and into Sandy’s bowling place. They had left the one on the ground where he was, and Jordan did not remember about him until now.

  “I think that guy back there could use . . .”

  “Forget him. He’s got buddies.”

  “I know.”

  “I got a drink for you, in my office.”

  “I just thought . . .”

  “You got buddies?”

  “What?”

  “I said, have you got buddies, so after he would have been through with you, they’d come down to that alley and pick you up?”

  “I wasn’t thinking like that. I don’t think it’s got anything to do . . .”

  “If you want to go, go,” and Sandy went into the bowling alley. “But you did that good,” he said over his shoulder.

  Jordan stood alone on the street and watched Sandy go. The door made a loud hiss and when Sandy turned inside and disappeared, the door slowed pneumatically and the slit got very small.

  There’s nothing in the alley any more, Jordan thought, and besides, that was finished. And there’s nothing on the street this time of night, and even too late for a movie.

  Sandy had stopped at the counter with the cigars and the cash register. He was leaning one elbow on the glass top and looking at the door. He gave a brief smile when Jordan came in and then said nothing else till they had walked to the back of the counter and into his office.

  “What I wanted to ask you,” said Jordan, “was what you meant before when you said that I did that good?”

  “Sit down. You must ache all over. Want that drink?”

  “No. Thank you.” But Jordan sat down.

  “What I meant was you finished it neat. Not like that punk there. You did it neat and pared down, just enough for what was needed. I better get you some stuff for that cut . . .”

  The reason Jordan stayed was because Sandy was paying attention. Jordan did not get all Sandy had said, except for the point that Sandy was pleased. And when Sandy asked again how he, Jordan, had done it, Jordan did not know the right answer, though he got close to the point when he said he had been waiting his chance. He had been watching the fight almost like standing next to it.

  “That’s maybe the only way you could take the beating,” said Sandy, and later added, “That’s the best way to do almost anything. Keeps you clean.”

  But the point always was that Sandy kept paying attention, and everything Jordan did in return, was for that. Not for more attention, but as the natural pay for the one lonely favor. Jordan knowing that the other one kept him in mind.

  In a while he ran one or two fifty-dollar errands, and a while later he sometimes went out of town. Get a line on where this man goes, and what the house is like where he lives. Sometimes other details. Jordan cased without knowing what for, and when he learned what for, the shock was quite brief. Sandy spent time with him and the shock was brief. And if Jordan let the worst in him get honed to a fine finish, that’s how he bought Sandy’s concern.

  Once he bought a lighter and had it engraved. It was for no special occasion. When he picked it up he left the store for the bowling alley, though he changed his mind about that on the way. Little changes had started. Jordan no longer worked on the alleys, so he should not really hang around the place very much
any more. And for other reasons which made sense.

  He did not go to the alley but at a quarter past three went the extra block to the place where Sandy had his beer and read the paper. He could see Sandy through the window of the bar, in back with the telephone. When Sandy hung up, Jordan went in.

  He sat down in the round booth where Sandy sat. Nice and round, he thought. Like for playing cards or talk with a beer.

  “What are you doing here?” said Sandy.

  “Nothing. How you been?”

  “Fine, I guess.” Sandy put his paper down and asked Jordan if he wanted a beer.

  “No. Here. Look at this.”

  He took the small box out of his pocket and when it sat on the table he took off the top.

  “Like it?”

  “Nice,” said Sandy. “Nice.”

  The lighter was shiny as if it had never been touched and it lay on a very white cotton bed.

  “Did you want something special, Sammy? Because I’m waiting for a call any minute.”

  “It’s for you.”

  “What, this?”

  “The lighter. For you.”

  “Is that right,” said Sandy.

  He gave Jordan a smile and picked up the lighter. The chrome got a fat fingerprint on it, and while Sandy wiped at it he looked at the phone. “Very nice lighter,” he said. “Can you see the time up on that wall?”

  “Three-twenty,” said Jordan.

  “What’s this?”

  “Three twenty, going on . . .”

  “I said this. This here,” and he put the lighter down on the table. The sound went clack.

  “Inscription,” said Jordan. “I had it inscribed.”

  Sandy did not say anything. He knew his reaction to all of this, but the right words were not ready yet.

  “It says,” Jordan went on, “from Sam to Sandy.”

  Sandy gave the lighter a spin and waited till it lay still again. It spun so fast it whirred. Then it lay still. “That’s too bad,” he said.

  “Too bad? Did you say too bad?”

  “From Sam to Sandy. What kind of junk is this?”

  Jordan, to save himself, had an impulse to laugh and to say yes, junk it was. But he did not say that. He felt rotten to have thought it, to spit on all the effort that had gone into doing this thing. And besides, the thing was for Sandy, and why didn’t he know this?