Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  “But I don’t mind it. I just mind it when I’m very tired or when the weather is bad and then I just wish I had a car. Why don’t you light that cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke much. Just hold it like this sometimes. You want one?”

  “But then, if I had a car, I wouldn’t go home, I mean straight home either, you know? I’d take a drive. I don’t smoke, thank you.”

  “I have a car,” said Jordan. “Back there.”

  “You do?” and she looked back where he had pointed. Then she said, “Of course you would. You’re a traveling salesman, I forgot.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s right.”

  “You must be sick of driving.”

  He took the cigarette out of his mouth and then put it back in and gave a little bite on the filter. “Would you like a ride, a short ride?”

  She nodded and said yes, she’d like that. She didn’t want to go home yet but ride with the window open, and did he have any idea what it’s like working in that diner and none of the windows open ever. They got into the car and she told him which way to drive out of town where the country was the nicest. He knew the way because he had checked it so carefully during the day though he did not remember about the country being so nice.

  He leaned across her, pushing at her a little, and rolled the window down for her and then straightened up again. She smiled at him and thought, if I knew him better now I would like to say something to him but I would hate to be wrong, saying something nice, and would not want to hear him answer with something clever. She knew about one kind of clever talk, having heard it often, and what it meant, a time-killer before the hands on her and then sex. As if she were stupid and did not know what came next and needed leading around by the nose first, with the sex work suddenly upon her like an accident or a total surprise. And that was stupid too and added a false haste to everything, something she did not like.

  When it seemed Jordan had forgotten about the window already and was driving out of town, she said, “That was very nice of you, thank you, about the window.”

  “What?”

  “About remembering I like the window open, a ride with the window open,” and felt awkward after saying it.

  There was a roadhouse ahead on the highway and Jordan slowed.

  “You want to go in there?” she said.

  “No. But I thought some beer—I’d bring out some cans and we can have it in the car. Driving.”

  “Yes,” she said, “that would be nice.” She thought it was fine of him to remember that she liked to ride but said nothing this time.

  He got a six-pack and a key and, when he came back into the car, put all of it in her lap. Then he drove again.

  “If it were always like this it would be all right, you know that?” she said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Here’s your can. Watch the foam.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Warm like this, I mean. Like this evening. You know where it’s warm like this all the time?”

  “Where?”

  “In Florida. My girlfriend in Florida she’s been writing me. And she mentions it too. You ever been in Florida?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Once.”

  “You mean on business?”

  “Yes. That.”

  “What’s your name?” she said. “I don’t mean Smith, I mean the other one.”

  He held the can awkwardly and spilled beer on his pants. “Sam,” he said after a while.

  “What a Bible name you have. You know, I can’t picture anyone buying buttons in Palm Beach, can you?”

  “I never was in Palm Beach, I was in Miami Beach.”

  “That’s where my girlfriend is! Make a turn here, Sam. This road.”

  He turned where she showed him onto a country lane. It went up a little. It was hard to tell anything else because of the darkness.

  “She lives in Miami Beach?”

  “If you go slow now I can find the spot. Little slower.”

  He drove more slowly and looked at her leaning out of her window.

  “She works in a stand where they sell juices. You know those juice bars they have in Florida all over? She works in one of those, squeezing juices. Here it is.”

  “Here?”

  “Stop a minute.”

  They were on the top of a rise where the lane got wide enough for the car to pull off to one side, then the rise dropped off again and Jordan could see nothing but the night there. He stopped the car for the girl and she leaned on the window sill and looked out.

  “This, I bet, is a lot like Florida,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Turn the lights off.”

  He turned off the lights and after a while he saw a little better in the darkness.

  “That’s the beach,” she said. “You see the lights?”

  Somewhere down below he saw a curve of light and perhaps it looked the way a beach might look at nighttime.

  “Penderburg is over that way and this is the Number Three Conveyor. We just call it that, the Number Three Conveyor. It goes up that new shale hill. Did you ever see tile roofs?”

  “See what?”

  “Like in Florida, you know? Those tile roofs with the round-looking tile.”

  “Spanish tile roofs.”

  “Spanish tile. That’s what my girlfriend calls them. There. You can just see them there.”

  He moved closer and when he put his head next to hers he could see the work sheds by the mine. They were made out of corrugated tin. The overhead light in the yard showed the geometry of the tin and from the distance it might have been what she wanted it to be.

  The girl had a soft odor, something like soapy water.

  “And when I’ve saved enough,” she said, “I’m going down there. To Florida.”

  Not from soap, he thought, because it isn’t an odor of chemistry. It’s skin. He remembered the look of her arm with fair skin, showing no texture. He did not touch her arm or look at it now but only thought about the way it had looked.

  “I’ve never been there,” he said, “except on business.”

  It struck her that he had said the same thing before, and talking as little as he did, that he had repeated himself. She turned her head to look at him. She did it slowly because he was close and she did not want to bump into him, bumping noses, perhaps, which would be terrible. She leaned her head against the post of the door and she could see mostly his eyes.

  “It must be terrible,” she said, “seeing all those places and it’s always on business.”

  She saw his eyes move so they no longer looked at her and then he looked back at her. “It’s the first time I’ve thought of it,” he said.

  She wished she were not holding her can of beer. She could do nothing with it, he being so close.

  “And now I don’t want to think of the places at all,” he said.

  She wished she did not have the beer because her fingers would be cold and perhaps wet, and she wanted to touch the side of his face. He looked down so that she could see only his forehead and could not tell what he was looking at. She sat still and heard herself breathe.

  “I want to go someplace sometime,” she said, “because I don’t have to. You feel like that, Sam?”

  The worst times are between jobs, he remembered.

  “I’d even like to come to Penderburg sometime. After I’ve left, I mean, and am living elsewhere. Come here and just walk through the streets and have nothing to do and look at things.”

  She saw him reach over to the window and drop his beer can out. It made a thunk on the ground because it wasn’t empty.

  “Is that how it is when you get to a new town?” she asked him. “When you go to a new town on business?”

  “When I go to a new town on business,” he said, “I don’t even see the new town. It could be the place where I was before. It’s all the same. The job is always the same.”

  He then did a strange thing, lifted his hand and put his fingers over
her mouth. It was a quick motion but did not startle the girl because he moved smoothly.

  “Though why this is not the same,” he said, “I don’t know.”

  He felt her mouth under his fingertips and that she slowly kissed them.

  It’s different, he thought, because I’m not yet on a job. This is like the time in between, dead time usually. He did not know that it was much more different than that. He put his head down and his face into the side of her neck and his hand on her. The girl dropped her can of beer and held still for him. He did not wonder about the difference now, that he was not really with her because he was between jobs, but that he was with her because he had run from one.

  Chapter 8

  He took the girl home very late at night, and then he drove out of town again and slept in the back of his car. It was part of the original plan. Nothing else had been part of the original plan, and he felt disturbed and superstitious for the rest of the night. In the morning he drove into town and stopped at the bus station. He shaved and washed some in the rest room and after that had breakfast at the counter which was in the station. It did not occur to him to go back to the diner because that was something else entirely and this was a different day. The sun shone early, and Jordan walked across the square where the old men already sat under the trees and where a farmer unloaded produce in front of a store. Jordan went to the end of the square where he could see the length of Third Avenue.

  He did not feel uneasy until he saw someone come out of Kemp’s building. He was doing the part of the job which he did not want, the part which showed him who the other one was. But the man at the building was not Kemp. Jordan turned back to the square but did not know where to go. He did not want to lose sight of Kemp’s building.

  There was a store window with bolts of cloth and two dummies wearing flower print dresses in it. This store might buy buttons, he thought. One dummy had a foot off the ground because the limb had not been screwed in all the way. Jordan turned away, not liking the sight. That was when he saw Paul. The man stood by the curb, watching Jordan.

  “Don’t go away,” he said.

  He had his hands in his pockets and one foot up on the curb and his head was tilted because of the sun. Paul looked easy and very uncomplicated. Once he ran his tongue over his teeth.

  “Been selling any buttons today?”

  Jordan put his hands into his pockets but it did not feel relaxed. He took his hands out again and let them hang. This was more natural for him. He stood like that and gave Paul a slight smile. Paul was a familiar thing. He was nothing new, he was nothing important; and if he should become part of the job, it would be a side issue.

  “No,” said Jordan. “I haven’t sold any yet.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m still casing.”

  “Casing? Button salesmen do casing?”

  “I learned the word in the movies. I go a lot. Do you go a lot?”

  Jordan took a cigarette out and turned it back and forth in his fingers. Paul was watching that. Then he said, “What?”

  “Do you go to the movies a lot?”

  Paul did not know how to take that, because everything of course had an angle. And he did not remember Jordan this way He had a fixed notion of what a man might be like who sells buttons and who backs out of a fight. Paul came up with a formula and said, “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing. Where’s your friend Mister Kemp?”

  “Kemp? Why?”

  “I see you, I think of Mister Kemp. You know, that’s how I met both of you.”

  But the answer did not please Paul. It did not relax him because it was his job not to be relaxed, and for a long time this rule had been the only reminder that he did have a job and was important.

  “For a button salesman you ask an awful lot of questions that don’t have a damn thing to do with buttons, you know that . . . What’s your name?”

  “Smith.”

  “Smith. That’s right. I never knew there were any real Smiths.”

  Jordan did not take it up and the tone did not bother him. He had his tack now and was working.

  “I wanted to see him. That’s why I asked. Where is he now?”

  “He’s busy.”

  “I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

  “Then why see him?”

  “I haven’t found the house he was talking about last night. To rent a room.”

  “I remember where he said it was. I got it all clear in my head because Kemp knocked himself out explaining it straight. How come you don’t remember a simple—”

  “I was thinking about something else.”

  For a button man, Paul thought, this one is mean. He’s untrimmed mean, the thin-nosed bastard, but before Paul was ready with his answer for that, Jordan turned, walked away.

  Now, Jordan thought, he’s got to follow.

  “Hey—” and when Jordan did not answer, “Fourth is that way,” said Paul. “There’s nobody going to rent you a place here on Third.” Then he was next to Jordan, keeping pace. “And the diner’s run by an old man this time of morning.”

  “I’m going to see Kemp,” said Jordan.

  Paul prickled with irritation and could not think of a good thing to say. “Muter Kemp to you, button man.” It did not come up to the mark. “And he ain’t up,” said Paul.

  “Good. Then he’ll be home.”

  “Button man—” The bastard is walking too fast. “Not up for you, button man.”

  “You his nurse?”

  “Yeah. I’m his nurse.”

  But Jordan kept walking without giving an answer, and Paul kept on walking and did not talk any more either. Jordan felt he had learned what he had to know. Kemp’s muscle took his job seriously. He was through bantering and was coming along. Whether or not he knew that it was serious made little difference, because unless he, Jordan, could shake the man later, it would come to the same thing. The little fat man from the Coast might have bought himself double service.

  In the hallway of the building Paul would not say where Kemp was living. This one, thought Jordan, might be worse than he looks, because he is stupid and trying to make up for that with his stubbornness. Jordan looked at the mailboxes and then went to the third floor. Window at end of hall, runner on floor, fire escape to the back, card on door, Thomas Kemp. Jordan knocked.

  He had to knock because Paul was standing there with him and it would not look innocent to walk away now. He knocked again which would seal it that he had to stay.

  Kemp was up. He opened the door looking rumpled, and half of his face had lather on it. This made him look different from Kemp in the photo and Kemp last night in the diner, almost like somebody Jordan did not know.

  “Well, lookee here,” said Kemp. His smile looked clownish because of the foam. “Smith, wasn’t it?”

  There was one room, and a door to another one. Bed, sink, other things, lived-in clutter.

  “Come in.”

  Jordan came in and Paul closed the door. Kemp kept smiling. There was a foam glob on his upper lip and he blew up at it. There was now a large nose hole. “Been working this early in the morning?” said Kemp.

  Then he went back to the sink and Jordan did not have to say anything, except no, he hadn’t been working yet. Kemp shaved and looked into the mirror and said Jordan should wait just a minute and find a seat.

  There was just one chair and Paul sat in it. He had his legs crossed and dipped one foot. Every time Kemp scraped, Paul dipped his foot.

  “He was real anxious to see you,” said Paul.

  “Oh?” Kemp grinned into the mirror. He worked the razor around the grin. “What for, Smith?”

  “I couldn’t find that room last night,” said Jordan.

  “You remember telling me . . .”

  Kemp splashed and rubbed water all over his face and made a blowing sound into his hands. Then he used a towel. When Jordan looked up it was again Kemp’s face with the squint lines by the eyes, the grey hair, young man’s grin. J
ordan rubbed his nose and looked out of the window. “I can come back when you’ve had your breakfast,” he said. “Or if you’ll tell me when you’re free, when you don’t have anything to do during the day . . .”

  “I’ll take you now,” said Kemp. “How’s that?”

  It wasn’t any good. Jordan nodded, but it probably would be no good going with Kemp because it would not help Jordan to find out how Kemp spent his day. He knew when Kemp got up and had an idea when he went to bed. And that Paul hung around all the time. It might have to be enough. Or he would have to go with Kemp and talk more.

  “I can take him,” said Paul. “Why should you bother?”

  “No bother,” said Kemp. He put a jacket on and pulled up his tie. Then he grinned into the mirror again, from very close, to see what his teeth were like. “I take a walk anyway,” he said. “Before breakfast. Ready?”

  They walked down the street with Paul following the two men. Jordan watched a garbage truck creep down the street. Because there were trees all along, the truck was in and out of the light.

  “Business any good in town?” Kemp asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I haven’t tried yet.”

  “Kind of slow, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know something? I’ve never seen anyone have a cigarette habit the way you do. Holding it that way, unlit.”

  Jordan threw the cigarette away and Paul, in back, laughed.

  Kemp said, “Where you buy your merchandise, Smith?”

  “In New York.”

  “Good profit?”

  “It’s a job, Mister Kemp.”

  “But the investment is low, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jordan. “Over the years, it isn’t low.”

  This time Kemp laughed and they walked a while without talking. Then Paul said, “You’re going the long way.”

  “I know,” said Kemp. “You mind, Smith?”

  “No. I don’t mind.”

  “It’s a nice day,” said Kemp. “That’s why.”

  Jordan looked at the mountain of shale which started on the other side of the railway tracks. “There aren’t many places to walk here, if you like to walk.”