Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  “Can you make it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you drive?”

  “Sure.”

  “Here. Here’s the keys. Take my car.”

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe I should drive you home?”

  “Sure. I mean, no. I’m sure no.”

  “I got something else to . . .”

  “Sure.”

  When Jordan was in his room he sat on the bed for a while and felt the pain start. He went to the sink and had a very hard time opening the faucet because he had shut it so tight earlier. He washed and it started to hurt more.

  He saw that it was fairly dark outside and that soon he would go to sleep. He felt strangely comfortable with his pain because it was strong and concrete. That way, he did not think. But he did a few things, step by step and uncomplicated by thinking, even without any clear, urgent feeling.

  He walked along the wall, down the stairs, to the drugstore at the counter where he bought a styptic stick. At the adjoining counter he bought one envelope and a stamp. In the back, on the shelf for the telephone books, he wrote on the envelope, putting down as much as he knew: Betty. Diner on Third Avenue. Penderburg, Pa.

  He took a bill out of his pocket and put it inside the envelope. He stamped, sealed, and dropped the letter into the mailbox outside. Was it five C? I think it was five C. He walked home. He worried about the money, and why five C instead of one. Who was she? Why not more. A grand. He went to his room and, on his bed, fell asleep almost immediately.

  One week later Kemp was still alive. And they had found Paul under the bridge, in the culvert, because of the smell. It was now a gang killing with solution imminent and the guard around Kemp in the hospital was heavy. Kemp stayed in a coma but breathed inside his oxygen tent.

  Jordan stayed in his room, on the bed, and sometimes he loosened the faucet a little so that he could watch, by turning his head, how the drops came slowly. He cleaned his guns a few times, in order to concentrate. He knew how to make a proper job of this, a good craftsman’s job, though it meant more than that. And I’m going to tilt right out of my mind if I don’t hold on to the few things I know.

  But it did not help. What he knew felt jinxed. What he knew for these days were things he had never paid attention to before: the bedsheet wrinkled under his back, the stain on his towel from washing his face, the morning noise, noon noise, and evening noise three stories down on the street. He liked the noon noise best because it was one car, two cars, one laugh, two voices, all distinct from each other. He never looked at his ceiling, because it made him feel flattened and small. Once or twice, it seemed, he had a fever.

  He called Sandy from the drugstore, for information. There wasn’t any. There had been no change.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Much better. Thank you.”

  “Where you calling from?”

  “The drugstore, here at my corner.”

  “When you called yesterday, you called from the same place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now listen to me, Sam. Stop making these lousy calls from the same place all the time if you know what I’m talking about. There is . . . Stop interrupting. There isn’t a thing gained by these calls you keep making except maybe you get spotted once or twice too often. First news, I get word to you.”

  “Sandy, I can’t just . . .”

  “You loused it up. Not me. And stop calling.”

  “It’s been over a week. There’s got to be some . . .”

  “When Meyer decides what next, you’ll hear about it. Listen, I got a tournament on.”

  “How’s Lois?”

  “What you say?”

  “Good-by,” and Jordan hung up.

  He stayed in the booth for a while, turned to the blank wall. A line of sweat moved down his cheek, and he stuck out his tongue to lick. He would not call Sandy again. The upsetting thing was how it came over him, how a faint sting happened and next he would say something which he had not thought up ahead of time. Stupid things, without feeling to them. How’s Lois . . .

  He called Bass. He had no difficulties with Bass but also learned nothing. Bass did not like to be called by Jordan, he had no information, and he said all that. He said, “If you call here again I’m going to do something about it.”

  “How are you?” said Jordan. “Are you all right?”

  “What?”

  “I won’t call you again,” said Jordan, and hung up.

  Next day he called Meyer. Jordan ordered a hamburger at the drugstore counter and while it was on the grill went to the booth and called Meyer. Meyer was not easy. Jordan had to call three numbers and with the third one he had to wait a while till the girl went to see if the call was wanted. Jordan ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek, where a cut wasn’t healed and it tasted like metal. He spat on the floor and put his foot over it.

  If he says Kemp is dead, that will change everything. It will mean time in between like always. No. It’ll be Sam Smith this time, Sam Smith doing between-time vacationing. The thought pleased him though he had no idea where he might go.

  “Hullo?”

  “Meyer?”

  “Yes, who . . .”

  “This is Smith. I . . .”

  “What?”

  “Jordan. I meant Jordan. I said Smith because . . .”

  “Who in hell gave you leave to call here? Don’t you got any better sense than . . .”

  “The reason I said Smith . . .”

  “Shut up!”

  Jordan did, feeling patient. The dullness of patience was something new he had learned. He had not needed patience before.

  “ . . . be sure you’ll know before long what’s what, if anything happens. Meanwhile, there’s nothing. And meanwhile I want nothing from you!”

  “I mean, is there no plan?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said just a minute ago? And we don’t do this kind of business on the phone, damn your crazy head!”

  “I’ve got to know . . .”

  “You sit tight and wait like the rest of us!” and Meyer hung up.

  Jordan forgot to stop for his hamburger and walked out on the street. The sun shone and he thought he might get a new room, with a new view, and more sun perhaps. I might spend more time there. Sam Smith unemployed. He watched himself walking past a store window and thought he looked like anybody. But if no one believes me, how can I be somebody else? Paul thinks I’m Smith and he’s dead. Kemp thinks I’m Smith and doesn’t count. I mean, how can you talk to Kemp, down under in the oxygen tent. What’s Betty’s last name . . .?

  Chapter 14

  “When I think of it,” said Jane, “when I imagine I have over four hundred smackers—you know what I’d do?”

  “There’s a customer,” said Betty.

  “Where?”

  “The short one there. The little boy,” and she pointed to where the head stuck up over the counter.

  “And I bet he wants orange juice.”

  “Orange juice,” said the boy. “A small one.”

  Jane got the orange juice and Betty looked out the stand to the other side of the street. There were planted palms, there were convertibles moving, and some of the buildings across the way had Spanish tile roofs. There was sun over everything and the beach was behind the next block.

  “I was saying . . .” said Jane.

  “But I told you, honey; I told you right when I came when I told you all about it. I said, Jane, some of this is for you.”

  “Let me finish,” and Jane folded her arms, leaned against the cooler, and looked up at the coconuts which hung on strings and had faces on them. “If I had that money,” she said, “you know what I’d do?”

  “No,” said Betty, very patient.

  “I’d go to Oregon, is what I would do, for the apples. I want to see nothing but apples and forget all about oranges.”

  Betty had heard that several times before but she smiled. “It’s nice here.”

  The other gir
l didn’t answer that and then they had customers.

  After a while they sat down on their stools and Jane smoked a cigarette. Betty drank orange juice.

  “You know what really kills me about this?”

  “About what?” said Betty.

  “About all this,” and she swept her arm over everything: stand, juicers, street, traffic, palms, sunshine. “The sticky fingers,” she said. “I got these constantly sticky fingers.”

  “Oh. From the orange juice.”

  “Just say juice, Betty. The other goes without saying.”

  They had customers and didn’t talk for a while. Betty had a small pain in her back, from bending down into the cooler.

  “It’s four o’clock, honey,” said Jane. “Don’t forget your doctor’s appointment.”

  “It’s only fifteen minutes. The last time I walked it, I got there . . .”

  “You know what I’d do if I had a doctor’s appointment, let’s say an appointment at eight in the evening? You know what I’d do at, let’s say seven in the morning?”

  “You’d worry about it all day.”

  “Ha. At seven in the morning I’d call the boss, and I’d tell him—”

  “You got a customer, Jane.”

  She got to the office in time but then had a long wait. After the doctor she took a long walk and when she took the bus into Miami she got off at the wrong stop. It was almost dark when she got to the rooming house and she walked slowly. There was a palm tree next to the house and she could hear the leaves scraping.

  “Honey?”

  She stopped on the porch steps and saw Jane on the swing. The swing clattered when the girl got up and Betty saw Jane dressed to go out. “He’s here,” said Jane. “What?”

  “The one, you know. The one you been telling about.”

  All Betty said was, “Gee—”

  “He don’t look rich.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  It sounded one way to Jane and was meant another way by Betty. It had slipped out that way because she could not remember his face too well.

  “I don’t know. Pale, I guess.”

  “Oh.”

  “You better go in now. He’s been there an hour.” Jane put the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “I won’t be back before two.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Jane.”

  “Are you kiddin’? ‘Bye now,” and she started down the steps. “Wait a minute, I almost forgot!”

  Betty stopped in the door and waited. Jane came close and then, “What did the doctor say, honey?”

  “Three months.”

  “Three? Was it him?”

  “How could it be?” Betty went into the house.

  She could not tell whether he seemed especially pale because the light was almost gone in the room. She saw him get up from a chair and come toward her. When he was close she saw he was smiling.

  “Remember me?” he said.

  She had the feeling, for a moment, that she did not.

  “What a question, Sam! Why, what a question!”

  She thought he would want to kiss her but he did nothing. He stood there smiling and she was still struck by that. His smile was a stretch of his face, though this did not make a false smile but only an awkward one. He was embarrassed, she felt, and it embarrassed her. She stepped up quickly and gave him a kiss. He gave her a kiss and straightened up again. He deserves more, she thought, and knows it, but he is a gentleman.

  “I guess you got the money,” he said, “didn’t you?”

  “It was you, wasn’t it, Sam?”

  “Surprised you, huh?”

  He was still smiling, as if trying very hard. The girl reached up with a small gesture and stroked his face. Then she turned away. She went to the couch and sat down there. “Sam,” she said, “come and sit with me, Sam.”

  She looked down into her lap when he sat down next to her and so could not see him at all. “I don’t know what to say, Sam.” She smiled, but did not show him her face.

  “I don’t either,” he said.

  She leaned over to the side of the couch and turned on the radio. “Have you eaten yet?” she asked him. “What I mean is, did you just come to town, Sam?”

  He did not answer because the radio was coming alive and he leaned across her and snapped it off. When he sat up again and saw her face, he quickly smiled again. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I’d rather talk to you,” and after that, after there was more silence, he said, “even if we have nothing to say.”

  Then he took her arm in his hand and held it. “I’ve just come to town,” he said. “Yes.”

  “I think it’s wonderful that your business . . .”

  “I came just to see you.”

  She pressed her arm against her side, to give his hand a squeeze. He could smell the slight acid odor of orange peel.

  “What’s your last name?” he asked her.

  She was very startled and laughed.

  “Mine’s Smith,” he said. “I’ve come to see you.”

  “Evans. Elizabeth Evans.”

  “Mine’s Smith,” he said again, and then he took out a cigarette which both seemed to end this conversation and also to make it a point of importance.

  How nutty, she thought. We both should have laughed about this name thing because actually, it could be funny.

  “Now we’ll eat,” he said.

  She was glad he had brought that up because it was a topic and something to do, and she said since coming to Miami she had not been out yet at all and so didn’t know where they might go.

  “I’d like us to eat here,” he said. “I don’t mind waiting. I’ll sit and watch.”

  She did not mind that either though she was sorry she had nothing special. Peas from a can, and there were hot dogs, there was . . .

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Whatever. Put your housecoat on.”

  “What?”

  “Put your housecoat on. You’re home.”

  She laughed and he smiled back and in a way, she thought, what he says just sounds strange at first but then really isn’t.

  He sat on the couch and by turning his head he could see the head of the palm outside the window, the one which kept rattling its fronds. The window had the same curtains which he had seen before in the girl’s Penderburg room. Jordan, as he knew he would, felt well now. He sat, looking at everything, the room with the curtains and the used furniture, the girl moving back and forth in the kitchen alcove, and while he saw mostly her back he also felt that much more at ease because of that. As if they had known each other a long time and had no need for the special. He saw nothing cheap, common, crummy, or little, nothing of the pathetically small in his choice of an evening; he saw none of that because it was not there. It was not there, because the pressure and effort which had brought him this far had been so sharp and tremendous.

  She put ice-water in glasses next to the plates, which was a restaurant habit, and she served him first and kept watching his plate, which was no habit at all but was natural. After eating they had instant coffee, and they talked about how quickly she had left—two days after he had sent the money—and about how long he could stay this time. He would tell her, he said, he would tell her soon.

  She pressed no point, though she asked personal questions. Why shouldn’t she, was Jordan’s feeling. I’m Smith. I am out of town a lot, because I travel on business; I come home here between times, because I have time in between.

  The evening was dull, slow, warm, and harmless. That way, it lasted and lasted.

  It gave Betty time to think of a number of things. Four hundred, she thought, maybe four hundred is enough. If I knew him better. I might ask him about it, tell him about it. He might even help. He’s a gentleman, really. He’s gentle.

  When Jane knocked on the door it was not two yet. But there had been nothing for Jane to do after the movie was over and she’d thought: It’s my room as much as hers and who is Smith anyway. She knocked, with a lot of purpose, a
nd then she called through the door.

  “That’s all right,” Betty called back. “Come on in.” And when she’s in, Betty thought, she’s going to say something like, how are you two lovebirds, or something.

  “Well, well, well,” said Jane. “How are you two bugs in a rug?”

  Jane was the only one who laughed, though Jordan got up from the couch and said something about Jane might want to sit there, and Betty said, wouldn’t it be nice to have some iced tea.

  She made iced tea, and Jane sat down on the couch and told Jordan to sit down next to her. Then she talked a lot, touching her hair, hiking a strap, peeling the lacquer off one of her nails. But she watched Jordan all the time and tried budging him in various ways. It’s a good thing, thought Betty, that he’s calm and a gentleman, or I would feel badly embarrassed for Jane.

  “So, how you doing?” said Jane. “I mean, in your business.” Her voice had a splash sound and was too loud.

  “Fine,” said Jordan. “Nothing special.”

  “You down on business, Mister Smith?”

  “No. Just a visit.”

  “Oh. You salesmen. I bet everybody else thinks you’re down on business, huh?” and when he did not answer, “Buttons, isn’t that what you told me, Betty?”

  “Yes,” said Betty from the sink.

  “Is it a good business, Mister Smith?”

  “No. Not very.”

  “Oh, I bet you’re just saying that, Mister Smith, aren’t you?”

  Jordan got up and went over to the sink. He gave the faucet a twist and then went back to sit down again.

  “Well, I do beg to differ,” said Jane, “about the way you interpret your business, because I do happen to know about that generous gift you sent Betty. It made Betty very happy, didn’t it, Betty?”

  “Yes, very. You want me to put lemon on the table?”

  “You know what I’d do, Mister Smith, if I got a gift like that from an admirer? I’m not saying I got an admirer, you understand, but . . .”

  “You’d go to Oregon to see the apples,” said Betty.

  “Well, that was very funny. You haven’t got the tea strong enough, I don’t think. Tell me, Mister Smith, are you married?”