Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  “No.”

  “Ah! But divorced.”

  “I’ve never been married.”

  “A woman hater!” and she laughed with a clickety sound. “Is he a woman hater, Betty?”

  What had been there for Jordan was thinning out. It was thinning out into an embarrassing daydream. A time in a hot room with a view of a dusty palm in the next lot, and the girl by the sink talking flat and about something hard to remember. He would remember everything Jane was saying.

  “Tell me, Mister Smith, what’s the name of your company?”

  “Don’t you want your iced tea, Jane?”

  “Betty, you keep interrupting. Tell me, Mister Smith, will you come often? Is it one yet?”

  “Yes, it’s one,” said Jordan.

  “You must hear this program! The Two Sleepy People, and it’s the swooniest . . .”

  “Leave it off.”

  “What?”

  She had the radio on and Jordan got up and clicked it off again.

  “You mean you don’t like music, Mister Smith? And I thought, right from the start when I saw you, Mister Smith, a sweet, quiet gentleman like . . .”

  “Leave.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Leave. Come back tomorrow.”

  “Why, you must be out of . . .”

  “Here’s ten dollars. Go to a hotel for the night.”

  Jane got up and when she stood up she started to laugh, loud and straight into Jordan’s face. “That’s a switch! What do you take me for giving me money and telling . . .” She stopped talking because she did not really feel brazen any more, watching Jordan. He was somebody else now . . .

  “Boy,” she said. “These button men—” and gagged on it with a sudden jolt when Jordan hit her in the face.

  It hurt, but above all she was frightened. He said, “Get out,” again and she ran. She heard him say, “Don’t you ever say that to me,” and she nodded her head, nodded her head, while trying to get the door to the hallway open. He grabbed her arm to make it hurt and took her out to the porch where he turned her around, toward him. “Git,” he said. “Git and don’t mess what I’ve got.”

  He snapped her around toward the steps and she almost stumbled. Then she ran.

  Jordan did not watch her but went inside. He went to the table and picked up a glass of iced tea, and while he drank it he looked all around. All like before now. Only Betty is frightened. He put his glass down and went up to her and put his hands on her face. “I want you here,” he said. “Not her.”

  “But, but you hit—”

  “I’ve never done that before.” Then his face changed, and before she could see what it meant he moved very close, put his head next to hers. “Don’t be frightened. Please. Don’t be frightened . . .”

  She suddenly knew herself to be very important, that nothing else mattered between them, except what he felt about her. She took him into the next room, left the light on in the front room, left the light off in the bedroom, stood still when he took off her clothes. She waited next to the bed while he got undressed, and when they lay down together they lay still for a long time. They made love once and then lay together because he did not let her go.

  Chapter 15

  He sat in the plane and sometimes moved his head so he could feel the cool blow of air from the vent overhead and sometimes he looked out of the window, at the clouds below, though with not much interest. A commuter does not look out of the window with much interest. Smith, leaving Miami for New York, where Jordan worked. It would be all right. The apartment, the pieces of furniture, pots and pans, and the girl there, happy with it. It would be all right. Jordan is a good provider.

  In New York it was too warm and the sky slate-colored with rain hanging there. By the time Jordan got out of the taxi in town he felt wet under his shirt and his palms were wet. He also felt a stiffness in his neck. He watched the taxi drive down the street and hated the sight of the street and the car leaving.

  He went into the drugstore but stopped on the way to the telephone booths to sit down at the counter. He looked at the booths every so often and drank a large glass of orange juice. Then he went to the back and placed his call.

  His neck hurt with a slight stiffness and the phone was slippery in his palms. Maybe he isn’t in. No. He’ll be in. This isn’t Wednesday afternoon. Tomorrow is Wednesday. He listened for the ring and felt nervous thinking about things that did not matter. Was Kemp dead by now? That mattered.

  “Bandstand Bowling.”

  “Is Sandy there?”

  “Just a minute.” It took a little time and then Sandy said, “Yuh?”

  “This is Jordan.”

  Sandy did not answer right away and Jordan could hear the hollow sound when the pins get hit.

  “Where in hell you been, you sonofabitch?”

  Jordan moved the phone to his other hand, wiped his free one on his pants. “I was out of town.”

  “Ah. You were out of town.”

  “Yes. Time out. Between time.”

  “Between time. You didn’t know, maybe, this thing wasn’t over, this thing was hanging fire and you were supposed to hang around?”

  “I got to relax sometime. You know?”

  But Sandy cut Jordan off. He thought there might be explanations next and that did not interest him.

  “You know the trailer place,” he said. “Meet me there. And leave right now.”

  “Listen, Sandy. What’s developed? You know.”

  “Get off the phone and get over to where I said I . . .”

  “Just tell me.”

  “I will,” and Sandy hung up.

  What it means, thought Jordan, what it means . . . He got out of the booth and pushed the folding door shut behind him. Kemp is alive.

  The jinx hangs on. But Jordan, you’re a good provider and who else is going to keep Smith alive? Think of it this way: The first time in Penderburg was a job on Paul. Done. And the second time in Penderburg will be a job on Kemp. How do you shoot a man in an oxygen tent? Won’t that cause an explosion?

  Jordan walked four blocks to the place where he kept his car. He carried his overnight bag, since he had not yet been home, or as if on a job. Jordan the good provider and how else am I going to keep Smith alive . . .

  On the Jersey side, before Newark started, was a house trailer lot on the side of the highway. There were two or three lots like it, and secondhand car places in between. And garages and gas stations. Like everybody is going to take off, thought Jordan. Like everybody organized to kill their time in between. Jordan pulled into the lot which said Trailways in neon, a big neon sign which showed green-fluorescent against the gray daytime sky.

  The man at the office shack bent down to look and then he straightened up again and looked out at the highway. Jordan drove to the back where the two-axle house trailer stood with the sign in the picture window, Another Trailways-Safari-Leisure-Time-House Sold to a Happy Customer. Sandy was in the open door. When he saw Jordan he stepped away from the door.

  The inside smelled of linoleum and plywood. There was a rubber-blade fan on the kitchen sink blowing air to the living-room area. All the windows had drawn, flower print curtains. The couch under the picture window was covered with the same curtain print. The formica table was bright red and yellow. A determined cheerfulness everywhere.

  Sandy stood away from the fan and was smoking a cigarette. He rarely smoked cigarettes. Meyer sat on the couch. His bald head seemed grimly bald with all the prints and the color around. His sharp bird-face looked hungry. There was a young man in the bedroom passage whom Jordan did not know. The young man rubbed one shoe against the back of his calf and then looked at the shine.

  “Where were you?” said Meyer.

  “Short vacation.”

  “Sit there,” said Sandy. “You face is dripping.”

  Jordan sat down in the chair but the fan draft was like a sheet flapping against his face. He got up again and wiped his hands. And going back to Penderbur
g isn’t going to be the worst thing at all. It’s end of jinx time and means Jordan the very good provider, keeping Smith alive . . .

  “I got you over here,” said Meyer, “so you can catch up on the news.”

  “What do I do?” said Jordan.

  “First you should listen,” said Sandy. “Wipe your face.”

  Meyer said, “Kemp is dead.”

  Jordan wiped his face. “Kemp is dead?”

  Nobody said anything to that except the young man in the bedroom passage. The silence embarrassed him and he snickered. “Jeesis,” he said, “the man of steel.”

  “Well,” said Jordan. “Well, well, well,” and then he coughed to cover the squeak in his voice which he was sure would came any moment. “Jinx time to jig time,” he said. “What do you know . . .” Then he laughed. It was not a funny sound and he stopped it very soon.

  He did not know how to be just glad. And he did not think that the men in the trailer would understand if he laughed. He allowed, “Well, well, well,” again and, “I must say, yes sir, that is something.”

  “Will you shut up a minute and listen?” said Meyer.

  Jordan took a deep breath and took a cigarette out of his packet. He rolled it back and forth between two fingers and said, “Certainly. What else is there?”

  At that point he squeezed the cigarette too hard and the paper split open. It annoyed him that his fingers should do something which he knew nothing about ahead of time.

  “So listen close,” said Meyer. He leaned his arms an his knees and talked straight at Jordan. His voice sounded somewhat like a cough. He was not sure he was reaching the other man and was straining. “Kemp’s dead and never said a word.”

  “Good. Fine.”

  “Just listen, Sam. Will you?” said Sandy. Then Meyer went an again, the rasp in his voice sounding close to anger.

  “Dead without a word, like I said. Fine. And the bodyguard, when he started to smell, he didn’t lead anywhere either. Fine. Standard. They talked to the landlady where you stayed and she has an idea you got black hair and look dangerous. Like it should be. And now, if you please, they’re still not done.”

  Jordan put a cigarette into his mouth and held onto the filter with his teeth.

  “Since when,” Meyer yelled suddenly, “since when you been whoring around on a job, Jordan?”

  “You say whoring around?”

  “Because they’re looking for that bitch!”

  Jordan sat still and did not worry very much. He knew much more about this girl than the men in the trailer and what was true above everything was that the girl Betty did not fit or belong into any of this and therefore Jordan could not get excited.

  “Sherman,” said Meyer. “Get on that phone again.”

  The young man in the bedroom passage pushed away from the wall and went out of the trailer. Sandy and Meyer watched him leave but Jordan was looking down at his hands. They were quite dry now, he noticed. His face felt dry too.

  “They find her,” said Meyer when Sherman was gone, “they find her, Jordan, and what do you think’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jordan.

  Sandy gave a quick look over, then turned away again. He did not like the tone Jordan had used, and the dumb words. He knew Jordan was not dumb and he had never seen him act sullen.

  “You don’t know!” said Meyer, and he looked back and forth between Sandy and Jordan. “You come back and don’t know if the hit took or not. You don’t know any better than to go out and make time with some lay while you’re out on a job. And you don’t know what’s going to happen to you once they find that woman and tell her who’s been laying her between business assignments! What do you know?”

  “She doesn’t know my name,” said Jordan. He said this because it was the most important thing at the moment. That the girl knew Smith and nobody else knew him. That was important.

  “Who else in Penderburg paid any attention to you, Jordan?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “And she’s alive.”

  “But they haven’t found her,” said Jordan. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  “But I’ll tell you what they know. She left town. She took off for Florida. She’d been talking about that for a long time and she bought a bus ticket that way.”

  “Where in Florida?” said Jordan. He was not too keenly interested because nobody here knew anything that was important.

  “She’s got a girlfriend in Miami Beach and they’re looking for her.”

  “Have they found her?” and Jordan looked across at the dry faucet.

  “Sherman’s checking again.”

  “They won’t find her.”

  “What? What do you know about this?”

  “Nothing,” said Jordan. “I just mentioned my feelings.”

  Meyer jumped up with his bald head turning red. “Feelings? What in hell has any of this got to do with feelings? What’s a cut-and-dry job got to do with your lousy feelings? Now you listen . . .”

  Sherman came back into the trailer and Meyer yelled at him. “Well? What?”

  “About the same,” said Sherman. “What they got new is she’s seen this guy before leaving, this button salesman by the name of Smith. They think maybe . . .”

  “Smith?”

  “Yes. Smith.”

  “You gave the name Smith?” said Meyer and leaned toward Jordan. “Will you explain to me sometime, sometime when there’s peace and quiet, how you came to pick such a clever, such a damn clever name like the name Smith?”

  “It wouldn’t mean anything to you,” said Jordan.

  Meyer had no time or patience to get this answer straight and besides it was crazy impertinence anyway. If they didn’t need the son of a bitch so much . . . “What else,” he said to Sherman. “Come on, come on.”

  “And they think maybe Smith is it, or at least worth looking at, seeing he shows in town, is buddies with Kemp, Kemp gets his, and . . .”

  “We got all that. What else?”

  “And now they got that this girl friend in Miami, in Miami Beach, works in a juice bar. One of those orange . . .”

  “All right, all right. Orange juice bar. What else?”

  “They’re looking. They got the Miami cops on this thing, but of course there’s a hell of a lot of those juice bars all over Miami and Miami Beach.”

  “All right.” Meyer got up and pushed the yellow and red table out of the way so he could walk straight to the door of the trailer. “You take it from here,” he said to Sandy. “You talk to the Wunderkind.” Then he snapped around at the door and looked at Jordan. “You remember her name?”

  “Yes.”

  “You remember her face?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like she’s going to remember yours, Jordan. So get her quick, Smith.” Then he meant to get out. He made a disgusted face and meant to get out of the door.

  How Jordan got to the door so quickly was not clear to Meyer, but Jordan was there, very close, holding the door so it would not open and his face with a clamped look . . . But the strangeness of his face could just be, Meyer thought, because I’ve never seen him this close. And then all Jordan said was, “I’ve never done a job on a woman.”

  After that Jordan let go of the door and stepped back and perhaps none of this had really happened, thought Meyer, and just everything about the son of a bitch is a surprise to me. How Sandy gets along with this creep is beyond me . . .

  “Come outside a minute,” he said to Sandy. Meyer frowned and left the trailer.

  Sandy went out after Meyer and Sherman and when he looked up at the sky he thought it might rain any minute.

  Meyer had his hands in his pockets and stood away from the trailer a ways. Sandy went over there.

  “You saw that just now?” said Meyer.

  “What?”

  “When he held the door shut.”

  “I saw that. He held the door shut.”

  Meyer did not know how to put it. And what J
ordan had actually said had not been anything special.

  “You mean the nerves,” said Sandy. “The way he’s jumpy.”

  “Maybe you call it jumpy,” said Meyer. “I don’t know.”

  Sandy, when it came to his handiwork, felt a certain loyalty, or at least felt something like that, because of the effort he had put out over the time. Jordan, because of strain and an unorthodox job, had been fairly jumpy, but now with the end of it soon, with the girl out of the way, there would soon be no more of this. Besides, Meyer should stay away and keep his browbeating tactics for his office help.

  “I keep wondering,” said Meyer, “if we’re making a mistake.”

  “Jordan goes out on this! He’s the only one who knows the girl by sight.”

  “Sure. That’s reasonable. Is he?”

  “Damn it, Meyer, you keep riding this thing. You keep riding it without knowing the first thing about it. I’ve spent enough time . . .”

  “You’ve never seen him crack up before.”

  Sandy lost his temper because Meyer was interfering where he had done none of the work. He kept his voice as low as he could and anger made him sound hoarse. “When he cracks I know it. When he gets quiet and doesn’t say a thing, then I start worrying. When he goes under, believe me, I know how his type turns out: he’ll fold, crawl in a corner, and he’ll shiver there.”

  Meyer waited a moment and looked up to the sky. Might rain any minute, he thought. Then he said, “So let us all give thanks that he’s prickly and offensive. And that he’s all yours.” Then Meyer turned and walked away.

  Chapter 16

  When Sandy came into the trailer Jordan was at the kitchen counter. He was leaning there and his hand was on the faucet.

  “There’s no water in there,” said Sandy.

  “You never know.”

  Sandy closed the door and then he asked Jordan if he could bum a cigarette. Jordan said, “Sure,” and gave him one. Then Sandy smoked.

  “Well. You heard the man.”

  “Who’s idea was it?” asked Jordan.

  “Idea?”

  “That I should go after her.”

  “It just came up.”

  “It was yours,” said Jordan. “I think it was yours.”