David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America)

by David Goodis

  He walked down the street, turned, went down another street, turned and he was on the street that was all apartment houses. He knew the street. He knew the apartment house, the white brick structure with the black iron gate and the black window frames. He lit a cigarette, crossed the street and went through the open gate. He glanced at his wrist watch as he entered the vestibule. Then he looked at the listing and he saw her name and he pressed the button. There was a buzzing response. He opened the door and went into the lobby.

  In the elevator he dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. The elevator took him to the fifth floor. He walked down the hall. He remembered the hall, everything about it. He told himself there was a certain way he had to go about this, and what he ought to do was stand here a moment and itemize the things he had to say and the order in which they were to be said. Then he was thinking that it might not be a good idea to rehearse it this way because that would be mechanical and he had to avoid the mechanical now. He remembered the way he had pulled it out of Arbogast, the way he had hammered away at the U-turns to get Arbogast’s mind back to that night and specific moments of that night, getting Arbogast to see it again, going back to the first U-turn, the waiting before the first U-turn, the waiting before the second U-turn, seeing that Arbogast wasn’t really back there yet and drilling the U-turns into Arbogast, keeping Arbogast there with the U-turns, keeping Arbogast on that street in those moments, then the first U-turn, and then the second U-turn, and the interval again between the first and second U-turn so that Arbogast would stay there and be there long enough to remember. He had not planned that and he knew that if he had planned something it would not have been the U-turns. And it was only because of the U-turns that he had managed to get it out of Arbogast. It was a spontaneous maneuver and there was nothing mechanical in it and there must be nothing mechanical in this.

  He was at the door now.

  He knocked on the door.

  19

  THE DOOR OPENED.

  She stood there looking at his face. Then she was looking him up and down. Then again she was looking at his face.

  She was thin. She was about five feet four and she didn’t weigh much more than a hundred.

  She had an ordinary face without anything pretty in it. She had eyes the color of an old telegraph pole. Her nose was short and wide at the base and too wide for her face and her mouth was too large. But she wasn’t really ugly. It was just that she wasn’t pretty. She was tan and there was something artificial about the tan, as if she got it from some kind of a lamp. Her hair was dyed darkish orange. She wore it parted in the center and brought back with her ears showing. She was wearing a bright orange house coat and pale orange slacks and she wore sandals that showed her toenails painted bright orange. She had a cigarette in her hand and the smoke came up and rolled slowly over her head.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Parry walked in and closed the door. He stood on a dark orange broadloom carpet. It was fairly new. Everything in the apartment was changed and fairly new. Everything was orange or leaned toward orange. There were orange lines running down and crossways on the frames of the big window. There was a big vase of glazed orange on the left side of the window and on the right side there was a conference of Indian pottery all white except for zigzag orange lines around the middle.

  She seated herself in a low and rounded chair of pale orange and indicated the dark orange sofa.

  Parry sat down. He was looking at her. He put the package on the sofa.

  She said, “I don’t think I should have let you come here.”

  “Don’t you like what you see?”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t usually do things this way.”

  “Well, I’m glad I came.”

  “Would you like a drink?” She was looking at the package.

  “Please. Something cold.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen. She came out with a tray that had two tall glasses half-filled with ice, a dish of sliced limes and a bottle of carbonated water. She opened a pale orange cabinet and took out a bottle of gin. She mixed the drinks.

  Parry sipped his drink and looked at the carpet.

  She said, “What did my husband say?” She glanced at the package.

  Parry looked up. She was opening her mouth to get at the drink. He saw gold inlays glimmering among her teeth.

  He said, “Gave me a description.”

  “Accurate?”

  “Yes.”

  She took a big drink. “What else?” She glanced again at the package.

  “He said you weren’t easy to get along with.”

  “Maybe I’m not.”

  “Maybe that’s what I like.”

  “Are you easy to get along with?”

  “Sometimes. It depends.”

  She smiled at him. Her mouth was open and he saw the gold inlays again. She said, “What else?”

  “About me?”

  “No. What my husband said about me.” She looked at the package.

  “He said you almost drove him out of his mind.”

  “And what else?” She had her mouth open wide as she smiled.

  He looked at the gold inlays. He said, “Well, your husband claimed you had a habit of putting on the act.”

  “What kind of an act?”

  “Acting as if you didn’t have much brains, merely an ignorant sort of pest.”

  “Is that what he really said?”

  “Yes, and he said you were really a shrewd manipulator and when you were out to get something you stopped at nothing. He said he left you because he was afraid of you.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think he had something there.”

  “Do you think you’d be afraid of me?” She looked at the package.

  “Every now and then. And that’s where you’d have a problem. You’d have to guess when.”

  She laughed. The gold inlays caught some of the sun and juggled it. She said, “What do you do?” And she laughed again.

  “I work in an investment security house.”

  She stopped laughing. She looked at him. She said, “What do you do there?”

  “I’m a customer’s man.”

  “What house?”

  “Kinney.”

  “How long have you worked there?”

  “Only a few weeks. I told you I just got in town.”

  “How did you meet my husband?”

  “He came in to make an investment.”

  “Where’s he getting the money to make investments?”

  “He didn’t invest much.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m not saying.”

  She stood up. She said, “Are you going to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “All right then, get out of here.”

  “Okay.” He got up and he was going toward the door.

  She started to laugh. He turned and looked at her. The gold inlays seemed magnified. She said, “You were really going to go, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And would you have gotten in touch with me again?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” She looked at the package on the sofa.

  “You’d start asking questions about him. You’ve got him on your mind.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “All right, then, you’ve got his money on your mind.”

  “You don’t go for that, do you?”

  “Part of it I don’t go for. I don’t care what you’ve got on your mind. But when I’m around I don’t want to hear questions about him or his money.”

  “Who said you were going to be around?”

  “I didn’t. Neither did you. But we both know.”

  “Don’t tell me what I know.” She looked at the package.

  “All right, I won’t. There’s no point in my telling you if you know already.”

  She looked at the package. She said, “Is that for me?”

  “Yes.”

>   She went over and opened the package. She untied the violet satin ribbons and opened the box and looked at the chocolate candy.

  She smiled. She was very pleased. She said, “This is lovely.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  She put a piece of chocolate in her mouth and he saw the gold inlays again. She munched the chocolate and said, “It’s very delicious.”

  She sat down in the low rounded chair with the box of candy in her lap. Her mouth was soft with contentment and her eyes glittered with anticipation. She was stimulated now and that was what he wanted to see.

  She said, “Thank you for the candy, Allan. Allan what?”

  “Linnell.”

  She was looking at his mouth. She said, “When I looked at the candy I knew I was going to like the taste of it.” She kept on looking at his mouth.

  He said, “Well, what do you think? Do you think we’ve got something here?”

  She leaned back and lifted another piece of candy. She smiled and said, “Allan Linnell.” Then she put the candy in her mouth and bit into it.

  And that told him he was ready.

  He said, “I should have brought the candy in an orange box.”

  She watched him gazing at the dark orange carpet. She said, “Yes, it’s my big weakness.”

  “I bet everything you own is on the orange side.”

  “Just about.” She was looking at his mouth.

  “Even your car?”

  “Even my car. It’s bright orange. And my jewelry is orange beryl. And my favorite drink is an orange blossom, just because of the color.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I guess certain colors appeal to certain people.”

  She was looking at his mouth as he said that, and when it got through her ears and into her head her gaze dropped and she was looking at his suit. Then her eyes came up again and she was looking at his eyes. Then her gaze dropped once more and she was looking at the grey worsted fabric and the violet stripe. And she looked at the violet box of candy. And she looked at the violet lines in the grey suit. And she looked at his eyes.

  Then she shuddered and closed her eyes.

  Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  Without moving from the chair she was trying to take herself out of the room.

  He said, “You know. You recognize the suit. You got a good look at it that night. Now you’re looking at my face and you don’t believe it but there’s nothing else for you to do and no other way for you to take it. You’ve got to believe it.”

  She was trying to get out of the chair and she couldn’t move.

  He said, “It’s really me.”

  “Go away,” she said. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  “I can’t do that, Madge. I can’t do that now. I’m the Pest now. You’ve always been the Pest but now I’m the Pest. I’ve got to be. It’s this way, Madge, I’ve got to stay here with you and I’ve got to pester you because I know you killed Gert and you killed Fellsinger and I’ve got to make you own up to it.”

  “Go away.”

  “You can’t send me away, Madge. You did that once but you can’t do it now. You’re very clever, Madge, but you’re not an enchantress. In a dream I had you were a bright orange enchantress on a high trapeze, and you got me to go up there with you on the trapeze, and once you had me up there you let me drop. I was broken and dying and everyone was sorry for me. And you were up there on the high trapeze, laughing at me and showing your gold inlays. But I got away from the dream. And you can’t get away. You’re still up there on the high trapeze and you’re all alone.”

  “Go away, Vincent. Please go away. If you go away now they’ll never find you.”

  “Now I want them to find me.”

  “They’ll kill you.”

  “Do I look worried?”

  She shuddered again. She stared at him.

  He said, “No, Madge, I’m not worried. I know you did it and I know I can convince them you did it. I’ve got facts to prove you followed me from Irene Janney’s apartment the night Fellsinger was murdered. That’s the first thing I’m going to give them. Then I’ll take them back to the day you killed Gert. I’ll tell them why you killed her and I’ll show them how you killed her. You killed her because you were on the trapeze and you were alone. You wanted me up there with you. I never realized how badly you wanted me. It must have been awful, knowing that the only way to get me was by getting rid of Gert. So you put on a pair of gloves and you picked up that ash tray and you killed her. And you had me. You had me up there on the trapeze but once you had me you didn’t want me any more. So you threw me away. You told the police Gert said I did it. At the trial you testified cleverly, giving them all the reasons why I would want to kill Gert, drilling it into them that I killed her. They had my fingerprints on the ash tray and they had your story and that was enough for them. And I had nothing. Because I knew nothing. I thought it was an accident that killed her and I didn’t know how badly you had wanted me.”

  “You can’t take them back.”

  “But I can, Madge. The other night when you and Bob were in Irene’s apartment you made certain statements and Bob made certain statements and I can take them back with that.”

  Her gaze drifted past him. She said, “You’ve got Bob with you.”

  “He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s with me. And you’re alone. And when I take them back to the day Gert was killed I’ll have all of them with me and you’ll remain alone. When you come right down to it, Madge, you’ve always been alone—”

  “Give it up, Vincent. Walk away from it. You can’t go out selling when you have nothing to sell.”

  “—because you wanted to be alone. Because whenever you got what you wanted you were anxious to get rid of it. But when you saw someone else get hold of it you couldn’t stand that. You knew Irene Janney wanted me and you killed Fellsinger because it was your best way of making sure she’d never get me. You knew they’d give me the chair for the murder of Fellsinger. That was the big thing in your mind when you killed him, when you told yourself you were rid of me once and for all and no one else would have me. It was more important than any other thing, even your practical reasons for killing him.”

  “Take my advice, Vincent, and give it up. There’s no way you can build a case against me.”

  “You see, Madge? Even now you’re still trying to make sure she doesn’t get me. You’re really a specimen, Madge. It’s almost impossible to figure you out. But it just happens bright orange shows up against a dark street.”

  “That’s no evidence. You don’t have anything there. What you need is a confession. That’s what you’re trying to get, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it would simplify matters, anyway. As things stand now I know what you did, the reasons and the methods. And the problems you faced. Your first real problem came when you knocked on the door of Irene’s apartment and then you heard the phonograph going and then you heard me telling you to go away. You had a feeling that wasn’t Bob’s voice and when you were outside you kept looking at the window. And then you checked up on Bob, and meanwhile you learned I was loose from San Quentin. And here’s where you get that Academy Award, because you knew she was interested in me, you had it analyzed from the very beginning, and underneath that mask of an ignorant pest you were laughing at her, because here she was, in there pitching for me and I didn’t even know there was such a person as Irene Janney.”

  “She told you that. She told you to come here.”

  “No. You’re not even warm. I’m the banker now. I’ve got all of it. I can see you with your problems. I can see you thinking it over, telling yourself I was on the loose, and as long as you knew and I knew I didn’t kill Gert, it was possible I’d use my freedom to try and find out who did kill her. Then you were worried about it, you knew you had to do something definite and drastic. There was that very big surprise, that Irene Janney had more brains than you gave her credit for and she was hiding me in her apartment. So you knew you had to beg
in with keeping an eye on the apartment. Then when I came out you followed me. Your bright orange roadster followed the taxi to Fellsinger’s place. You watched when I pressed the button. When I went up you came in and saw Fellsinger’s name alongside that particular button. You knew it was only a question of time before the police would visit Fellsinger and ask him if I had tried to make contact. That time element was important. You wanted me to hurry and come down, and when I came down you slipped out from wherever you were hiding and you went in and pressed that same button. You were planning it then, as you went upstairs. And what you wanted most of all was to make sure that Irene Janney would never get me. Next to that you wanted to make sure Fellsinger wouldn’t help me to find out who killed Gert. Then again you knew if you killed Fellsinger every finger would point at me because the police knew of my friendship with Fellsinger and you were certain they’d find my fingerprints in the room and that was all they needed. So you went in there and killed Fellsinger. You got talking to him and you got him off guard and you did away with him. Didn’t you?”