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

by David Goodis

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell that to the police?”

  “No.”

  “They’ll get it out of you anyway. Because they’ll have facts to work with. They’ll have that motivation aspect. Don’t forget the big item about Bob. He’ll be with me.”

  She smiled. “That’s no good. Bob would be recognized as a prejudiced witness. Besides, what could he say? He’d say I wanted you. What tangible proof would he have?”

  “A signed statement from the man you hired to follow him. The man who turned right around and played both ends against the middle and followed me to your apartment. That signed statement, Madge, that does it.”

  She stopped smiling. She said, “All right, that’s concrete in itself, but it isn’t sufficient. The jealousy factor isn’t strong enough.”

  “Then let’s make it stronger. Let’s bring in a nasty bit of gossip concerning Bob and Gert.”

  “Bob. And Gert. Bob and Gert. No. No, don’t try that on me. That’s not possible.”

  “But that’s the way it is. And when Bob gets up and admits his connection with Gert it bursts the whole thing wide open.”

  “I’ll tell them I never knew anything like that was going on. And I’ll be telling the truth.”

  “They won’t believe you, Madge. You hired that man to follow Bob. That’s an act of frenzy and it establishes motivation. You’re afraid now. And I’ll tell you this—as soon as you knew I was here in town you were really scared stiff. Otherwise you would have found a way to tip off the police and let them know I was hiding at Irene Janney’s apartment. But you were really scared by that time, whereas before that you were only uncomfortable. And now you couldn’t bring the police in on it because you thought Irene Janney and I were working on something and maybe we had it at a point where we were just about ready to hand it over to the police. The only way you could bust that up was to bring in a second killing, to kill Fellsinger. That’s where the practical side comes in, but it wasn’t practical enough. You overlooked a big issue. If I had facts to prove I hadn’t killed Gert, why would I want to kill Fellsinger?”

  “You know, I thought of that.”

  “You thought of it when it was too late. Fellsinger was already dead. You had slipped up on that and maybe you had slipped up on other things, so you were still afraid to give it to the police. The night you came to Irene’s place you weren’t putting on any act. You were really in bad shape. You were hoping I wouldn’t be there and it would mean I had skipped town and I was running way from the whole thing. That was what you wanted, because then you’d know for sure the Fellsinger investment was paying dividends your way, and you could finally talk to the police. But here it comes, trouble again. Irene says Bob will be arriving any minute now and she won’t let you hide in the bedroom. So you know I’m in that bedroom. Then you’re sick. You’re going around on a spinning wheel and you can’t get off. What’s Vincent Parry up to? What’s keeping him here in San Francisco? Why doesn’t he run away? What is he waiting for? And how long is he going to wait? I’m afraid—I’m afraid. Right, Madge?”

  She ran thin forefingers up and down the creases of the pale orange slacks. She looked at her knees, then she arranged the violet box of candy in the middle of her lap and studied the contents.

  Parry folded his arms and watched her.

  She selected a chocolate and brought it up slowly toward her mouth and when she had it halfway there she stopped its progress, she let it come into her palm and her hand closed on it and she squeezed it. The chocolate surface broke and white butter cream came gushing out between her fingers. Her head swayed from side to side and she opened her mouth as if in a frantic need for air. She kept squeezing the mashed candy and then all at once snapped her hand open and looked at what she had done. There was a mess of chipped chocolate and butter cream all over her palm and dripping between her fingers. She let out a grinding noise of disgust and rubbed the stuff on her slacks. Then she rubbed her hand on the bright orange house coat, kept rubbing until her hand was clean again. Then she looked at the mess on her slacks and her house coat and she raised her head and her mouth remained open, wide open now in a loose, sagging sort of way.

  She said, “I want you, Vincent. At night I’ve cried in my want for you.”

  He unfolded his arms and held them stiff, away from his sides.

  “All right, Vincent. Let’s examine it. She’s got you now. She’s got you and you’ve got me. But if you don’t hold onto me it means they’re still after you. And as long as you don’t have me it means you can’t prove anything because I won’t be there to admit anything. Motivation alone isn’t enough. They’ll want certain facts.”

  “You’ll be there,” he said. He took a few steps backward so that he was between the low rounded chair and the door.

  “You’re wrong, Vincent. You’ll never be able to prove it because I won’t be there. You need evidence, you need something concrete, you need a witness. And you don’t have a witness, do you? No. Of course you don’t.”

  He watched her. She began to laugh lightly and with enjoyment.

  The various shades of orange were merging and melting and flowing toward him.

  She kept laughing. She said, “You don’t have a witness—no witness.”

  “I’ve got the facts and I’ve got you and that’s all I need.”

  “The facts aren’t enough. You can’t prove them without me.”

  “But I’ve got you.”

  “No, Vincent. You don’t have me.” She stood up. She smiled at him.

  He said, “Do you think I’m going to stand here and let you get away?”

  She took a long breath and he could hear the dragging in her throat. She said, “They’ll always be looking for you. She wants you very badly. And that’s why she’d be willing to run away with you and keep on running away and always scared, always running away. And it would ruin everything for her but she wouldn’t care because she’d be with you and that’s all she wants. And you know that and that’s why you won’t take her. That’s why she doesn’t have you now and she’ll never have you and nobody will ever have you. And that’s the way I wanted it. And that’s the way it is. And it will always be that way.”

  She laughed at him and he saw the gold inlays. He saw the bright orange going back and away from him, going too fast. She was running backwards, throwing herself backwards as he went after her but she was too fast and he saw the gold inlays glittering and the bright orange flaring as her arms went wide as the gold inlays flashed as she hit the window and the window gave way and the cracked glass went spraying and she went through.

  He was at the window. He leaned through the broken window and he saw her going down, the bright orange acrobat falling off the trapeze. And it was as if she was taking him with her as she went down, the bright orange rolling and tossing and going down and hitting the pavement five stories below. He saw two baby carriages and two women and he heard the women screeching.

  Then he saw the upturned faces of the women. And he knew they were staring at the face of the man up there, framed in broken glass. They screeched louder.

  He ran out of the apartment, thinking of Irene, darted toward the elevator, thinking of Irene, knew he couldn’t use the elevator or the front entrance. He ran down the corridor and took the fire escape. He was thinking of Irene. He used an alley and a narrow street and another alley and finally a street with car tracks. He waited there, thinking of Irene and then a street car came along and took him to the center of town. He ran to the hotel, his brain jammed with Irene. He went up to his room and got into the new clothes and packed his things. Then he was downstairs and paying for one day and saying he was called out of town unexpectedly and he was thinking of Irene and he was seeing her alone in her little apartment and at the window as he went away and wanting him to come back, wanting him to take her with him. And he was trying to tell her how much he wanted to take her with him but he couldn’t take her with him because now there was no way to prove
his innocence and they would always be running away and even though the road was wide it was dark, frantic, and there was no certainty. There would be a haven now and then but no certainty and he couldn’t do that to her. He told himself she was all alone and he would always think of her as all alone and he told himself to go back there and take her with him. He told himself he couldn’t do that to her. Here she had a home and she was safe. With him she would never be safe and she would never have a home because a home was never a home when it was a hideaway and he knew what it was to hide and run and hide again. He couldn’t ask her to share that even though he knew she would leap at sharing it. And he knew once she had it, once it hit her, she wouldn’t say anything and she would cover up and smile and say everything was all right. That was Irene. That was his girl. That was the happiness, the sweet purity he had always wanted and wanted now more than anything. And he could hear her pleading with him to come back and take her. He could hear himself pleading with himself to go back and take her. And under flashing sunlight the road remained dark.

  He walked out of the hotel and kept walking until he found a two-by-four bus depot. He went in and a lot of people in low-priced clothes were sitting on a bench facing a splintered counter. He went up to the counter and a young man behind the counter asked him where he wanted to go and he said Patavilca and the young man said what was that again and he said Arizona and the young man asked where in Arizona and he said Maricopa.

  The young man picked up a route map and asked him if he was going alone and he nodded. Then he had his ticket and he found a place on the bench and sat down to wait. It was very warm and sticky in there. He began to think of Arbogast.

  They would never know who had done away with Arbogast. They wouldn’t even take the trouble to attempt finding out. They had Arbogast listed as a cheap crook and it would be a convenience to cross him off the list. All very quick and automatic, easy to picture. Someone would come across the body and police would identify the body and bury it and say good riddance. But the picture was upside down.

  The whole thing was upside down. And the world was spinning in the wrong direction. They had it completely diagnosed. There wasn’t a segment of doubt in their minds. This man had killed his wife. And then he had gone ahead and killed his best friend. And then while he was at it he had sought out the woman who had testified against him and he had pushed her through a window.

  His lips were building a dim smile. The taxi driver was coming into his mind, along with Coley. He wondered if they were still speaking to each other. Probably, because they couldn’t discuss their awful mistake with anyone else. The taxi driver would say it didn’t pay to be nice to people. Coley would say there was nothing they could do about it and they might just as well forget about it. And they would never forget about it. They would always feel certain they had helped a killer to kill two more people. He felt sorry for them. He wished there was a way he could straighten them out on that.

  Someone said, “Do these buses ever run on schedule?”

  A skinny woman with two children on her lap said, “What do they care? You think they’re worried about us?”

  “That’s the way it goes.” The someone was a tall man wearing a straw hat. He had a thin mouth that flapped down at the corners. His tie was knotted a good two inches below the collar. “Yes,” he said, working his mouth as if there was something sour inside, “it’s just one big battle royal all the way through. Nobody gives a hang about the other fellow.”

  “It’s so hot in here,” the woman said. The smaller child started to slip away from her lap and she pulled him back and said, “Sit still.”

  The man sighed. He took off the straw hat, scratched the top of a bald head. “Yes,” he said, gazing at the wall, “that’s the way it goes.”

  “Sometimes,” the woman said, “I get tired. I just get sick and tired of everything. Nothing to look forward to.”

  The man gestured toward the children. “You got them kids,” he said. “That’s something. Look at me. I got nobody.”

  “These are my sister’s kids,” the woman said. “She’s been sick and I been caring for them. Now she’s all better and I’m taking them back.”

  “Where?”

  “Tucson. Then I’ll be coming back here and I’ll be alone again. I tell you it aint bearable when a person has nothing to look forward to.”

  “You mean these aint your kids?”

  “I wish they were. Look at them. They’re fine little boys.”

  The man was looking at the woman. The man handled his tie and brought the knot up to the collar. The knot glowed like a lamp far down a dark road.

  Parry left the bench and walked out of the bus depot. He was walking fast. He went into a drugstore on the corner and picked up a telephone book. He found the number he wanted and went into the booth and put a nickel in the slot. He dialed and waited while the other phone rang once and then twice and then she said hello.

  He said, “It’s Allan.”

  “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. What are you doing?”

  “Just sitting here.”

  “All right. Listen. It was Madge. But I can’t use it. I went up there for a showdown and she did away with herself. Went through the window. You’ll read all about it in the afternoon edition. You’ll read I pushed her out. I just want you to know I didn’t push her out.”

  “That’s not why you called. There’s something else you want me to know.”

  He grinned while tears arrived. He said, “It’s nice when you have something to look forward to. Get yourself a map of South America. In Peru there’s a little town on the coast. Patavilca. Say it. Tell me where it is.”

  “Patavilca. In Peru.”

  “Good. Now listen. I won’t write. There can’t be any connection whatsoever. And we’ve got to wait. We’ve got to give it plenty of time. Maybe they’ll get a lead on you and they’ll keep an eye on you for a while. Meanwhile if I manage to make it down there I’ll be waiting there for you. And if you see your way clear—listen to all these ifs.”

  “We’ll skip the ifs,” she said. “I get the idea and that’s all I require. The general idea. Now hang up on me. Just like that—hang up.”

  He hung up. He hurried back to the depot and saw the bus gliding into the parking space alongside the waiting room. The passengers formed a jagged line and going into the bus they moved hungrily toward empty seats. Parry found a seat in the rear of the bus and gazing frontward he saw the man in the straw hat sitting next to the skinny woman and the two children sat together across the aisle. The driver came hopping into the bus and closed the door. A few people on the outside were waving good-by. The driver started the motor and then he faced the passengers and he said, “All set?”

  NIGHTFALL

  Chapter One

  IT WAS one of those hot, sticky nights that makes Manhattan show its age. There was something dreary and stagnant in the way all this syrupy heat refused to budge. It was anything but a night for labor, and Vanning stood up and walked away from the tilted drawing board. He brushed past a large metal box of water colors, heard the crash as the box hit the floor. That seemed to do it. That ended any inclination he might have had for finishing the job tonight.

  Heat came into the room and settled itself on Vanning. He lit a cigarette. He told himself it was time for another drink. Walking to the window, he told himself to get away from the idea of liquor. The heat was stronger than liquor.

  He stood there at the window, looking out upon Greenwich Village, seeing the lights, hearing noises in the streets. He had a desire to be part of the noise. He wanted to get some of those lights, wanted to get in on that activity out there, whatever it was. He wanted to talk to somebody. He wanted to go out.

  He was afraid to go out.

  And he realized that. The realization brought on more fright. He rubbed his hands into his eyes and wondered what was making this night such a difficult thing. And suddenly he was telling himself that somethin
g was going to happen tonight.

  It was more than a premonition. There was considerable reason for making the forecast. It had nothing to do with the night itself. It was a process of going back, and with his eyes closed he could see a progression of scenes that made him shiver without moving, swallow hard without swallowing anything.

  There was a pale blue automobile, a convertible. That was a logical color, that pale blue, logical for the start of it, because it had started out in a pale, quiet way, the pale blue convertible cruising along peacefully, the Colorado mountainside so calm and pretty, the sky so contented, all of this scene pale blue in a nice even sort of style. And then red came into it, glaring red, the hood and fenders of the smashed station wagon, the hard gray of the boulder against which the wrecked car was resting, the hard gray turning into black, the black of the revolver, the black remaining as more colors moved in. The green of the hotel room, the orange carpet, or maybe it wasn’t orange—it could have been purple, a lot of those colors could have been other colors—but the one color about which there was no mistake was black. Because black was the color of a gun, a dull black, a complete black, and through a whirl of all the colors coming together in a pool gone wild, the black gun came into his hand and he held it there for a time impossible to measure, and then he pointed the black gun and he pulled the trigger and he killed a man.

  He took his clenched fists away from his eyes, opened his eyes and brought himself back to this room. Turning, he saw the drawing board, and it threw an invisible rope toward him, the rope pulling him in, urging him to get away from yesterday and stay with now. Because now had him listed as James Vanning, a commercial artist specializing in the more intricate kind of work that art departments of advertising agencies hand out to proven experts. Tonight he was mixed up with one of the usual rush jobs and the deadline was four tomorrow afternoon. But if he went to sleep now he could get up early tomorrow and finish the assignment in time to satisfy the art director.