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

by David Goodis

“Your own gun?”

  “No,” Vanning said, “I told you how I got it.”

  “Yes, you did tell us that, but I’m wondering if you expect us to believe it. Doesn’t matter. We’ll skip that section. We’ll put you on that street with him. He’s dead. You’re standing there, looking down at him. And now what do you do?”

  “I start running.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “What’s there to be afraid of? You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve killed a man, but you’ve done it in self-defense. You’re in the clear. What bothers you?”

  “The satchel. I saw that I had it in my hand. I couldn’t remember picking it up. But there it was, in my hand.”

  “Well,” the policeman said, “that was all right too. You still had the satchel. Why didn’t you come into Denver and hand it over?”

  “I was afraid. I didn’t think you’d believe my story. You know the way it sounds. It’s one of those stories that doesn’t check.”

  “I’m glad you understand that,” the policeman said. “It makes things easier for both of us. So now we have you in those woods and you’re running and still have the satchel. And what happens?”

  “I don’t have the satchel any more.”

  “It takes a jump away from you and runs away, is that it?”

  “I just don’t have that satchel any more,” Vanning said. “I can’t remember where I dropped it. I must have been in the woods for two or three hours and I couldn’t have been traveling in a straight line. And the woods were thick, there was so much brush, there was a swampy section, there were a million places where I could have dropped the satchel. Can’t you understand my condition? How confused I was? Try to understand. Give me any sort of a test. Please believe me.”

  “Sure,” the policeman said. “I believe you. We all believe you. It’s as simple and clear as a glass of water. You took the satchel. You ran away with it. That’s what you say and that’s what we believe. And that brings us to the other thing. In order to get that satchel you had to kill a man. So we’ve circled around now and we’ve come back to it and honest to goodness, mister, you’re so far behind the eight ball that it looks like the head of a pin. It’s too bad you had to go and get yourself mixed up with the wrong people. We’re holding you on grand larceny and murder in the first degree.”

  “But I gave myself up. I came to you. I didn’t have to do that.”

  “You didn’t bring the satchel.”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “Oh, now, why don’t you cut that out?”

  “I tell you I don’t know where it is. I dropped it someplace. I lost it. Look, I didn’t have to come here and tell you all this. I could have kept on running. But I came here.”

  “It’s a point in your favor,” the policeman said. “As a matter of fact, you have quite a few points on your side. No past record. The fact that the other man was holding a gun when you killed him. The fact that you had a legitimate occupation waiting for you in Chicago. So all that may get you some sort of a break. We may be able to work something out. Tell you what. You tell us where you’ve got that satchel hidden.”

  “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know where it is.”

  The policeman looked at the other faces and sighed. Then he looked at Vanning. His face loomed in front of Vanning as he said, “All right, you can still help yourself out a little, even if you want to be stubborn about that three hundred thousand. What you can do is plead guilty to grand larceny and murder in the second degree. That’s giving you a break, bringing it down to second-degree murder, and that ought to send you up for about ten years. If you behave yourself you ought to get out in five, maybe even two or three if you’re lucky.”

  “I won’t do that,” Vanning said. “I won’t ruin myself. I’m an innocent man. I’m a young man and I’m not going to mess up my life.”

  The policeman shrugged. All the policemen shrugged. The woods shrugged and the sky shrugged. None of them especially cared. It meant nothing to them. It meant nothing to the universe with the exception of this one tiny, moving, breathing thing called Vanning, and what it meant to him was fear and fleeing. And hiding. And fleeing again. And more hiding.

  He stayed in the woods for another day and another night, went on through the woods until he found a clearance, and then railroad tracks. A freight came along and he hopped it. Later he hopped another freight and still another and finally arrived in New Orleans. He called himself Wilson and got a job on the water front. The pay was good, and with time and a half for overtime he soon had enough for more travel.

  In Memphis he called himself Donahue and worked as a truck driver. Then up from Memphis, a short stay in Washington, and winding up in New York with three hundred dollars in his pocket. He called himself Rayburn and took the room in the Village. He went out and bought artist’s materials and for two weeks he went at it furiously, building up a portfolio.

  Then he went around with the portfolio and after a week of that he received his first assignment. At the beginning he had a thick mustache and wore dark glasses and combed his hair with a part in the middle. Later he discarded the glasses, and after that the mustache, and eventually he went back to the old way of combing his hair. He knew he was taking a big gamble, but it was something he had to do. He had to get rid of the hollow feeling, the grotesque knowledge that he was a hunted man.

  He worked, he ate, he slept. He managed to keep going. But it was very difficult. It was almost unbearable at times, especially nights when he could see the moon from his window. He had a weakness for the moon. It gave him pain, but he wanted to see it up there. And beyond that want, so far beyond it, so futile, was the want for someone to be at his side, looking at the moon as he looked at it, sharing the moon with him. He was so lonely. And sometimes in this loneliness he became exceedingly conscious of his age, and he told himself he was missing out on the one thing he wanted above all else, a woman to love, a woman with whom he could make a home. A home. And children. He almost wept whenever he thought about it and realized how far away it was. He was crazy about kids. It was worth everything, all the struggle and heartache and worry, if only someday he could marry someone real and good, and have kids. Four kids, five kids, six kids, and grow up with them, show them how to handle a football, romp with them on the beach with their mother watching, smiling, so proudly, happily, and sitting at the table with her face across from him, and the faces of the kids, and waking up in the morning and going to work, knowing there was something to work for, and all that was as far away as the moon, and at times it seemed as though the moon was shaking its big pearly head and telling him it was no go, he might as well forget about it and stop eating his heart out.

  The moon expanded after a while, and it became a brightly lit room that had two faces planted on the ceiling. One of the faces was big and wore glasses. The other face was gray and bony and topped by a balding skull. The faces flowed down from the ceiling and became stabilized, attached to torsos that stood on legs. And Vanning groaned.

  Then he blinked a few times and put a hand to his mouth. The hand came away bloody. He looked at the blood. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  A door opened. Vanning turned and saw John entering the room. He grinned at John.

  John had his hands in trousers pockets and was biting his lip and gazing at nothing special. Vanning stood up, stumbled and hit the bed and fell on it.

  Pete moved toward Vanning and John said, “No.”

  “Let me work on him alone,” Pete said. “Sam gets in my way.”

  “You hit him too hard,” Sam said. “You knocked him out too fast. That ain’t the way.”

  “I don’t need Sam, I can operate better alone,” Pete said. He was removing brass knuckles from his right hand. He rubbed his hands together and took a step toward the bed.

  “Leave him alone,” John said. “Get away from him.”

  “I’d like a drink of water,” Vanning said.

  �
��Sure,” John said. “Sam, go get him a drink of water.”

  Sam walked out of the room. Pete stood there, near the bed, rubbing his hands and smiling at Vanning. Quiet streamed through the room and became thick in the middle of the room. Finally John looked at Vanning.

  “Hurt much?” John said.

  “Inside of my mouth. Cut up.”

  “Lose any teeth?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

  “Let me work on him alone,” Pete said.

  John looked at Pete and said, “Get the hell out of here.”

  Pete shrugged and walked out of the room and John took a revolver from his shoulder holster and played with it for a while. He sighed a few times, frowned a few times, twisted his face as if he was trying to get a fly off it, and then he stood up and went to the wall and leaned there, looking at Vanning.

  The quiet came back and settled in the center of the room. Vanning collected some blood in his mouth, spat it onto the floor. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed it against his mouth and looked at the blood, bright against white linen. He looked at John, and John was there against the wall, looking back at him, and it went on that way for several minutes, and then the door opened and Sam came in with a glass of water.

  Vanning took the glass, and without looking at it he lifted it to his mouth, sent the water into his mouth, choked on the water, pegged the glass at Sam’s face. The glass hit Sam on the side of his face, broke there, and some glass got through Sam’s flesh. Sam threw a hand inside his lapel.

  “No,” John said.

  “Yes. Let me.” Sam’s eyes were blank.

  “What did you put in the water?” John said.

  “Nothing,” Sam said.

  “Salt,” Vanning said. “Try tasting salt water when your mouth is all cut up.”

  John walked over to Sam, gestured with the revolver, and Sam walked out of the room. John turned and faced Vanning and said, “You see the way it is? They like this. They get a kick out of it. That’s what you’re up against. Every few minutes they’ll get a new idea and they’ll want to try it on you.”

  “I feel sorry for myself,” Vanning said, “but I can’t do anything about it.”

  “I’ll let you in on something,” John said. “If you think I’m enjoying this, you’re crazy.”

  “Then why don’t you stop it?”

  “The cash.”

  “Suppose you were in my place,” Vanning said. “Suppose you knew you were going to go out the hard way if you didn’t talk. Would you talk?”

  “Sure,” John said. “I’m no fool. I’d save myself a lot of grief. Money means a lot to me, but it doesn’t mean that much.”

  “Do you think it means that much to me?”

  “I think you’re sore, that’s all. You’re so burned up that it’s got the best of you. Either that or you’re one of these morons who thinks it’s the trend to be brave.”

  “You’re way off,” Vanning said. “I’m too mature for the Rover Boy act. I’m too scared to be angry. And I have enough common sense to realize that eventually I’ll be dead if I don’t tell you where that money is. That’s why it’s such a rough situation. I don’t know where it is and there’s no way I can convince you of the fact.”

  John sighed again. He said, “I’ve been in this game a long time. I was sent up once for seven years. When they let me out I made up my mind to play level. It lasted for a while. I worked for a brewing outfit in Seattle. I met a girl. I don’t remember, maybe I was happy. Anyway, my health was good, I had an appetite, I hardly ever took a drink. Then I began to see things. The way so many people let themselves wide open for a smart play. Even the big people. So you can figure out what happened to me. I went back to the old game. Just jockeying around at first. A few gasoline stations, a store now and then. Then a small bank in Spokane. And then a bigger bank in Portland. Finally the important job in Seattle. And that was going to be the last transaction.”

  “Even this won’t do you any good,” Vanning said. “How can you sell me something when I’m in no position to buy?”

  As if Vanning had not interrupted, John went on, “It was going to be the last. After the split and expenses, I figured on a little more than two hundred grand for myself. And then I’d wait awhile until things blew over and I’d go back to Seattle and get in touch with that girl. Look, I’ll show you something.”

  Holding the revolver at his side, John used his other hand to extract a wallet from a hip pocket. He opened the wallet, handed it to Vanning. Under celluloid there was a picture of the girl. She was very young. Maybe she wasn’t even twenty. Her hair came down in long, loose waves that played with her shoulders. She was smiling. The way her face was arranged it was easy to see that she was a little girl, and skinny, and probably not too brilliant.

  Vanning handed back the wallet. He bit his lower lip in a thoughtful way and he said, “She’s pretty.”

  “Good kid.” John replaced the wallet in his pocket.

  “Does she know?”

  “She knows everything.”

  “And where does that leave her?”

  “Up a tree, for the time being,” John said. “But she doesn’t care. She’s willing to wait. And then we’re going away together. You know what I always wanted? A boat.”

  “Fishing?”

  “Just going. In a boat. I know about boats. I worked on freighters tripping back and forth between the West Coast and South America. Once I worked on a rich man’s yacht. I’ve always wanted my own boat. That Pacific is a big hunk of water. All those islands.”

  “I’ve seen some of them.”

  “You have?” John leaned forward. He was smiling with interest.

  “Quite a few of them. But I didn’t have time to concentrate on the scenery. There was too much activity taking place. And smoke got in the way.”

  John nodded. “I get it. But just think of working out from the West Coast with all that water to move around in. All those islands out there ahead. A forty-footer with a Diesel engine. And go from one island to another. And look at them all. No real estate agent to bother me with the build-up. Just look them over and let them give me their own build-up. And let me make my own choice.”

  “You wouldn’t stay long.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “You don’t know yourself. You’d start thinking about another bank and another three hundred thousand. You’re built that way, John. It’s not your fault.”

  “Whose fault is it?”

  “Who knows? Something must have happened when you were a kid. Not enough playgrounds in your town.”

  John grinned. “You talk like a defense attorney. It’s a funny thing. I like you. You’re game. You don’t make a lot of noise. You can handle yourself. Maybe I’ll take you along on my boat.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  John twisted his face and stared past Vanning. “I’ll bet we could actually strike up a friendship. What do I call you?”

  “Jim.”

  “Cigarette, Jimmy?”

  “Okay.”

  And then after the cigarettes were lit, John said, “That’s what I have in mind. That boat. And you’re wrong about my coming back. I’d never come back. Just that little island and the girl and me. We’d have everything two people need. Figure it out.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Vanning said. “And there’s a piece in there that doesn’t fit. The money. Why would you need all that money?”

  “The boat. Supplies. General expenses. It adds up.”

  “It doesn’t hit a couple hundred thousand. Nowhere near that. If we made an itemized list you’d see how little you needed.”

  “We’ll do that later,” John said. “After I have the money.”

  Vanning hauled at the cigarette. He liked what was happening. It was giving him time, and he wanted that more than anything else. With time he could think, and with enough thinking there would be some sort of plan. Up till now the atmosphere had exhibited a complet
ely hopeless quality. And now he had reason to think there might be a way to go on living.

  “When I have that boat,” John said, “I won’t wait. I’ll get on the boat with her and we’ll shove off. Did you ever stop to think how cities crowd you? They move in on you, like stone walls moving in. You get the feeling you’ll be crushed. It happens slow, but you imagine it happens fast. You feel like yelling. You want to run. You don’t know where to run. You think if you start running something will stop you.”

  “I don’t mind cities,” Vanning said.

  “Cities hurt my eyes. I don’t like the country, either. I like that water. I know once I get on that water, going across it, going away, I’ll be all right. I won’t be nervous any more.”

  “You don’t seem nervous.”

  “My nerves are in bad shape,” John said. “I have a devil of a time falling asleep. How do you sleep?”

  “The past eight months haven’t been so good.”

  “You’ll sleep fine after we get this deal cleared up.”

  “I guess so.”

  “How about it, Jimmy?”

  Vanning squeezed the cigarette, watched the burning end detach itself from unlit tobacco, watched shreds of tobacco dripping from the paper shell. Emotion became an unknown thing, replaced now by curiosity. He wanted John to go on talking. He wanted an explanation of that sequence in Denver, the peculiar combination of revolver and satchel and empty room. But he couldn’t ask about that. If he did ask, and if John gave him an answer, he would be strangely obligated to John, and he couldn’t afford to be placed in that position. He had nothing to offer in return.

  “I’m thinking about it,” he said.

  “That’s fine,” John said, and there was a faint touch of desperation in his voice. “You go on thinking about it. Don’t worry about it. Just give it some thought. We’ll figure out something.”

  They traded smiles, and John went on talking about the boat. He got to talking about boats in general. He seemed to know his boats. They stayed with the boats for a while and then they gradually came back to the business at hand.

  “Funny,” John said, “how we spotted you tonight.”