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

by David Goodis

  “They heard the shots,” she said. “They’re coming.”

  He worked with her, came forward to his knees, facing the boardwalk. He saw a rapid movement on the boardwalk, people coming toward the rail and crowding the rail. All along the boardwalk within the range of his vision they were pushing toward the rail, trying to see what had caused the explosive sounds in the darkness of the beach. He had his arm around Gladden’s shoulder as she brought him to standing. He looked down and saw Charley.

  The moonlight was on Charley and it was rather bright where it came against the head and shoulders. There it seemed to be moving moonlight because the blood was still flowing. Only a small part of Charley’s face remained. The rest of it caused Harbin to turn his head fast. He looked at the boardwalk. He saw the moving mob and under the boardwalk lights they were small enamel figures heading toward the various stairways going down to the beach. His head clouded for a moment and he had to close his eyes. When he opened his eyes he saw the gun on the sand near Charley. He turned his head and saw Gladden. She was looking at the boardwalk. Then she looked at the dead man on the sand. Then again at the boardwalk.

  “We can’t run,” she said. “There’s no use running.”

  “We better run. Let’s move.”

  “Where?” she said. “Look.” And she pointed up and down along the boardwalk. All along the boardwalk they were coming down the stairways, the stairway directly ahead, the stairways on both sides, then more stairways, and more stairways. Harbin looked at it. He heard the drone of it, the rising sound of droning, and suddenly a sound that split the droning. A sound of whistles. He knew it was police whistles and something caused him to take another look at the dead man. He told himself the dead man was a policeman and would be eventually identified as a policeman. He knew it meant a very quick decision from any jury, so they had to run, he told himself, but they couldn’t run because if they ran they would run into the people and the police coming toward them from the front and from both sides. He looked at Gladden. She had her face turned to the ocean. He took hold of her wrist. His heart began to beat very fast.

  “That’s it,” he said. “That’s the only way.”

  “We’ll have to go far out.”

  “Very far out.” They were running now, running toward the water, he could see the plan of it, and as the design took shape, he took himself above the pain and the weakness and held himself there as he ran with Gladden toward the water.

  “Nat,” she panted. “Can you swim?”

  “You’ve seen me swim.”

  “But now. Can you swim now?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll swim.” They were on the wet shining sand and she was going ahead of him and then losing stride to wait for him and he said, “Keep going. Just keep going.”

  They ran into the water. They ran through the shallow water where it came in little waves snapping at the beach. The foam of the big waves was thick and very white out there against the black, and they were going toward the big waves, the water up to their knees, the waves breaking just ahead of them. He saw that Gladden still had the hat on, the new hat she had bought in the boardwalk shop. The hat was distinct and bright orange against the black water. He was directly behind Gladden as she threw herself under a wave, and he followed her under the wave, came up alongside her and saw that she still had the hat on.

  “Take off the hat,” he said. “They might see it from the beach.”

  “I better take off more than the hat.” She was removing the hat-pin from her hair. “My shoes feel heavy.”

  “Wait until we’re further out.” But he knew they couldn’t wait very long. His clothes and his shoes were pulling him down. It made him feel as though he were dragging a wagon behind him through the water. He swam ahead of Gladden while she went under water to take off the orange hat and crumble it and let it sink. He remembered times when Gladden was a kid and he had watched her swim at municipal pools. She had been a smooth little swimmer and swimming was a practice that never went away once it was acquired. It helped some, to know Gladden was a good swimmer. He sent himself under another wave, going under deep, then looked around and saw Gladden swimming toward him. He could see her face clearly against the dark water and she was grinning. He forgot what they were doing out here in the ocean in the night and he figured he was out here with Gladden for some fun and swimming in the Atlantic. Then he felt the drag of his clothes and his shoes pulling him down in the water and he realized what he and Gladden were doing out here, what they were trying to do, and he felt the panic.

  He felt the big panic because everything was big. The sky was big and the ocean was big. The waves were very big. The tops of the waves were high above his head, the foam coming like the foaming mouths of big beasts leaping at him. He went under, came up, went under again to slide himself underneath the heavy current of the waves. Gladden came up alongside him and they went under a wave together. Harbin failed to go under deep enough and the rush of the wave caught him full and knocked him off balance. He hit the bottom of the ocean. The panic was there very big and he had a feeling he was several hundred feet down at the bottom of the ocean underneath the night. But coming up he was standing and the water reached only to his chest. He was facing the boardwalk, seeing the lights and the movement of color against the glow and some vague action on the beach, but that was all. He didn’t want to take the time to study it further. He turned and went under another big wave as it came lunging at him. He saw Gladden was some yards ahead and she was swimming nicely. He saw her hair flowing, glowing gold along the black water.

  They swam through the waves, went out past the breakers, swimming out and came to the deep water and went on going. They went swimming out, staying close together, concentrating on the swimming. The water was calm out here. Harbin decided it was time to really start swimming and in order to do that they would have to get rid of the clothes and the shoes.

  “Hold it,” he said. “Tread water.”

  “You all right?”

  “I’m fine. Take off your things.”

  They treaded water while they took off their clothes. Harbin had trouble with the shoelaces and he went down a few times and felt the drag of the effort while he struggled with the shoes. Finally he had the shoes off and he liked the free movement of his legs in the water. He took off his clothes and pulled his wallet from the trousers, took the bills from the wallet and pushed them deeply into his socks, so that he could feel the security of the paper money against his ankles and the soles of his feet. He had all his clothes off except his shorts and the socks, with the money in the socks. He thought of the money and it was a good thought, because he knew to what extent they would need the money when they came out of the water.

  He wondered when they would come out of the water. He wondered if they would ever come out of the water. That brought the panic again and he began to call himself names for allowing these things to occur to him. He told himself it was going to be all right. That was the only way to look at it, because it was going to be all right. He looked at Gladden. She was grinning. It was the same grin she had given him when they were back there going through the breakers. All at once, staring at the grin, he knew there was something wrong with the grin. It wasn’t really a grin. It seemed to be more on the order of a grimace.

  “Gladden.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Tell me, Gladden.”

  “I tell you nothing’s wrong.”

  “You tired?”

  “Not a bit.” Her face bobbed up and down in the water. She grinned.

  “Gladden,” he said. “Listen, Gladden.” He treaded water toward her. “We’ll work our way out of this.”

  “Sure we will.”

  “We’ll swim out far. We’ve got to swim out very far.”

  “Way out,” she said.

  “Very far out. They may look at the water. Maybe they’ll look far out.”

  “
I know.”

  “And then,” he said, “when we’re out far enough, we’ll turn and follow the line of the beach. We’ll do that for a while and then we’ll start turning in toward the beach.”

  She nodded. “I get it.”

  “We’ll come in,” he said, “where it looks safe.”

  “Sure,” she nodded. “That’s the way we’ll do it.”

  “I’ve kept the money with me,” he said. “I’ve got it right here with me. In my socks. As long as we have the money, we’ll manage. There’s plenty of money and I know we’ll manage.”

  “After we come back to the beach.”

  “It won’t be too long.”

  “How long?” She lost the grin, then quickly picked it up again.

  “Not very long,” he said. “What we’ve got to do is not get tired. We’ll take our time and we won’t get tired.”

  “I’m not the least bit tired.” The grin became wider. “I bet it’s a very crowded beach right now.”

  “Mobbed.” He wanted to look toward the beach but something told him he shouldn’t look at it. He knew it would be very far away and he didn’t want Gladden to see him looking at the distant beach. He said, “I guess they’re just standing around. Just a mob of them standing around and figuring he probably did away with himself.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “That means we’re clear.”

  “I’m glad you’re not tired,” he said. “Now, look, Gladden—”

  “Yes? Yes?”

  “If you get tired, I want you to tell me. You hear?”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

  “I mean it.” He came in close to her and took a close look at her. “If you get tired it’s important that you tell me right away. We have a lot of swimming to do.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s start doing it.”

  They resumed the swimming. Without the clothes and the shoes it was easy swimming now and they cut their way through the calm water, going out, the black a thick black ahead of them, nothing ahead of them but the black of water and sky, except where the moonlight came against the ocean. The moonlight was far to one side, and it went running slowly along with them as they swam out.

  Chapter XXI

  AND AS he swam, staying just a little behind Gladden so he could keep his eyes on her and see how she was doing, Harbin began to think about Della. He didn’t realize he was thinking about Della. It was just that Della floated into his mind and began to take control of his mood. More of Della floated in and he saw her somewhere. It was beyond the ordinary.

  That was one of the things about Della, her manner of going beyond the ordinary. And yet the basic things she had wanted were really very ordinary. All she had wanted was to be with him in the place on the hill, just be there with him. It couldn’t be more ordinary than that. Certainly she hadn’t asked a lot, wanting that.

  The golden hair in the water ahead of him came into his eyes and into his mind, pushing softly at Della and sending Della away. He could feel it happening and for a moment he didn’t want it to happen. He fought it. But it was happening. Della was going out and away from his mind. He had his thoughts entirely on Gladden.

  He called her name. She stopped swimming and he came up close to her. They treaded water.

  “What is it?” she grinned at him.

  “Want to rest my arms.” But that wasn’t it. His arms felt all right. All of him felt all right and he managed to keep himself high above the pain in his throat. He said, “I want to promise you something. I promise I’ll never get ideas like the ideas I had up there on the boardwalk. I mean about giving ourselves up. The way it was, there was a point to it, but now there’s no point, no point at all. They’d throw the entire rap at us and we’d have no comeback.”

  “That’s for certain. I took it for granted.” Instead of the grin, she was looking at him in an odd way. “Why do you tell it to me?”

  “Just to let you know.”

  She nodded. “I’m glad you’re telling me.” Then suddenly the grin was there again. “Really, Nat, you don’t have to tell me.”

  “Listen,” he said. “Is anything the matter?”

  “Why?”

  “What are you grinning about?”

  “Grinning?” She worked on the grin and made it fade. “I’m not grinning.”

  “What bothers you?”

  “Nothing bothers me,” she said. “We’re out here swimming and after a while we’ll go back to the beach.” And again she showed him the grin that was not actually a grin.

  Then suddenly she was going through the water toward him, her arms were around his neck. “Hold me,” she said. “Please hold me.”

  He held her. He felt the weight of her and he knew she was forgetting to tread water. He held her up in the water and had the thick wet of her hair against his face.

  She said, “I ruined it. You see what I do? I always ruin it for you. I’ve always wanted everything to be good for you and I’ve always made everything bad.”

  “That isn’t true. I don’t want you to say that.”

  “Pulling you down. Like I’m pulling you down now. I’ve always pulled you down.”

  “Quit it,” he said. “Quit it. Quit it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I want you to quit it. Come away from it.”

  “The gun,” she said. “I can still feel the gun.”

  “The gun was a situation. You couldn’t help the situation.”

  “It feels heavy. I can’t let go of it.”

  “Now check this,” he told her. “You had to use the gun. If you hadn’t shot the gun, I would have died.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sure,” he said. “That’s the only way to see it.”

  “It was the only thing I could do. I had to use the gun.”

  “Of course you had to use the gun.”

  “To kill him,” she said.

  “To keep him from killing me.”

  “But look,” she said, “I killed him. I killed him.”

  “For my sake.”

  “No.” And she released herself from Harbin, stepped back through the water, held herself up with a certain lack of effort so it looked as though she was balanced on a platform in the ocean. “Not for your sake. I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking of myself. Only of myself. So I shouldn’t lose you. You see? I didn’t want to lose you and that’s why I killed him. Not to keep you alive for your own sake, but for my sake. That makes it selfish. Makes it murder. You see what I mean? I murdered him.”

  “Don’t. Don’t, please—” and he went to her and held her again.

  “No, let go.”

  “Gladden—”

  “Let go.” She writhed in his arms. Her head went under the water. She pulled her head up from the water and there was a spray. “Let me go.” It became a shriek. “Damn you, let go.” She had her hands in his hair, pushing his head back to get him away from her. “I don’t want you to hold me. You hold me as if I’m a child and you’re my father.”

  Water came into his eyes. He felt dizzy and somehow lost track of what was happening. Then he saw Gladden swimming away. She was swimming very fast. There was a frenzy in the way she swam, going out and away from him. He called to her and told her to stop the crazy swimming. He watched the pace of her swimming and knew she couldn’t keep up the pace very long. A little wave hit his face and sent more water into his eyes. Then a lot more water came cutting into his eyes and it was because he had his arms flailing the water, going after Gladden.

  But she was going very fast and soon he lost sight of her. He shouted and there was no answer. He shouted again and tried to see her but all there was to see was the black of the water and the sky, and suddenly there was no feeling of direction and he sensed he was getting nowhere. Just then he saw the lights, the thin glowing line of the lamps on the boardwalk. The lights were very far away. He couldn’t believe it was that far. The vast distance between himself and the shore lig
hts threw a terrible scare into him and he turned quickly from the sight of the lights. He shouted to Gladden.

  There was no answer. He shouted again. His voice went out on a lonely ride across the water and came back to him like a sound in an abyss. He shouted as loud as he could and now he was swimming hard, knowing he had to reach Gladden, knowing deeply and fully true that he had to swim faster because Gladden was far out there and getting exhausted.

  His eyes burned into the blackness ahead, trying to see Gladden. All he could see was the blackness. He went on shouting her name as he went on thrashing through the water. The water came into his mouth and choked him. Then, from what seemed like very far away he heard a cry. It was Gladden. She was calling his name. Her voice was faint, and he knew she was in serious trouble. He begged himself to swim faster, hearing Gladden calling to him, knowing Gladden had not been able to think with reason when she swam away from him, knowing her senses had returned in this moment when the trouble came. She was calling to him, asking him to hurry, she needed help, she was drowning.

  And then, far ahead of him, there was something golden in the ocean. It was there for a moment and then it wasn’t there. He smashed his arms through the water, kicked his way through, saw her golden hair appearing again, saw something white and thin going up on both sides of the golden hair. It was Gladden stretching her thin little arms toward the sky, clutching at the sky, and he knew Gladden was really drowning.

  He knew he was swimming much faster than he could really swim. He told himself he would get to Gladden and get to her before she went down, and kept telling it to himself, racing himself toward where he could see the golden hair now flat and smooth on the surface of the ocean, the arms still showing but motionless, and less and less of the arms because the rest of the body was being taken down.

  And now all he could see was Gladden’s hands above the water. The hands stayed there for just a moment, then went under and there was only the black ahead of his eyes.

  Nothingness glided in. He was in the center of the nothingness, taken into it, churned by it, going down in it, knowing the feeling of descending. What he saw next was the liquid green, a dark green with circles of light wheeling their way up past his vision. He realized he was swimming down through the water, going down after Gladden. He knew he was going down deep and he told himself to keep going down, get down there to find Gladden. A streak of pain went shooting from his eyes to the back of his head. He wanted to close his eyes. He held his eyes wide open, straining to see Gladden.