by David Goodis
At intervals he could hear her saying, “Really cute.”
And then the voice of the short wide man: “Why don’tcha kiss him? Go on, kiss him.”
She laughed and said, “Should I? Well, maybe I will, while I got the chance.”
He wasn’t sure that the big woman was kissing him, he couldn’t feel anything on his face except the pressure of some gushy substance, tons of it, as if a carload of jelly had fallen on him.
Then for a long time there was nothing.
When he heard the voices again, Sharkey’s voice was included and Sharkey was saying, “Make sure he don’t come back.”
“You mean finish him?” It was the woman.
“No,” Sharkey said. “That’s out. Don’t do that.”
“Why not?” It was Chop. “It’s easier that way. All we gotta do is—”
“Please keep quiet and listen to me.” The soft gentle voice of Sharkey. “All I want is a guarantee that he don’t come back.”
“That’s gonna be complicated,” the woman said.
“It’s complicated already,” Sharkey said. “It’s so goddamn complicated it’s making me sick.”
“I think we oughta finish him,” Chop said. “We could do it right here in the cellar.”
“Hell, no,” the woman said. “I been working all day cleaning up this place. I don’t want it messed up.”
“It wouldn’t be no mess,” Chop told her. “What we do is put him in the furnace.”
“Not in one piece,” she said. “He wouldn’t fit. We’d have to cut him up and that needs a meat cleaver. It means I’ll hafta use a scrubbing brush for at least an hour. It’s eight-fifteen now and I wanna be upstairs when Bob Hope comes on.”
“He ain’t on tonight,” Chop said. “It’s tomorrow night.”
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “I know when he comes on.”
“I’m telling you it’s tomorrow night.”
The woman spoke loudly. “You stupid sonofabitch, you don’t even know what day it is.”
“Don’t shout at me, Bertha. You don’t hafta shout at me.”
“I wouldn’t hafta shout if you weren’t so stupid.”
“That’s another thing I don’t like,” Chop said. “I don’t like when you call me stupid.”
“I’ll call you stupid whenever you’re stupid. All right?”
“Now look, Bertha—”
“Drop it,” Sharkey cut in. His voice was low and thoughtful. “Here’s what I want you to do. You’ll carry him outta here. Put him in the car and take him away from town.”
“In the country?” Chop asked.
“Yes,” Sharkey said patiently. “Someplace in the country. Say like twenty, thirty miles out of town.”
“Like in the woods?” Chop asked.
“No.” It was Bertha again. “We’ll find a place where there’s a crowd. So they can stand and watch while we do it. We’ll sell tickets.”
“Lay off me,” Chop mumbled.
“Please,” Sharkey said. “Please, the two of you. Keep quiet and listen carefully. You’ll get him off on a side road someplace. Now check this, I want it clearly understood you’re not to finish him. All you do is convince him. He’s gotta be convinced. You see what I mean?”
“You mean really convinced?” Chop asked.
“Yes,” Sharkey said.
“Goddamnit,” the woman said. “Thirty miles out in the country. Now I’m gonna miss Bob Hope.”
They carried him out of the house and put him in the rented car. Some twenty minutes later he started to regain consciousness. Then it was forty minutes and he was able to focus and realize what was happening. He was sitting in the back of the car with Bertha. He saw Chop sitting up front behind the wheel. The car was moving very fast on a bumpy road. They were passing through open countryside and there were some lighted windows here and there, but not many. Then minutes later it was another road, much narrower, and more trees and higher grass and no lighted windows.
He sat up straighter. He reached slowly for the door handle and Bertha saw him doing it. She grabbed a handful of his hair and her other hand was a big fist banging him hard on the cheek just under the eye. He went on trying for the door and she hit him again in the same place. He wondered if his cheekbone were broken. It really felt broken. While he thought about it he kept going for the door handle and Bertha kept pulling his hair and hitting him in the face. The car slowed down and Chop said, “What’s the matter back there?”
“Keep driving,” Bertha said.
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s trying to open the door,” Bertha said. She used her fist again.
“You want the blackjack?” Chop asked.
“No,” Bertha said. “I don’t need the blackjack. You just keep driving. I’ll take care of this.”
She smashed her fist into the battered cheek, then aimed for the mouth and shot the right hand short and straight and he felt the teeth coming out of his gums. He could feel the two teeth rolling along his tongue. He spat them out and tried to turn his head to look at Bertha but he couldn’t move his head because she was still pulling his hair. His scalp hurt worse than his cheek and his mouth, and he thought: It can’t be a woman, it’s like something made of iron.
Just then she hit him again and it was really like getting hit with a sledge hammer. She had all of her weight behind the blow and he took the full force of over three hundred pounds of hard-packed beef. It knocked several more teeth out of his mouth and it broke his jaw. He started to pass out and tried to hold on and managed to hold on. He collected everything he had and put it in his left arm and swung his left arm but it didn’t go anywhere. It was just a feeble gesture that tagged empty air.
“Well, whaddya know,” Bertha said. “He tried to hit me.”
“Quit batting him around,” Chop said. “You keep it up like that, you’re gonna finish him. Sharkey gave instructions not to finish him.”
“I won’t finish him,” Bertha said. “But I’m sorta disappointed. I thought he was a gentleman. A gentleman don’t raise his hand to a lady.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“He ain’t doing anything.”
“Then leave him alone.”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll leave him alone. Just one more lick to keep him quiet.”
She sent her fist to his head and it crashed against his temple and again he was unconscious.
When he came to, the car had stopped and they were dragging him out of the car. He was spitting blood and teeth and shreds of flesh from his torn mouth. They lifted him to his feet and walked him away from the car. It was a muddy clearing that sloped downward from some trees. A few times he slipped in the mud and they picked him up and tightened their hold on him to keep him from falling again. They walked him some fifty yards going down to where the clearing ended against a wall of thick trees. Then they turned him around so that he faced them, his back pressing against the jagged bark of a tree.
They had him placed so that he stood in the glow of the car’s headlights. The car was about sixty yards away but the bright beam was on and it hit him hard in the eyes. He blinked. He tried to look away from the headlights. The headlights seemed to reach out like burning fingers going into his eyes and he blinked again.
“All right,” Chop said. “Let’s get started.”
Chop was wearing a lumber jacket zipped up to his collar. He zipped it halfway down to loosen it. Then he loosened the sleeves and rolled them up just a little. He reached to the rear pocket of his trousers and took out the blackjack.
“Wait,” Bertha said. “I wanna talk to him.”
“Talk?” Chop looked at her. “Whatcha gonna talk about?”
“I want him to know why.”
“He knows why.”
“I wanna make sure he knows,” Bertha said.
She moved toward him where he stood slumped against the tree. Her massive bulk blotted out the glare of the headlights and he was thankful for that. But then
her face came closer and he saw the big hooked nose and the tiny eyes. It wasn’t an easy face to look at. He preferred the burning force of the headlights.
She said, “You get the idea?”
He didn’t say anything. It wasn’t because he refused to answer. His mouth and jaw hurt terribly and would hurt worse if he tried to talk.
“Answer me,” Bertha said.
He told himself to give her an answer. But somehow he couldn’t open his mouth. She stepped back and hauled off and punched him in the stomach. He went to his knees. She picked him up and pushed him back against the tree.
“You’re gonna answer me,” she said.
Chop moved in. “Lemme handle him.”
“No,” she said. “I’m doing this. He’s gonna answer.”
“For Crissake,” Chop said. “How can he talk if he can’t move his jaw?”
“He can move it. He’s just stubborn, that’s all. Stubborn and cute. Real cute.”
He saw she was going to hit him again. He tried to fall away from it but her arm was faster and he took it again in the stomach. And then again. She was in real close, and he sagged against her. She hooked one arm around him and used the other arm to keep banging him in the stomach.
It went on like that for some moments. When she stopped punching him it was as though the punches were still coming and forcing his stomach out through his spine and into the tree. She had him pressed hard against the tree and it seemed as if the tree were eating away at his stomach.
“Now listen,” Bertha said. “Listen careful and try to understand. That girl belongs to Sharkey.”
He shook his head.
“No?” Bertha said. “You won’t agree on that?”
“No,” he managed to say.
Bertha took a deep breath. She looked at Chop. She said, “You hear? He ain’t convinced.”
“I’ll convince him,” Chop said.
“No, I’ll do it. I know just what it needs. Gimme the blackjack.”
“Now be careful,” Chop said, handing her the blackjack. “Remember what Sharkey told us.”
“Don’t worry.” She hefted the blackjack, holding it in her right hand, then slapping it gently against the palm of her left hand.
“Well, all right,” Chop said. “But just be sure you don’t finish him.”
She took another deep breath. He saw her raising the blackjack. There was no way to get away from the blackjack and he didn’t bother to try. The leather-covered cudgel came in from the side and hit him in the ribs. There was the sound of bones breaking and his mouth opened automatically and he let out a dry dragging sob.
“Convinced?” Bertha said.
He sobbed again. “No.”
“All right,” Bertha said. “We’ll break a couple more. Let’s see what that does.”
The blackjack came in very hard. He could feel more bones breaking and he heard himself sobbing. He said to himself: What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you give in?
“Convinced now?” Bertha said.
“No.”
She hit him again, a roundhouse swing that sent the blackjack crashing into his hip joint.
“Now?” she said.
“No.”
She stepped back, looking him up and down, like a craftsman examining a partially completed work. Her tongue was out and wetting her lower lip and then she swung again and the blackjack hammered the injured hip joint.
“Well?” she said. “Well?”
He shook his head.
Bertha aimed the blackjack at his hip joint again. Chop walked in and touched her arm and said, “That ain’t the place to hit him. You gotta hit him where it does real damage.”
“Like where?”
“There,” Chop said, his finger pointing. “Try it there.”
Bertha stepped back again. She took careful aim, her arm going back very slowly. He stood there waiting to take it. He didn’t know what was holding him up, maybe it was the tree, or maybe he was just curious and wanted to find out how much he could take. Whatever it was, it caused him to smile.
Bertha saw the smile. She saw it showing through the blood and the wreckage of his face. She frowned and slowly lowered the blackjack and said to him, “You know what? I think you’re crazy.”
“Sure he’s crazy,” Chop said. “He’s gotta be crazy to take it and want more.”
“Why?” Bertha wanted to know. She moved toward him, and said objectively, “What’s the matter with you? What makes you so crazy?”
He gazed past Bertha, past Chop, past the trees and the darkness and everything. He heard himself saying, “Celia.”
Then it was quiet. Bertha and Chop looked at each other.
His eyes came back to them and he smiled again and said, “I know you don’t get it. Maybe I don’t get it, either.”
“It don’t make sense,” Bertha said.
“I know.” He shrugged and went on smiling.
“Now look,” Bertha said. She had a two-handed hold on the blackjack, gripping it at both ends. “I’m gonna give it one more try. I’m gonna tell you what you’ll get if you don’t give in. You’re gonna get ruined, sonny. It’s gonna be the throat.”
She reached out and her finger gently nudged his throat. “There,” she said. “Right there. So you’ll wind up with a busted phonograph. And that would really be the pay-off, wouldn’t it? Sharkey told us you’re a famous singer, night clubs and radio and your records selling by the carloads. It figures you don’t wanna lose all that.”
He stared at the blackjack. It looked very efficient. It was definitely a capable tool in the hands of a professional.
“He looks sorta convinced,” Chop said.
“I’ll know when he tells me.” She put her face close to the bloody, broken face and said, “Come on. Tell me. You gonna stay away from her? You swear on your life you’ll stay away from her?”
He said to himself: All right now, Gene, enough is enough, you’ve taken too much already, you’ll hafta give in, you’ll hafta say it like they want you to say it.
The blackjack was waiting.
He said to the blackjack, “Well, you almost did it. But not quite.”
“What’s that?” Bertha said.
“It’s no sale.”
“That final?”
“Final.”
And then he heard Chop saying, “My God.” Saying it very slowly in an awed voice, and adding, “What these dumb bastards will do for a jane.”
As he heard it, he saw the blackjack coming. It came like something alive, a gleaming black demon going for his throat. It smashed into his throat and he felt the destruction boiling in there, he could almost see the foaming bubbles of purple matter getting split apart.
The blackjack hit him again. And then again. Bertha swung it the fourth time but her aim was too high and the blackjack caught him on the side of the skull.
He went down, falling flat and then going out and ’way out. And in the instant before he went over the edge, he thought: Well, anyway, that’s all for now.
Then it was late the next morning and some country boys played hookey from school and went out hunting for rabbits. At first they thought he was dead. But then he rolled his bulging eyes. He had to tell them with his eyes because he didn’t have a voice.
He was in the hospital for nine weeks. There were times when they didn’t think he’d make it. Too much traumatic shock, they said, and then of course there was the internal bleeding, the brain concussion, the complications resulting from an excess of broken bones. But the worst damage was in the throat. They said it was a “comminuted fracture of the larynx” and they told him it was urgent that he shouldn’t try to talk.
When he was able to sit up, they gave him a pencil and a pad of paper so he could make his wants known to the nurses. One day the law came and wanted to know what happened and he wrote on the pad, “Can’t remember.”
“Come on,” the law said. “Tell us who did it.”
He shook his head. He pointed to what he
’d written on the pad.
Next day the law tried again. But he wouldn’t give them anything. He didn’t want the law brought into it. He told himself he wasn’t sore at anybody. The only thing he wanted was to see her again. He was certain that any day now, any hour, she’d be visiting the hospital. It had been a front-page story, so of course she knew all about it. And now that he was allowed to have visitors, she’d certainly be coming. With the pencil and paper he asked the nurses, “Did Celia phone?” They said no. He kept asking and they kept saying no. So then it began to hit him. Not even a phone call. Not even an inquiry as to how he was doing.
He’d sit there in the bed looking at the other visitors. His manager. Or the radio people. Or the night-club people. They gabbed and chattered and he had no idea what they were saying. He’d stare past the blurred curtain of their faces and he’d think, Why? Why didn’t she come to me? Why?
But he went on waiting. And hoping. Waking up each morning to start a day of looking at the white door and begging it to open and let her come in. Or handing the written question to the nurses. “Did she phone?” With his eyes pleading for a yes, and their faces sort of gloomy as they gave him a no.
Then it was the ninth week and one night he opened his eyes and looked up at the black ceiling. He had a feeling it was trying to tell him something. He didn’t want to be told and he tried to go back to sleep. But he went on looking at the ceiling. And it seemed to be lowering, it was coming toward him, a huge black convincer, the business end of a blackjack so big that it blotted out everything else.
He spoke to it, saying without sound, All right, Mac. You win. I’m convinced.
As he said it, he could feel his spinal column turning to jelly. But it didn’t bother him. In a way it was almost pleasant, really soothing and sort of cozy. On his face there was a lazy smile, just a trifle on the slap-happy side, and it stayed there as he fell asleep.
It was there in the morning when he heard the doctor saying, “You’re going home today.”
The smile widened. But not because he was glad to hear the news. It was just his way of saying, So what?