David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (23 page)

The food came and they ate silently. Every now and then he lifted his eyes and watched her for a moment or so. He liked the way she ate. A quiet sort of gusto. She took her time and yet she didn’t waste any time. Her table etiquette was an easy, relaxed thing that made it a pleasure to sit here with her.

After the food, Vanning ordered peach cordials. They sipped the cordials and smiled at each other.

“I should be ashamed of myself,” she said. “I mean, you picking me up like this. Or rather, me picking you up. But you called it right, Jim. I was very lonely, or let’s even say desperate. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again.”

“When?”

“Whenever you feel like seeing me.”

“You don’t know how good that sounds.”

They finished their cordials and Vanning paid the check and they moved toward the door. They had to go down a few steps, because the door was below street level, with other steps leading up to the pavement, and now Vanning was opening the door, now they were going up the steps, now he knew something was wrong, he saw the shadows cutting in on light issuing from the restaurant, he saw the forms following the shadows and he told himself to twist away and race back into the restaurant and try a rear exit. But already it was too late for that, and the lateness was within him. He was angry, and the anger got the better of discretion, and he was going up the steps, taking her with him but not knowing she was there with him. And suddenly, as the three men came out of darkness and confronted him, he knew he had been expecting it. This was really it. This was the something he had expected would happen tonight.

The three of them stood up there at the top of the steps.

And one of them, his face half black, the other side of his face orange-yellow where the light hit it, smiled and took a cigarette from his lips, lowered his eyes toward Vanning and said, “Okay, bud. It’s all over.”

Her hand gripped his wrist, and he realized she was there, and along with that realization there was another, and it was a thunder
burst; it made him blink, it made him stagger without budging. He took hold of her clutching hand, twisted her hand with violence, threw her away from him. She gasped.

There was a laugh from one of the men up there.

Vanning walked up the steps toward him. They stepped back to give him room, and yet they surrounded him, the three men and the girl beside him.

And then one of the men looked at Martha and said, “Thanks, honey, that was a beautiful piece of work.”

“Yes,” Vanning said. “It was terrific.”

“You,” said the man who had just spoken, and he smiled easily at Vanning, “you don’t talk now. You do your talking later.” Then he looked past Vanning, looked at the girl and said, “You can go home now, honey.” He laughed with pure enjoyment. “We’ll call you when we need you.”

“All right,” she said. “Do that.”

Then she came walking up the steps and, coming abreast of Vanning, she looked at him with nothing in her eyes, and it lasted for an exploding second, and then she turned and walked away.

The three men closed in on Vanning. Two of them had their hands in the pockets of dark tropical worsted suits, but hands alone couldn’t make the pockets bulge that much, and Vanning told himself to stop thinking in terms of a break.

One of the men said, “Let’s take a little walk across the street.”

The four of them crossed the street, walked down the block to where a large, bright green sedan was the only interference with thick midnight blackness.

The man who was doing most of the talking said, “Now we’ll take a little ride.” He climbed into the front seat. In the back, Vanning sat with a man on either side of him. His brain was empty. His mouth was dry and a coldness was getting itself settled within him, and now the car was in gear, going down the street, making a turn and picking up speed. They made a turn. They were going downtown, then they were swinging away from a wide street and going toward Brooklyn Bridge.

“If you tell us now,” said the man behind the wheel, “we’ll let you out and you can go home.”

“I can picture that,” Vanning said.

“
Why don’t you tell us now?” the man said. “You’re going to tell us sooner or later.”

“No,” Vanning said. “I can’t do that.”

“You can’t do that now, you mean. Because you’re tough. But it won’t last long. When we get you to the point where you’re not tough any more, you’ll say what we want you to say.”

“It isn’t that,” Vanning said. “I don’t feel like getting myself hurt. If I knew, I’d tell you.”

“Come off
that,” the man said. “That’s in the heartache department. That’s crying the blues. You know where you’ll get with that? Nowhere.”

“That’s too bad,” Vanning said. “Because then we’ll both be nowhere.”

“He’s too tough,” the driver said. “He’s much too tough, I think. What do you say?”

“I say he’s too tough,” said the man who sat on Vanning’s left. He was a big man and he wore glasses, and now he took them off very slowly, put them in a case and put the case in his pocket.

“What do you say, Sam?”

“Yes, he’s too tough,” said the man on Vanning’s right, a short, wiry man with very little hair on his head. His arms were folded but slowly unfolding.

“I’m not tough at all,” Vanning said. “I’m scared stiff.”

“Now he’s being funny,” the driver said. They were on Brooklyn Bridge. The lights were whizzing in and passing the car, dropping other lights on sides of other cars, and all the light was bouncing around like captured lightning in a black vault.

“How about it?” Sam said.

“Hold it a second,” the driver said. “Wait till we get off the bridge.”

“I think the bridge is the best place,” said the man who had been wearing glasses.

“We’ll hold it awhile,” the driver said. “Just for a little while, Pete, and then you can have your fun.”

“Fun?” Vanning said.

“Sure,” Pete said, and he laughed. “The bigger they are, the more fun they are.”

“You mean with their hands and feet tied, don’t you?”

“
I can see you’re going to be a lot of fun,” Pete said.

The green sedan tore away from Brooklyn Bridge and went slashing into Brooklyn. It went through the city and away from the city and into a section of vacant lots and shallow hills.

“I think now ought to be all right,” Pete said. “What do you say, John?”

“Hold it awhile,” the driver said.

“We’re almost there,” Sam said. “How about it, John? Just to get him accustomed to it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” John said. “And then get him down on the floor and keep him there. I don’t want him to see the layout until after we got him inside. So now, if you want to, you can go to work on him.”

Pete twisted and threw a punch that hit Vanning on the side of the head, and an instant later Sam smashed him on the jaw, using brass knuckles. He lowered his head, testing the pain and the dizziness, feeling another blow and still another and yet another, and then he was going to the floor and they were kicking him. He wondered how long it would be until he lost consciousness. He looked up and saw the brass knuckles coming toward his face, and he threw himself to the side and the brass knuckles went past his head. Then the edge of a shoe caught him in the mouth and he realized there was only one way to stop this sort of thing. They weren’t quite ready to kill him, and if he was going to get the slightest satisfaction out of this entire deal, now was the time to get it.

He came up from the floor, feinted at Pete, then swerved and let go with both hands, sending his fists into Sam’s face. There was an opportunity for a follow-up, but instead of using it, Vanning swerved again, turned his attention to Pete. He leaned away from Pete’s outstretched arm, then got under the arm, got his elbow under Pete’s chin and heaved with the elbow, sending Pete’s head quite a distance back, and then he hit Pete in the mouth, pistoned the same hand into Pete’s mouth, then used both hands on Pete’s face. That was about all he could do with Pete, because now Sam was showing a revolver and Sam was cursing and a lot of blood was flowing from Sam’s nose.

“Bullets already?” Vanning said.

“Put the gun away,” John said.

“
I feel like blasting him.” Sam was holding the gun a few inches away from Vanning’s head.

“I told you to put the gun away,” John said. “You’re too fidgety with a gun, Sam. That’s no good. I’ve told you that a lot of times. Give the gun to Pete.”

“Sure,” Pete said, the sound staggering through blood. “Let me have that gun.”

“Be careful with it,” John said. “We have a long night ahead of us. Just keep him covered and keep him on the floor.”

Pete’s foot thudded into Vanning’s chest, forcing him against the floor and the front seat. “Stay there,” Pete said. “Just stay there and regret the whole thing.”

“I thought it was fun,” Vanning said. “Didn’t you?”

“The real fun hasn’t started yet,” Pete said.

The car made an acute turn, its wheels squealing. Vanning closed his eyes and told himself it was time to accept the thing for what it was. And it was very clear. It was very simple. Tonight he was going to lose his life. It was inevitable that someday this thing should catch up with him, and although he had sensed that all along, he had tried to stretch it as far as possible. That was a wholly natural way to take it and he couldn’t condemn himself for acting in a natural way. All in all, it was one of those extremely unfortunate circumstances, and it had started on a day when it simply hadn’t been his turn to draw good cards. He could have died on that day or on the day following or the week following. He could have died on any of those several hundred days in the months between then and now, so what it actually amounted to was the fact that all this time he had been living on a rain check and it was only a question of how long it would take until payday arrived.

The car was making turns, going long stretches without turns, making more turns, then sweeping around somewhere in a wide circle, slowing down.

“Put something around his eyes,” John said.

“Why bother?” Sam said. “This is the last stop.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Vanning said. “You make me feel blue.”

“Bring your hand over here,” Pete said. He was handling a large breast-pocket handkerchief, folding it over, folding it again, then
winding it around Vanning’s head, drawing it tightly, knotting it.

“That’s too tight,” Vanning said.

“That’s too bad,” Pete said.

The car had stopped. They were getting out. They were taking Vanning across some sort of field. He could feel high grass brushing up against his ankles. Then the high grass gave way to hard-packed soil and it went on that way for a few minutes, and then they were walking up steps that had to be wood because there was considerable creaking. After that the sound of a key in a lock, the sound of a door opening, the feeling of entering a large room, going through the room with big hands pushing him, holding him back, pushing him again. Now a stairway, a long climb, and now a corridor, and then another door opening, and the sound of a wall switch and light getting through the fabric that covered his eyes. He was working his lips toward a smile. He managed to build the smile. There was some fatalism in it, and a trace of defiance. And underneath the smile he was terribly frightened.

L
AVENDER LIGHT
came down on a purplish river. There was a huge ferry boat crammed with people. The ferry had shut off its power and was floating toward the wharf when suddenly a monster wave came from noplace and hit the ferry on starboard and knocked it over on its back. And there were no people to be seen. Only the ferry, floating on its back. And the river, calm again. And Fraser twisted his face against the pillow and let out a groan. He opened his eyes. He closed them again, opened them again, and saw his wife sitting up beside him, looking at him.

“You’re all worked up,” she said.

“What was I doing?”

“Making noise.”

“Did I say anything?”

“I couldn’t make it out. Can I get you something?”

“No,” Fraser said. “Just put on the light.”

She switched on a lamp at the bedside. Fraser blinked and rubbed his eyes. He reached toward a table near his side of the bed, fumbled with a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. She didn’t want a cigarette. She wanted him to go back to sleep. Lighting his cigarette, he got out of bed, walked to the window and looked out. The East River was glimmering black pitch and the lights were points of spears lancing a smoldering night.

He took several short puffs at the cigarette. “I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“You should be on time and a half for overtime,” she said. “You work twenty-four hours a day.”

“Not always.”

“Want a drink of water?”

“I can get it.”

“Let me get it.”

She climbed out of bed, and Fraser was alone in the room and he wanted to get dressed and leave the apartment. He was putting on his socks when she came back with the water. She let him finish the water and then she picked up his shoes and took them back to the closet.

“
Take off your socks,” she said, “and stop the nonsense.”

“I feel like doing something.”

“On what basis?”

“I don’t know,” Fraser said.

“I wish you’d get yourself a job in Wall Street. Keep this up and you’ll be gray in no time.”

She sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. She put a hand on his shoulder. For a while they sat there quietly, then Fraser got up and walked to his dresser. He opened the top drawer of the dresser and took out a brown paper portfolio and began extracting paraphernalia. He stood there at the dresser, studying various papers.

This went on for several minutes, and then she came toward him. He looked at her, and she had her arms folded and she was saying, “Now stop it.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep with the light on.”

“Put on your eyeshade.”

“You’re being inconsiderate.”

“I’m sorry,” Fraser said. “I can’t help this.”

“What is it?” she said. “What’s all the fuss?”

“So many angles I can’t figure.”

“Tomorrow. Please, dear. Tomorrow.”

“You go back to sleep. I’ll go in the other room.”

She went back to the bed. Fraser walked out of the room. In the living room he switched on the light and sat down with the paraphernalia. A few minutes later she came into the living room.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, “when you aren’t sleeping.”

He picked up the papers and began putting them back in the portfolio. “All right,” he said, “I’m done now.”

She stopped him. “No, you’re not. You won’t close your eyes all night. Sit here. Talk to me. Tell me.”

Fraser smiled at her. “You’ve got a very nice nose.”

“It’s too thin.”

“I think it’s very nice.” He ran his finger along the bridge of her nose. Then he looked away from her and began punching a fist into a palm, punching lightly, steadily. “They’re letting me do it my own way,” he said. “If I ruin it, it’s my own fault, mine
alone. I’m sure I know where I’m going, but I’m not infallible. No man is.”

“Don’t make excuses to me. I’m a college graduate. I understand things.”

Fraser let out a sigh. “It’s a very difficult setup. It’s like one of those cryptograms where the more steps you solve, the harder the rest becomes.”

“You’ll work it out.”

“I wonder.”

“You mean that, really?”

He looked at her. He nodded slowly. “It’s a bad one, honey. It’s definitely a bad one. With what I’ve got now, I can turn him in tomorrow. With what they have on him already, they can put him on trial and it’s a hundred to one he’d get a death sentence. That’s why I find it a little hard to sleep.”

“But if that’s what he deserves——”

“If.”

“Is that your worry?”

“Not under ordinary conditions. But this is a very unusual state of affairs. The record says the man’s a bank robber. A murderer. It adds and it checks and it figures. They’ve got witnesses, they’ve got fingerprints, they’ve got a ton of logical deduction that puts him in dead center. And what I’ve got is a mental block.”

“What is this, the old humane element?”

“Just a theory.”

“You’ve got a theory and they’ve got the facts.”

“I know,” Fraser said. “I know, I know.” He rubbed the back of his head. “If I could only talk to him. I mean really talk. If I wasn’t in such a delicate spot. It’s one hell of a jam, and every time I walk into Headquarters they look at me with pity.”

“You need help on this one.”

“I need a miracle on this one.”

“You’re doing all you can.”

“That’s what bothers me,” Fraser said. “The best shadow job I’ve ever done. Know every move he makes. Got it down to a point where I can leave him at night and pick him up when he walks out in the morning. I know what he eats for lunch, what kind of shaving cream he uses, how much money he makes with
the art work. I know everything, everything except what I need to know.”

“He’s just clever.”

“He’s not clever,” Fraser said. “That’s another thing. I’ll be dogmatic about that. He’s intelligent, but he’s not clever. Talk about a paradox, this one takes the cake.”

“You’re not a mind reader. You’re not an adding machine. You’ve only got one brain and one set of eyes. Stop trying to knock yourself out.”

Fraser stood up. He walked across the living room and came back to the sofa and looked at the wall. “It’s a shame,” he said. “It’s a damn shame.”

“What is?”

“They had to go and lose track of those others. That’s what they get for putting two-bit operators on a big case. When I think of how they fumbled——”

“That’s their fault, not yours.”

“It’s my fault if Vanning gets the chair.”

“What makes you so sure he’s innocent?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“For a college graduate that’s a foolish question.”

“Are you quarreling with me?”

“I’m quarreling with myself.”

She pulled him down to the sofa. She put her hands against the sides of his head and made him look at her. “Let me fix you some tea.”

“Black coffee.”

“I said tea.”

“All right, tea.”

She walked into the kitchen. Fraser sat there on the sofa for a while and then he went into the kitchen. She was standing at the stove.

He stood behind her and said, “Can I bore you awhile?”

“Please do.”

He took a very deep breath. “Here’s one for Aesop,” he said. “Three men rob a bank in Seattle. They run away with three hundred thousand dollars. They get as far as Denver. In Denver they register at a hotel under assumed names. They have a contact man in Denver, a smooth manipulator named Harrison.
This man Harrison has the job of taking the money, getting it in a safe place or putting it in various channels or something. You follow me?”

“I’ve heard this a thousand times.”

“Hear it again. The Harrison party comes to the hotel. He walks out with one of the men, a personality registered under the name of Dilks. Now get this, because this part was witnessed. Dilks was carrying a small black satchel. The money. All right, all that’s under the heading of fact. Now we go into theory.”

“Yours?”

“No, Headquarters’. Harrison and Dilks take a little stroll. And somewhere along the line this Dilks gets a bright idea. He decides three hundred thousand is a neat little sum and why give it to Harrison? Why not keep it for himself? He waits until he and Harrison are on a dark, quiet street and then he pulls a gun and kills Harrison. He runs away and hides the money. Now we leave theory and come back to fact.”

“Here’s your tea.”

“Put it on the table. Listen. Dilks gets out of Denver. But he leaves fingerprints on the gun found near Harrison’s body. He leaves a blue convertible with a California license. Police go to work and start checking. And they find out this man Dilks is not Dilks at all, he’s a former Navy officer named James Vanning. They start looking for him.”

“Lemon?”

“Just a drop. On a night like this I need hot tea.”

“It’s good for you. They say it’s the best thing in hot weather.”

“Do you want me to go on?” Fraser said. And she nodded soberly and he said, “They rack their brains trying to figure this Vanning. No former record, nothing except a few minor traffic violations, and that from way back. Before the war he was a commercial artist in Chicago. Made a fairly nice living at it. Why does this man rob a bank? Why does he commit a murder?”

“A lot of men came back from the war and had the wrong outlook and got themselves in trouble.”

Fraser nodded. “That’s what Seattle says. That’s what Denver says. That’s what Headquarters says. Maybe they’re right.”

“And so?”

“
Maybe they’re wrong. Now look, do you want to hear the rest of this?”

“I’m not interrupting.” She gave him an indignant look. “I’m just discussing it with you.”

Fraser stirred the sugar in his teacup. He blew on the tea and took an experimental sip. “Too hot,” he said. “I’ll let it cool for a while.” He took another deep breath and leaned forward. “They look for Vanning. They can’t find him. They look for the other two men. No trace. A time interval, and then we see these two other men here in Manhattan. We follow them. We’re about to pick them up and then we get very brilliant and we lose them.

“And then we get a call from someone who spots a man answering Vanning’s description. We check. It’s Vanning. And Headquarters wants to move in, but Seattle doesn’t feel like losing three hundred thousand and there’s the factor of making sure. Headquarters disagrees with Seattle, but Seattle claims it would be a very nice thing if the money was picked up along with Vanning. Of course Denver puts up a kick because Denver wants to wrap up a murder case. There’s something of a delay and then they give me the assignment and I’m supposed to settle this little discussion between three cities.

“So I focus on Vanning. I wait. I wait some more. I follow him like I’ve never followed anyone. And I wait. I wait for some indication of a lot of money being spent or hidden or invested. No indication. Nothing. Just Vanning from day to day, and if I don’t hurry up and come in with something, they’ll give me orders to grab him.”

“And they’ll be right.”

“No, they won’t be right. They’ll be making a terrible mistake. Why did those other men come to New York? Because Vanning’s here. They trailed him. They know he’s somewhere in town and they’re looking for him. They want that money. If we take Vanning, we lose the chance of an established contact between him and those other men. Headquarters says forget about those other men, but I’ve got the feeling we’ll never wind up this case if we don’t grab all three.”

“But isn’t Vanning the killer?”

“Yes.”

“That’s definite?”

“
Yes.”

“In your own mind?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then?”

Fraser lowered his head. He hit his fists against the table. “I don’t know, I can’t get rid of the notion. He’s a killer and yet he’s not a killer.”

She leaned her head sideways and gave her husband a careful look. “Is this man your cousin or something?”

He picked up the teacup and took a few gulps. “I wish you’d try to follow me. If I thought this was a hunch or a brain storm I’d laugh at myself. But it’s so much deeper than that.” He leaned across the table. “I know Vanning. For months now I’ve been walking behind him, watching every move he makes. I’ve been in his room when he wasn’t there, when I knew it would take him a half-hour to finish a restaurant meal. I’ve been with Vanning hour after hour, day after day. I’ve been living his life. Can’t you see? I know him, I know him. I”—and the rest of it came out in a low tone, rapid and strained—“I understand him.”

She got up from the table and gathered the teacups and took them toward the sink. She turned the faucet handle and the water came out in too much of a rush. She turned it down a little. Quickly, efficiently, the cups were washed and dried and she put them back in the kitchen cabinet. As she closed the door of the cabinet she heard him getting up from the table and she turned to see him walking out of the kitchen. She started to follow him, but just then her eye caught the top of the smooth white table and there was something on the table that caused her to frown. She moved toward the table.

She had seen this sign of extreme agitation once before on a night when their youngest child, stricken with pneumonia, had been approaching the crisis.

She stood there at the table and looked at the scraps of fingernail.