David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (33 page)

“I’ll let you in on something,” he said. “I’ve been playing a game with you.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that.” There was an ache in her voice.

“I thought it might do the trick. Crazy notion, wasn’t it? Like trying to hook a marlin with trout bait. I never underestimated your brains. It was just that I overestimated my own. Now I don’t feel like fighting any more. Whatever it is you’re trying to win, you’ve won it.”

She stopped. She looked at him. And then all at once it came out and there was fury in it, pain in it as she said, “Don’t throw puzzles at me. Don’t try to twist me around and have fun with me. You told me a story and I believed you. Because I wanted to believe you. That’s all it was. It was very simple. But you weren’t satisfied with that. You had to make it complicated, with question marks in it, with me on one side of the fence and you on the other. I wanted to come over on your side, but you wouldn’t have it that way. And I suppose I can’t very well blame you. Who am I? Why should you share all that money with me?”

“Is that the guess I’ve been waiting for?”

“It’s no longer a guess. I know. How could you expect me to know otherwise? Why would you keep digging away, trying to find out if I had suspicions?”

“You make it sound as though I’m a guilty party.”

“Aren’t you?”

“All right, let’s assume I am. Let’s assume I never lost that satchel, and now I have the three hundred thousand hidden away in a nice safe place. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, come, come. I’m a crook. I’m a killer. You don’t intend going to the police?”

“I intend going home,” she said. “I want you to leave me alone.
From now on, I mean. Please—I don’t want to see you any more.”

“What you really mean is, this Martha doesn’t want to see me any more. What about the other Martha? The other Martha, the bad one, the one who’s tied up with John.”

She gasped. Her eyes bulged and she stepped back, kept going back, suddenly pivoted and started to run. And it was as if goblins were chasing her. Vanning stood there, watching her as she ran away. When she was out of sight, he turned and went onto Fifth Avenue and got into a bus. He had no idea of where he wanted to go. The bus made its run, made a turn and got started with another run. At the end of the run Vanning got off and walked into a bar and stayed there for an hour, and then he walked across the Village and arrived at the place where he lived. He didn’t feel like going to sleep. He wasn’t at all tired. And it was still an early hour. He leaned against the iron rail of the front steps and put a cigarette in his mouth, looked across the street, took out a book of matches and started to light the cigarette, then dropped the lighted match and stared across the street. And the cigarette fell out of his mouth.

And the man came walking toward him.

“R
EMEMBER ME
?”

“What do you want?” Vanning said.

“I’ll bet you don’t even remember my name. I did give you my name, you know.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Fraser.”

“Oh, yes,” Vanning said mechanically. “That’s right.”

“And you’re Van.”

“Van Rayburn.”

“No,” Fraser said. “That was last night when you climbed a tree and I had a father-and-son talk with you. Tonight you’re Vanning. You’re James Vanning.”

“You have a nice change of pace.”

“No, it’s the same old routine day after day. I get pretty tired of it now and then, but I know what it’s all about.”

“I wouldn’t bet against that,” Vanning said. He took a deep breath. “I’m ready to go along with you now.”

“I’m not ready yet,” Fraser said.

“What do you want from me?”

“Why can’t we stand here and talk?”

“That was last night,” Vanning said. “Remember? The psychology attraction was last night. You’ve done your jockeying already. Now you’re in there for the kill. You’ve made it. You’ve done a wonderful job and now it’s all over and what are we hanging around for?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll handle it the way I think best. It’s my case.”

“I thought Denver had it.”

“Denver gave it to New York, and New York gave it to me. I mean entirely. If anything goes wrong, it’s all my fault. I’ll get it from all sides. From New York and from Denver. And Seattle.”

“I don’t get Seattle.”

“I told you they gave me the entire case. By that I mean the entire case. What I’m supposed to do now is take you in, then I look for the other two men.”

“
The other three men.”

“See what I mean?” Fraser said. “You’ve already given me something.”

“That’s fine. What can you give me?”

“Every possible break. I don’t think you’re a killer.”

“But I am.”

“Why?”

“Self-defense.”

Fraser put his hands in his coat pockets, thumbs overlapping the pockets. “Suppose we go up to your room and talk it over?”

He didn’t wait for Vanning’s reply. He walked past Vanning. He led the way up the stairs. It would have been easy for Vanning to take him from behind.

They both knew it. They didn’t need to talk about it. Going up to the room, they remained quiet, as though they had something definite and logical ahead of them, as though they were members of a closely knit organization.

At the door, Fraser stepped aside. Vanning moved in, put his key in the lock, opened the door. Just before he walked in, he looked at Fraser’s thin, sharp face. The sharp, black eyes. The black mustache. Fraser smiled at him. He responded with a wide grin, standing relaxed but very straight nevertheless, and he was breathing easily. It was as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Fraser walked over to the drawing board, stood there looking at it.

“Here’s something else,” he said. “You gave me some truth last night. You told me you were a commercial artist.”

“I didn’t tell you everything last night, but what I told you was true.”

“You have anything to drink?”

“I’ll make something.”

“Plenty of ice. It’s a scorching night.”

Vanning prepared drinks, brought them in. There was some serious concentrating on the drinks, and then Fraser lowered his glass and said, “All right, I’m ready to listen. I want everything. Every move, every detail. I want the whole business, from the very beginning.”

It lasted the better part of an hour. Fraser made only a few interruptions, and did that only when it was necessary to straighten
out a sequence here and there. Vanning was speaking in a low voice, but without a stumble, without a repetition of facts. He was finding it easy to speak. Despite the low pitch, his voice was clear. Toward the end there was more than a little of confidence in it.

When it was finished, Fraser walked toward the drawing board, tapped his fingers against it, turned and faced the chair where Vanning had one leg crossed over the other.

“Only one thing,” Fraser said. “Only one thing bothers me. Let’s go back to it. Let’s put you back again in that hotel room in Denver. I’ll see if I can repeat it the way you told me. You’re in that room with John and Pete. They put you in the bathroom. They don’t lock the bathroom door. They have a conversation in whispers. That’s reasonable. Okay, you’re waiting in the bathroom. Suddenly you realize there’s complete quiet in that other room. You can’t make that out. So finally you decide to take a chance. You open the door. And the other room is empty. But there on the bed you see a gun. And there on the dresser you see the satchel. And that, my boy, is a very strange state of affairs.”

“If I could explain it, I would.”

“That’s understood,” Fraser said. “At least I understand. But other people wouldn’t buy it. In a courtroom they’d laugh at you. You see the spot we’re in. That setup with the gun and the satchel. It doesn’t add. It’s fantastic.”

“Then I guess I’m finished.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Fraser said. “I’m an optimistic sort of person, but if you lose your grip you’ll only make it hard for me.”

“I’ll hold on.”

“You’ve got to. We’re going to work this out together. I’m convinced you’re an innocent man, and I’ll do everything in my power to bring you out of this. What we’ve got to do now is find the answer to that crazy picture in the hotel room. I don’t think we’ll find the answer here. What do you think?”

And he was looking at Vanning. It wasn’t necessary to say anything. The look was a request, and Vanning took it in and examined it and knew what it meant. He thought of Martha. He thought of Martha’s eyes. And her lips. And the way she walked.
The sound of her. The presence of her. He told himself to put her out of his mind.

Fraser folded his arms, bent his head to the side, kept on throwing the look. Seconds built themselves into a full minute. And then Fraser said, “Well, what about it? Can you put us on the starting line?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Far from here?”

“Barrow Street.”

“I thought so. I had the house spotted, but there’s more than one in that house.”

They went out of the room. Walking down the street, they weren’t going fast, they weren’t going slowly. They walked side by side, two men going somewhere.

As they came onto Barrow Street, a shiver ran through Vanning, and after that he let out a sigh. Fraser was looking at him.

“What’s wrong?” Fraser said.

“The girl.”

“What about her?”

Vanning closed his eyes, pressed finger tips into his forehead. “I thought I had common sense,” he said. “I thought I knew something about life.”

They were standing still. Fraser was lighting a cigarette. “We all think we know something about life. We think we know ourselves. If we did know, we’d be adding machines instead of human beings. You’re in love with that girl and you don’t want to destroy her. You’re very much in love, because Vanning doesn’t matter now, does he?”

“I can’t get a practical thought in my head.”

“Take a drag at this cigarette.”

“That won’t help. Maybe if you clipped me in the teeth——”

“That won’t help, either. Let’s see if we can take it from a long-range point of view. You think she was in on that Seattle affair?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Denver?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll make it dark. We’ll make it as miserable as we can. Let’s assume they had her working for them from the very beginning.
Remember, we’re stretching the point. All right, she helped out with the Seattle robbery. Probably a few jobs before that. And probably she has a prison record. Let’s say she gets ten years. How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“You’re forty-three when she gets out. Are you willing to wait?”

Vanning turned away from Fraser and stared down the street, his eyes soldered to the white brick front of the house where she lived. “I can’t let it happen,” he said. “I don’t know what got her into this kind of life. I know she isn’t made for it. She’s such a healthy girl, she’s full of living. She needs a guy. She needs a home. And kids. If they put her in prison, she’ll decay. I want to see her laughing. I want to see her bending over a stove. Wheeling a baby carriage down the street. I can’t see her behind bars. I can’t see that.”

Looking at his wrist watch, Fraser said, “If we get a move on, maybe we can put a head on this thing before morning.”

“Ten years.”

“Remember, I said it was the dark side.”

“Promise me you’ll do something for her.”

“I’ll be level with you. I can’t promise anything. Once I bring her in, it’s out of my hands.”

“She wasn’t in that station wagon. Maybe she had nothing to do with Seattle.”

“Maybe.”

“Everything is maybe. Everything.”

“It’s maybe as long as we stand here,” Fraser said. “Why don’t we go ahead and find out?”

“Do you need me there?”

“You’ll have to face her sooner or later.”

Vanning began to walk ahead. Fraser came up at his side. They were going down Barrow Street.

“Look what I’m doing,” Vanning said. “Look what I’m doing to her.”

“Think of what you’re doing for yourself.”

“I had to travel to Chicago by way of Colorado. I couldn’t take another road. No, I had to go and use that road.”

“And then you would have never met her in the first place.”

“
That’s what I mean.”

“So all right then,” Fraser said. “It adds up to the same thing.”

“No, it doesn’t. I can’t look at it that way. I guess I would have met her somewhere. I don’t know. I was bound to meet her.”

“Brother, you need a shot in the arm. You need a cold shower. You’re in a bad way, do you know that? And if you go on like this, you won’t be of much help to me. That means I won’t be able to help you.”

“Can’t you help her? Can’t you do something?”

“Not if she’s a criminal. If she’s a criminal, we’ve got to put her in prison. That’s why society hires us. You’d be amazed how some of us hate our jobs. But somebody has to do this kind of work. Otherwise you’d see broken store windows and dead people all over the street. Now try to think along these lines.” He turned and got a glimpse of Vanning’s face. “No,” he said, “don’t even try. Don’t think of anything. Just take me to that address.”

They walked on. The houses marched past them in funereal parade. The house of white brick came nearer. The white stood out against the black street like something dead surrounded by mourners.

“That one,” Vanning said. And he pointed.

“Come on.”

They came to the door and Fraser looked at the panel bearing the tenants’ names. “Which one is it?”

“Gardner.”

Fraser pressed the button.

“Maybe she isn’t there,” Vanning
said. “We’ll find out.”

“Maybe she packed up and left.”

“It’s very possible.”

“I guess that’s what she did. She packed up and left.”

“Sure,” Vanning said. “That’s what she did. If she was there, we’d get a buzz.”

“I’ll try again.”

“There’s no use trying. She’s gone.”

Fraser showed a pair of tightened lips. “And if she’s gone,” he said, “your goose is cooked. Do you realize that? You can’t take me to that house outside of Brooklyn. You told me you have
no idea where it’s located. If the girl is gone, we’ve lost our only contact. Think that over.”

“I’ve thought it over already. I don’t even care.”

Again Fraser pressed the button; he held his finger against it as he watched Vanning.

And then there was a buzz, and Fraser said, “She’s home.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“I said she’s home. We’re going up.” Fraser’s hand moved down and touched a bulge in his coat pocket. “Come on, Vanning. This is the wind-up.”

Fraser opened the door. He flattened himself against the door.

“You first,” he said.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Not in the condition you are now. Do me a favor, will you? Don’t make me use the gun. Please.”

Vanning moved past Fraser, started up the steps, heard Fraser’s footsteps behind him. The stairs and the walls seemed to have a high polish, seemed to glow in a way that made them unreal. The glow increased. Vanning told himself it was really that, it was unreal. When he came to the second-floor landing, he stopped.

Behind him, Fraser murmured, “Where is it?”

“Third floor.”

“Up we go.”

“This is hell.”

“Climb.”

They went up to the third floor, and her door was open and she was standing there and again she was wearing the quilted blue satin robe. When she saw Vanning, her eyes lit up. When she saw Fraser, her eyes widened and she stepped back into the room, leaving the door open, going back and back into the room, looking at Vanning, at Fraser, at Vanning again.

Fraser closed the door. He walked across the room as if he had lived in it for years. He pulled down the shade and turned his back to the window. He leaned against the window sill and folded his arms as he looked at Martha.

He said, “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

She moved toward a chair, her eyes on Vanning. She sat down and her eyes kept watching Vanning.

Fraser said, “Are you Martha Gardner?”

“That’s my name.”

Gesturing toward Vanning, the detective said, “Do you know that man?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

“James Vanning.” Now, for the first time since the door had been closed, she took her eyes away from Vanning and faced the detective.

“We’re going to step on the gas,” Fraser said. “We’re going to use a good, sharp knife and cut away everything that doesn’t matter. Now, Miss Gardner, what do you do for a living? Fast. I want it fast.”

“I sell glassware in a department store.”

“How long have you worked there? No, we’ll change that. How long have you been in New York?”

“Three years.”

“And this address?”

“Five months.”

“When you took that trip to Seattle, you went by train, didn’t you?”

“I’ve never been to Seattle.”

“All right then, in what town did you meet John?”