David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (35 page)

I
T WAS
strange, the way Fraser picked up the other gun. It was strange, the expression on his face as he walked out of the room. And the quiet that followed was very strange. There was a lot of ending in it. And it seemed that most of the ending was concentrated where John’s gaze rested on nothing. It seemed that the ending and nothing were coming together and creating a blend. And the quiet went on. And Vanning had the gun aimed at John’s face, the gun heavy in his hand, the gun seeming to gain weight with every passing second of that dismal quiet.

The quiet went on.

Finally John said, “I don’t figure this. I’ve been trying but I can’t figure it nohow.”

“I could use a drink of water,” Vanning said.

“I have some lemonade in the icebox,” Martha said. She moved toward the kitchenette. She became busy with pitcher and glasses. For a few moments Vanning forgot entirely about John, and although his eyes drew a straight path between himself and John, he was seeing Martha in the kitchenette, he was seeing her walking down the street. He was seeing her in a small restaurant, and on the subway, and walking through the park. And she was alone, all the time alone. In this little place she called home, she was alone. Night after dreary night she was alone. He saw her sitting in a chair in this room, alone, and then he saw himself making his way across the stream in the black woods outside Denver, and he saw himself going through the woods, and he heard his own soundless speech as he told himself he was afraid of the satchel.

Somehow he had a glass of lemonade in his hand. He sipped at it and there was no taste. A big tree, blacker than the black of the woods, far blacker than the sky, loomed up in front of him. He was going fast, and in order to get away from the tree he had to throw his body quickly to the side. He could see part of the moon coming into view as he veered away from the tree. He couldn’t see the remainder of the moon because a blotch of cloud was dangling up there. There was a flicker of white, then
black, then white again, and the cloud and segment of moon came together and took on a fleshy color and the mixture molded itself into John’s face. John was gulping at a glass of lemonade.

Martha was saying, “I have some scotch around here, if anyone feels like it.”

“None for me,” John said. “I’d better get used to the idea of no liquor.”

Martha walked back and forth for no reason at all. She stood in front of the closed door that separated her little home from the rest of the house. Lightly and slowly she patted her palms against the white door, cleaned to a very white, and she said, “He’s been out there a long time.”

“He shouldn’t have gone out alone,” Vanning said.

John was shaking his head. “He shouldn’t have gone out, period.”

“A wife and three kids,” Vanning said, the moment bursting as he remembered his first meeting with Fraser.

John frowned. “How do you know?”

Vanning didn’t answer, since in a single, jumbled second he had forgotten what the question was, and besides, he was too busy dodging another tree. This was an awfully big fellow with branches going out wide, clutching frantically at the vacant sky like a punctured octopus, and there was a miniature ravine a few steps farther on, and Vanning stumbled into it, came up and out of it, got past the big rock with the sound of leather against rock a distinct recollection in his pounding brain. The leather was the satchel, so that particular tree and that particular rock didn’t matter, because he still carried the satchel at that time.

Again Martha was walking back and forth. “I have a telephone here,” she said. “Maybe if we made a call——”

“Better not,” Vanning said. “Fraser would have made the call if he thought it was best. I guess he didn’t want to take the chance of losing them. At the first sign of police they’d get scared and start running. We don’t want to horn in on this. Fraser knows what he’s doing.”

“What’s he so hungry about?” John said. “Sam and Pete don’t figure now.”

“
Everything figures now,” Vanning said. “It’s Fraser’s case and he wants to get all the answers tonight.”

“All the answers?” John said.

“All of them.”

“Except one,” John said. “There’s one answer he won’t get, unless you lose all your brains all of a sudden. I tell you, if you hold out you’ll get away with it. And suppose you do spill it, what will you get? A merit badge? Put it together and see for yourself. A cop is a cop and Fraser isn’t doing anybody any favors. And if you think he doesn’t have his own eye on that dough——”

“Cut it out,” Vanning said. “You’re way off.”

“Am I?” John said. “You’re new at this sort of thing. Maybe you ought to listen to an old hand. I don’t claim Fraser will pull monkey business. I do claim he’s given more than a single thought to the reward money, and believe me, there’s bound to be some important reward money. Maybe he’s not a bad guy and maybe he likes to give people a break now and then, but you can bet your sweet life Fraser comes first.”

“That’s why he walked out,” Vanning said with weary sarcasm. “That’s why he put a gun in my hand.”

“Can’t you see through that?”

“I see the gun in my hand. I see Fraser trying to give me a fair deal.”

“And I see Fraser playing you for a sap,” John said. “Sure, he puts a gun in your hand. Sure, he walks out, and you’re in charge, you’re the good boy of the class, old faithful in person, mister true blue, loyal to the end. And when Fraser comes back, if he does come back, you’re still the good boy and you hand over the gun like a good boy. And then Fraser takes you in, and you go to prison. Like a good boy.”

“What’s the matter, John? Are you trying to give me ideas?”

“I’m trying to get a few angles across,” John said. “If you get the point, swell. But you won’t get the point. Because you like the idea of stooging for Fraser. It’s easier that way. But when you see those bars in front of your face you’ll remember what I told you. And you’re going to hate yourself for losing out on a cute little chance that was handed to you on a silver platter.”

“
Save it,” Vanning said. “I’m not buying anything today.”

John looked at Martha and said, “Maybe you can sell it to him.”

“He can do his own thinking,” Martha said.

John came back to Vanning. And John’s face was solemn, a rather sad note in his voice as he said, “I can see it as if it happened already. You went and got cold feet and you told them where they could find the money. So they talked to Denver and Denver laid hands on the cash and gave it back to Seattle. That made everything nice and pretty for everybody, and everybody was tickled pink. But there was one piece of business that had to be taken care of. You see, they still had to put you up on trial. And it was certainly a crying shame, but even though you owned up, they still had to put you in jail because, after all, you got yourself in on the tail end of that bank job, you got your mitts on that dough and you stashed it away. It was too bad, but even though that money, every last cent of it, was back in the vault where it belonged, they still had to give you a few years. And when I say a few years I’m giving you the benefit of a great big doubt.”

“It sounds very good,” Vanning said. “But it doesn’t mean a thing, because I don’t know where that money is.”

John let out a huge sigh. He turned to Martha and said, “Honest to goodness, I’m beginning to believe him.” Then his head made a snapping, mechanical turn and his eyes slashed at Vanning as he said, “If you don’t know where that dough is, if you really and truly don’t know, then do me a little favor. Tell me one thing. You’ve got that gun in your hand. You’ve got that door in front of you. Tell me, what are you hanging around for?”

Vanning mixed a shrug with a smile as he said, “I’m trying to be a good boy.”

John made a reply, but it didn’t reach Vanning, because Vanning was moving through thick brush that took him downhill where there were no trees, where the moonlight made a spray of pearls on the jet velvet of moss-covered rocks, and one of the rocks became transparent, with a scene beneath its glassy substance, the scene showing Fraser going down a stairway. Everything turned inside out and Fraser’s skull became transparent, and inside Fraser’s mind there was the plan to make a rear
exit and take the alley and work it roundabout to Barrow Street, the anticipation of two men on the other side of the street, waiting behind a tree or behind an automobile or in an automobile or in some doorway. The realization of that was a flash containing all sorts of color, and it flashed again, and again, and then it rose and took its place on an observation post, with Fraser far below, Fraser walking alone down the dark street.

“I hate the thought of it,” Vanning said. “Fraser out there alone.”

John smiled like an old fox. “I knew it. Here it comes.”

Vanning beckoned to Martha and said, “You take the gun.”

She didn’t move. She said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I’m going out there,” Vanning said.

“And he’ll keep on going,” John said. “He’ll get away while the getting is good. He’s not such a fool, after all.” Then, as he addressed Vanning, his voice dropped a little. “While you’re at it, you might as well give me a break too. I won’t bother you any more. All I want to do is get myself lost.”

“No go,” Vanning said. “You stay here.” And again he beckoned to Martha, his eyes soldered to John.

Martha stayed where she was.

Vanning’s voice was almost down to a whisper. “I want you to take the gun, Martha. I want you to keep it on John. I’m going out there. You can decide for yourself. You can believe anything you want to. If you take John’s word for it, I’m walking out on the whole thing and you’ll never see me again.”

She was breathing deeply. “And if I take your word for it?”

“I’m going out to see what I can do for Fraser.”

John lifted his eyes to the ceiling as he crossed his legs and threw his hands around a knee. “That one gets four stars,” he said. “That’s the best I’ve ever heard.”

Vanning bit into his lip. “I’m sorry, Martha. I hate like the devil to put you on the spot, and it’s a thousand to one that John is calling it right. I mean the way it looks on the surface. I know it’s giving you a lot of worry——”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” There was feminine indignation in Martha’s tone. “I don’t like your going out there without a gun. All you have is your two hands. What are you trying to do, show me you’re a big brave man?”

“
Sure,” Vanning said. “And I can do somersaults, too. Here, take the gun.”

Martha was moving in toward the gun, and John banged a fist into a palm and said, “I’m closing up shop. I’m way behind the times. He’s actually sold her a bill of goods.”

The gun in Martha’s hand pointed at John’s chest, and Vanning took in that picture a couple
of seconds and then he stepped toward the door.

“Just keep it on him,” he said. “He won’t do anything. You won’t do anything, will you, John? Look how nervous she is. If you let out a sneeze she’ll pull the trigger.”

“Is that all I have to do?” Martha said. “Pull the trigger?”

“That’s all you have to do,” Vanning said. He had his hand on the doorknob. “Good-bye now.”

John looked at Vanning and nodded slowly, emphatically. “Good-bye is right.”

The door opened, banged shut as Vanning raced down the hall, down the stairs. Now the moonlight in the black woods
showed another large rock against which Vanning leaned for a few moments to catch his breath, but his hand did not touch the rock because the satchel was in there between his hand and the rock. And so that particular rock didn’t matter, either. Beyond the rock, flowing in toward Vanning, there was a parade of small trees, so straight they looked as if someone had tried to start an orchard in the woods. Their amazingly well-ordered progression stood out against the rest of the woods like good soldiers in a riotous crowd. The moonlight seemed to pick them out and honor them. They passed in smart review as Vanning moved on. And then, just as Vanning reached the second-floor landing, he heard the sound of a shot.

I
T CAME
from the street, entered the house and ripped through like an insane intruder. There was another shot. Vanning winced. He told himself to keep moving. There were more shots. The stairway rushed up at him, went past him, and he was thinking that in all probability Fraser had a little house up in Kew Gardens or someplace like that and there was a bit of grass around the place and every night when Fraser came home, Fraser’s wife was there, waiting. And the children were in their beds, and Fraser would come up and kiss the children, kiss them softly, tenderly, so as not to wake them. And in the morning Fraser and the wife and the three kids would be sitting there at the breakfast table with sunlight getting through a tree out on that little lawn out there, the sunlight coming through and glowing on the toaster on the breakfast table, the chromium bright, the faces glowing, the little Fraser family.

The sunlight glowing, but then it was no longer sunlight, it was a street lamp throwing glow into the front doorway as Vanning ran out. Against the black street the glow was intense, there was some red in it, some bright red streaming, curving away from a motionless form in the center of the street, the nucleus of the red a distinct blotch on the side of Sam’s balding head.

That was the first thing. The second thing was the big rubber band of quiet that stretched and stretched before the next shot. When he heard the next shot, he traced the sound of it to a doorway across the street, he saw a big man moving out of the doorway, saw the big man making bold progress down the stone steps. Then he saw something moving slowly, going down at the side of a telegraph pole, knees giving way. His eyes switched back to the big man who advanced across the street, the big man pointing a gun toward the weak and sagging thing that was trying to wrap itself around the telegraph pole, trying to push the pole between itself and the gun.

All of this was coming nearer, getting larger, especially the big man, who was now very big. And on the border of all this, as another shot sounded, there was sideline activity, windows opening,
the sound of people, but it was part of the vague black, it was absurdly unimportant. The only thing that mattered was the big man, so terribly big now, the bigness suddenly blending with a swift turning, the motion clumsy yet definite, and all that blending with the new direction of the pointed gun, and then the blast, quickly followed by another blast from the gun now pointed at the sky because Vanning had a hold on Pete’s wrist, and with his other hand he was bashing away at Pete’s face.

Pete wouldn’t let go of the gun. He aimed a knee at Vanning’s stomach, missed and tried again, and this time his knee made contact and Vanning fell back, doubled up, lost his balance and fell heavily on his side. And he stared at the gun, the huge, twisted face behind the gun. On the gun there was a gleaming and in the black woods outside Denver there was moonlight gleaming and then from somewhere behind the moonlight there was the sound of another gun, and Pete stood very straight just before he arched his back and dropped the revolver and followed the revolver to the street. He did some groaning, a little gurgling, and then he was all finished.

Vanning pulled himself up, made a dash to the telegraph pole. He took hold of Fraser and saw the pain on Fraser’s face.

“How did I do?” Fraser said.

“Very nice. Where has it got you?”

“A knee job. Hurts like hell.” And all at once Fraser’s eyes were very wide but not with pain. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s all right,” Vanning said. “She’s watching him. She has the other gun.”

“She sure has,” Fraser said, grinning through the pain, his eyes going past Vanning, so that Vanning had to turn and see what it was all about. For an instant all he saw was people running out of doorways. The instant crumbled and the people faded and he saw John approaching, followed by the gun and then Martha. He felt like laughing out loud. It was a wonderful little picture. Martha looked so serious about it all, and John looked so weary.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he came back to Fraser, and Fraser was saying, “You sure put yourself out for me. It’s going to be tough on me, taking you in.”

“That’s all right,” Vanning said. “Don’t let it bother you.” He
was ripping the
fabric of a trouser leg, using the freed fabric to fashion a tourniquet. As he tightened the tourniquet, he heard Fraser’s groan, but he went on with the tightening, then the knotting, and just as he finished the knotting he saw Martha and John standing there, and all the gaping people behind him. He saw that and yet he didn’t see it, because he was staring at the black of the woods where it was all very thick and jumbled compared to the twenty yards or so of muddy clearing that separated this thick vegetation from the mathematically arranged trees.

Someone was talking, but Vanning didn’t know who it was and he didn’t know what was being said. Now, in this heavy foliage, he didn’t have the satchel, but moments ago while going past the final tree in that strangely straight row, he had held the satchel in his hand. And his brain took a skip and a jump. The satchel was somewhere in that small clearing. Between the tree and the foliage, and closer to the foliage, and it was there, it had to be there.

Fraser was watching him. Martha was watching him. And John. He didn’t know that. He was back there in the woods, going toward the satchel.

And all at once a voice said, “Where?”

It was Martha’s voice. He looked at her, and he could see the pleading in her eyes, the hope and the fear. And then he couldn’t see her eyes but he could see the satchel. His eyes were shut tightly and he could see the satchel glimmering as it dropped away from him and went into a little muddy crevice about three yards away from the foliage.

And there it was, and it was still there, a little thing of black leather glowing in the moonlight, a little lost thing waiting for someone to come along and pick it up.

No doubt. No fear. Only the knowledge. The bursting, wonderful discovery. And the wonderful realization that the woods were extremely dense and there were no paths in that vicinity and the satchel would still be there and the landmarks were convenient and specific and he could lead them to the satchel.

His eyes lit up and he grinned at Fraser.

The detective grinned back. “You finally hit it?”

Vanning nodded. “On the button.”

“
It isn’t buried, is it?”

“No,” Vanning said. “It’s in the open.”

“You dropped it?”

Vanning nodded.

“You dropped it and kept moving,” Fraser said. “That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me. I’ll go along on that trip to Denver. I’ll back you up, even though it isn’t really necessary. Any good psychiatrist could figure this without any trouble.”

“Do you have it figured?”

“A hundred per cent,” Fraser said. “It’s what they call regressive amnesia. You identified the satchel with your killing a man. Subconsciously you forced
yourself to forget the location. Something important had to happen to get you past that barrier. Now if the important something will hand over the gun——”

Martha placed the revolver in Fraser’s extended hand. That made two guns on Fraser’s side. The guns aimed casually in the direction of John, but John wasn’t looking at the guns. He seemed far away from the whole business. He didn’t even blink when he heard the sirens, although he knew they were coming toward him and toward no one else.