David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (5 page)

The skin cream mixed well with the soap, resulting in a decent lather that gave the razor a smooth ride. He shaved in three minutes and then he went into the parlor and lit a cigarette. He had the yellow towel wrapped around his middle and tucked in. He looked over the Basie records and decided to play
Shorty George
.

He let the needle go down and just as it touched the black he felt something coming into the apartment. It was only a noise but to him it had form and the ability to clutch and rip at his insides.

It was the buzzer.

Parry lifted the needle and stopped the phonograph. He waited.

The buzzer sounded again. Parry slowly lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a long haul. He sat down on the edge of the davenport and waited. He gazed at the phone attachment beside the door and as the buzzer hit him again he decided to lift the phone and tell the person down there to go away and leave him alone. He let his head go into cupped hands.

Then the buzzing stopped.

The tears started again, coming into his eyes, collecting there, ready to gush. He told himself that he had to stop that sort of thing. It was bad because it was soft and if there was anything he couldn’t afford now it was softness. The lukewarm and weak brand of softness. Everything had to be ice, and just as hard, and just as fast as a whippet and just as smooth. And just as accurate as a calculating machine, giving the buzzer a certain denomination. Now that the buzzer had stopped a key was
clicking into position and crossing off the denomination. The buzzer had stopped and it was all over. The person down there had gone away. Check that off. Then check off all the other things that needed checking off. Get another key in position and check off San Quentin. Go back further than that and check off the trial. Come back to San Quentin, go ahead of San Quentin and check off the barrel and the truck, the pale-green meadow, the hills and the dark-green woods. Check off the Studebaker, the man in the Studebaker, the ride to San Francisco and the motorcycle cops. Check off Studebaker’s clothes. Get started with now and keep going from now. Check off the buzzer. Start
Shorty George
again.

He turned the lever that started the phonograph running. The black record began to spin. He put the needle down and
Shorty George
was on its way. Parry stood a few feet away from the phonograph, watching the record go round and listening to the Basie band riding into the fourth dimension. He recognized the
Buck Clayton trumpet and he smiled. The smile was wet clay and it became cement when he heard knuckles rapping against the apartment door.

All of him was cement.

The rapping was in series, going against
Shorty George
. The first series stopped and Parry tried to get to the phonograph so he could cut off the music that wasn’t music any more, only a lot of noise telling the person out there that someone was in the apartment. He couldn’t get to the phonograph because he couldn’t budge. The second series of raps came to him, stopped for a few moments and then the third series was on and he counted three insistent raps.

Then he knew it was impossible to check off all those things. They were things to be remembered and considered. This thing now
rapping at the door was the police. It was logical that they should be here. It wasn’t logical for them to have slipped up on that blanket episode. Then again it was logical for them to have taken the Pontiac’s license number as the car went away from them. It was easy to sketch—them talking it over, telling each other they should have looked further under the blanket to see what was in those old clothes for China, then congratulating each other on their brains in taking the license number, and now coming here to have a talk with Irene Janney.

He turned and looked around the room and tried to see something. The window was the only thing he saw.
Shorty George
was rounding the far turn and coming toward the homestretch, but he didn’t hear it, he was staring at the window.

The fourth series of raps got through the door and bounced around the room, and following the raps a voice said, “Irene—are you there?”

It belonged to a woman. Then it couldn’t be the police. And yet there was something about the voice that was worse than the police.

“Irene—open the door.”

The music was music again. Parry figured if he made the music louder he wouldn’t hear the voice.

It was a voice he knew and he was trying to place it and he didn’t want to place it. He made the music louder.

“Irene—what’s the matter? Let me in.”

Shorty George
was coming down the homestretch. The voice outside the door was louder than
Shorty George
.

“Irene—I know you’re in there and I want you to let me in.”

The voice was getting him now, closing in on him, forceps of sound that was more than sound, because now he recognized the voice, the pestering voice that belonged to Madge Rapf.

I
T WAS
as if the door was glass and he could see her standing out there, the Pest. His eyes made a turn and looked at the ball of yellow glass with the lighter attachment. All he had to do was grab hold of that thing and open the door, go out there and start banging her over the head to shut her up. This wouldn’t be the first time he had liked the idea of banging her over the head.

“Irene—I don’t think this is a bit funny and I want you to open the door.”

Parry reached over and picked up the heavy ball of yellow glass.

“Irene—are you going to open the door?”

Parry tested the weight of the ball of yellow glass.

“Irene—you know I’m out here. What’s the matter with you?”

Parry took a step toward the door. He wasn’t shaking and he wondered why. He wasn’t perspiring and he wasn’t shaking and the ball of yellow glass was steady and all set in his right hand. He wondered why he felt so glad about this and all at once he understood he was about to do mankind a favor.

“Irene—do you intend to open the door?”

Shorty George
crossed the finish line and the glazed center spun soundlessly under the needle.

Rapping again. Angry, puzzled rapping.

“Irene—open the door.”

Parry took another step toward the door and he began to shake. He began to perspire. His teeth were vibrating. A grinding noise started deep in his belly and worked its way up toward his mouth.

“Irene——”

“Shut up,” Parry yelled, realized that he was yelling, tried to hold it, couldn’t do anything about it. “For God’s sake—shut up.”

“What?”

“I said shut up. Go away.”

He knew that she was stepping back and away from the door, looking at the number to see if she had the right apartment.

Then she said something that was Madge Rapf all over. She said, “Irene, is someone in there with you?”

“Yes, someone’s in here with her,” Parry said. “Now go away.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you know. So go away.”

She went away. Parry had an ear next to the door crack and he could hear her footsteps going down the corridor toward the elevator. He moved to the phonograph and picked up the needle from the silent record. He lit another cigarette and then took a position near the window and waited there. He estimated two minutes and it was slightly under two minutes when he saw Madge Rapf getting past the partition of yellow brick. He knew she was going to turn and have a look at the window and he ducked just as she turned. When he came up she was on her way again and he watched her crossing the street. He figured she had to cross the street but when she got to the other side he knew that was wrong. She was there because she wanted to get a better view of the window.

He kept one eye past the limit of the window. He didn’t know whether or not she could see that half of his face. But even if she could see that one half of face she wouldn’t be able to recognize it. Now she came walking down the other side of the street and stopped when she was directly across from the apartment house. She stood there and looked at the window. Her head went low and that meant she was looking at the grey Pontiac. Then the window again. Then the Pontiac. Then the window. Then she started on down the street. Then she stopped and took another look at the window. She took a few steps in the direction of the apartment house. She hesitated, then came on.

“For God’s sake—” Parry murmured.

She stopped again. This time she made a definite about-face and walked on and kept on walking.

Parry looked at the door and he was about to make a go for it when he remembered that his attire consisted of a yellow towel and nothing more. He sucked at the cigarette and walked without
meaning in a small circle and then he went back to the window. No Madge Rapf. But something else. This time it was a policeman on the other side of the street. The policeman didn’t look at the apartment house. Parry crossed to the davenport and sat on the edge, the cigarette burning furiously as he gave it the works.

Something pulled him up from the davenport and he went into the kitchen. It was small and white and spotless. He put his hand on a solid bar of glass, the handle of the refrigerator. He opened the door and looked at the food without knowing why he was looking at it. He looked at a neat row of oranges and then he closed the door. He looked at the kitchen cabinet, the sink, the floor—the incinerator. He opened the metal cap of the incinerator and gazed into the black hole. He closed the incinerator, went out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. When he came out of the bathroom he went into the one room that was left, the bedroom.

The bedroom was all yellow. Pale yellow broadloom rug and furniture and dark yellow walls. Four water-color landscapes that weren’t bad. They were signed “Irene Janney.” He recognized the pale-green meadow and the hills. And again he saw the dark-green woods and the road. He wanted another cigarette and he went into the parlor.

When he came back to the bedroom he stood in front of the bureau and ran his fingers across the shining yellow wood. He puffed hard at the cigarette and then he opened the top drawer. It was divided in two sections. There was a big bottle of violet cologne that would follow the half-filled bottle on top of the bureau. There was a carton of Luckies, two jars of skin cream, a pile of handkerchiefs wrapped in a sachet-scented fold of grey-violet satin. There was a box filled with various sorts of buttons. That was about all for the top drawer.

The second drawer had underthings and more handkerchiefs and three handbags. They were expensive. Everything was expensive. Everything was neat and clean. The third drawer was about the same. The fourth drawer was heaped with papers and note-books and text-books. Parry examined the papers and books. He found out that Irene Janney had attended the University of Oregon, had majored in sociology, had graduated in 1939. There were considerable examination papers and theses and
most of them were marked B. There was a record book from the Class of ’39 and he followed the alphabetical order until he came to her picture and write-up. Her picture was nothing special. She was even thinner then than now, and she was plenty thin now. She looked uncertain and worried, as if she was afraid of what would happen to her after graduation.

There was something at the bottom of the drawer peeping out from the edge of a textbook. It was from a newspaper. It became a clipping as Parry took it out. He saw the picture of a man who looked something like Irene. The picture was captioned “Dies in Prison.” Underneath the picture was the name Calvin Janney. Alongside the picture was an article headed “Road Ends for Janney.”

Calvin Janney, sentenced four years ago to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, died last night in San Quentin prison. He had been ill for the past several months. Officials said Janney made a death-bed statement claiming his innocence, the same claim he made during the sensational trial in San Francisco.

Janney, a wealthy real-estate broker, was accused of killing his bride of a second marriage, less than a week after they had celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Death was attributed to a skull fracture caused by a heavy blow with an ornamental brass jar. The body had been found at the foot of a staircase in the Janney home. Janney stated that his wife had fallen down the stairs, had knocked the brass jar from the base of the banister in her descent, then had struck her head on the jar. This statement was disproved by the prosecution. It was established that Janney had charged his wife with infidelity and had threatened on several occasions to kill her. Janney’s fingerprints on the brass jar was a primary factor in the guilty verdict.

Efforts to obtain a new trial proved fruitless. In recent months Janney’s attorneys made another plea founded on new developments, the result of continued investigation during the past four years. The plea made no headway due to lack of witnesses.

Janney was 54. He is survived by a son, Burton, a chemical engineer in Portland. Also a daughter, Irene, a grade-school student in the same city.

There was a date at the top of the clipping. It said February 9, 1928. Parry kept looking at the date. On the basis of the date and the record-book date, she was nine when her father died
and she was five when the trial took place. He read the clipping again. Then again. He decided she ought to be coming back soon and maybe he ought to get the clipping and the papers and books back in the drawer. He started to handle the clipping and he was getting it back in the textbook when he heard the door opening into the parlor and footsteps coming into the apartment, going through the parlor, coming into the bedroom.

She looked at him. She looked at the clipping half in his hand and half in the textbook. Her arms were filled with paper boxes and she put these on the bed and kept on looking at Parry, looking at the clipping, then back to Parry.

“Did you get rid of the clothes?” she said.

“Yes. I made two bundles and threw them down the incinerator.”

“How was the razor?”

“Fine.”

“That shower and shave did you a world of good. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Parry said.

She pointed to the open drawer. “What’s the big idea?”

“I didn’t have anything to do.”

“All right, let’s close the drawer, shall we?”

Parry got the clipping into the textbook, got the textbook back in the drawer along with the other books and papers. He closed the drawer.

She pointed to the closed drawer. “Anything happen while I was away—outside of that?”

“You had a caller.” He wondered why he was telling her.

Irene frowned. “I hope you didn’t answer the buzzer.”

“No, I didn’t answer the buzzer. But she came up and she knocked on the door.”

“A she?”

“Yes. She talked to you through the door. I stayed there and let her talk. It would have been all right except I had the phonograph going and she could hear it. She kept asking you to open the door. Finally I told her to go away.”

The frown went deeper. “That wasn’t such a bright idea.”

“I know. It got out before I could stop it.”

“Did she argue with you?”

“
No. She went away. Does that close it?”

“I hope so.”

“What do you mean you hope so?” Parry asked.

“Well, my friends know I don’t go in for that sort of thing. Now they’ll think——”

“All right, let me get into those clothes and scram out of here.”

“Wait,” Irene said. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t care what they think. I’m only trying to be technical. And very careful.”

“Let’s see the clothes.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him. Then she blinked a few times and lowered her head. She put a forefinger to the space between her eyes and pressed there and took it around in little circles.

Parry leaned back against the bureau. He said, “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“Headache.”

“Got any aspirins?”

“In the bathroom cabinet.”

He went into the bathroom, came back with two aspirins and a glass half-filled with water. She smiled at him. She took the aspirins and drank all the water. He took the glass back to the bathroom. When he came back to the bedroom she was opening the paper boxes.

It amounted to almost a wardrobe. Four shirts, three white and one grey. Five neckties, three grey and two on a grey-violet theme. Five sets of underwear and a stack of handkerchiefs. Six pairs of grey socks. A grey worsted suit with a vertical suggestion of violet. A pair of tan straight-tipped blucher shoes. And grey suspenders.

There were other things. A military brush and a comb. A toothbrush and a jar of shaving cream and a safety razor.

She arranged the things neatly on the bed and then she went out of the room. Parry got started with the clothes. Everything fitted perfectly. His hair was still damp from the shower and it moved nicely under the brush and comb. He had on one of the white shirts and a grey-violet tie and he put a white handkerchief in the breast pocket of the grey worsted suit. He felt very new and shining.

He walked into the parlor.

Irene was sitting on the davenport and when she saw him she smiled and said, “Well—hello.”

“Okay?”

“Very okay.”

“I bet you paid plenty.”

“I like to spend money for clothes.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I said I had a boy friend just discharged from the Army and I wanted to surprise him with a complete new outfit. They’re a small, exclusive store and they don’t like to be hurried. But it was a big order and they didn’t want to lose it, and anyway there wasn’t much work to be done on the suit.”

“How’s the headache?”

“Better.”

“That’s good. Thanks for the clothes.”

“You’re welcome, Vincent. You’re really very welcome. And I’ve got something else for you.” She opened a handbag, took the wrapping from a flat white case. She handed it to him.

It contained a round waterproof-type wrist watch, chromium plated with a grey suede strap.

Parry looked at the wrist watch. He said, “Why this?”

“You’ll need a watch. That’s one of the things you’ll really need.”

He put the watch on his wrist. He said, “You’re laying out a lot of money. Can you afford it?”

“What do you think?”

“I’ve got an idea you can afford it.”

“You’ve got the right idea,” she said. “Now tell me where you got it.”

“From the clipping.”

Her eyes were soft. Her lips weren’t curved but it was a smile anyway. She said, “Vincent, will you always be that way with me?”

“What way?”

“Honest.”

“Yes. I’ll be that way with you until we say good-by. It’s getting dark now. It’s almost time to say good-by.”

She stood up. She said, “Let’s have dinner. I’m not a bad cook. Do you like fried chicken?”

“Better than anything.”

“
Same here,” she said, and then they were looking at each other. She started a smile, started to lose it, got it again when he smiled at her. They stood there smiling at each other. He reached toward the cigarette box and she said, “Light one for me,” and then she went into the kitchen.