Pick-Up

by Charles Willeford

  “You bet!” Mr. Hingen-Bergen agreed. “Especially, not drinking. You might end up in jail again if you go on a bat.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said vaguely.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. Mr. Seely and the bailiff followed the young stenographer out of the room and I was still standing behind the table with Mr. Hingen-Bergen. He was stuffing some papers into various compartments of his briefcase. I had been told what to do and when to do it for so long I suppose I was waiting for somebody to tell me when to leave.

  “Ready to go, Jordan?” Mr. Hingen-Bergen asked me, as he hooked the last strap on his worn leather bag.

  “Don’t I have to sign something?” It all seemed too unreal to me.

  “Nope. That’s it. You’ve had it.”

  “Then I guess I’m ready to go.”

  “Fine. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  I shook my head. “No thanks. I don’t believe I want one.”

  “Suit yourself. What are your plans?”

  Again I shook my head bewilderedly. “I don’t know. This thing’s too much of a surprise. I still can’t grasp it or accept it, much less formulate plans.”

  “You’ll be all right.” He laughed his coarse hearty laugh. “Come on.”

  Mr. Hingen-Bergen took my arm and we left the court room, rode the elevator down to the main floor. We stood on the marble floor of the large entrance way and he pointed to the outside door, the steep flight of stairs leading down to the street level.

  “There you are, Jordan,” the lawyer smiled. “The city.”

  I nodded, turned away and started down the steps. Because of the heavy fog I could only see a few feet ahead of me. I heard footsteps behind me and turned as Mr. Hingen-Bergen called out my name.

  “Have you got any money?” the lawyer asked me kindly.

  “No, sir.”

  “Here.” He handed me a five dollar bill. “This’ll help you get started maybe.”

  I accepted the bill, folded it, put it into my watch pocket.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay you back . . .” I said lamely.

  “Forget it! Next time you get in jail, just look me up!” He laughed boisterously, clapped me on the shoulder and puffed up the stairs into the court house.

  I continued slowly down the steps and when I reached the sidewalk, turned left toward Market. I was a free man.

  Or was I?

  TWENTY-ONE

  From Here to Eternity

  AFTER I left the Court House I walked for several blocks before I realized I was walking aimlessly and without a destination in mind. So much had happened unexpectedly I was in a daze. The ugly word, “Freedom” overlapped and crowded out any nearly rational thoughts that tried to cope with it. Freedom meant nothing to me. After the time I had spent in jail and in the hospital, not only was I reconciled to the prospect of death, I had eagerly looked forward to it. I wanted to die and I deserved to die. But I was an innocent man. I was free. I was free to wash dishes again, free to smash baggage, carry a waiter’s tray, dish up chile beans as a counterman. Free.

  The lights on the marquee up ahead advertised two surefire movies. Two old Humphrey Bogart pictures. It was the Bijou Theatre and I had reached Benny’s Bijou Beanery. This was where it had started. I looked through the dirty glass of the window. Benny sat in his customary seat behind the cash register and as I watched him he reached into the large jar of orange gum drops on the counter and popped one into his mouth. The cafe was well-filled, most of the stools taken, and two countermen were working behind the counter. Just to see the cafe brought back a vivid memory of Helen and the way she looked and laughed the night she first entered. I turned away and a tear escaped my right eye and rolled down my cheek. A passerby gave me a sharp look. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and entered the next bar I came to. Tears in a bar are not unusual.

  The clock next to the mouldy deer antlers over the mirror read ten-fifty-five. Except for two soldiers and a B-girl between them, the bar was deserted. I went to the far end and sat down.

  “Two ounces of gin and a slice of lemon,” I told the bartender.

  “No chaser?”

  “Better give me a little ice water.”

  I was in better physical condition than I had enjoyed in two or three years, but after my layoff I expected the first drink to hit me like a sledge hammer. There was no effect. The gin rolled down my throat like a sweet cough syrup with a codeine base. I didn’t need the lemon or the water.

  “Give me another just like it,” I said to the bartender.

  After three more my numb feeling disappeared. I wasn’t drunk, but my head was clear and I was able to think again. Not that it made any difference, because nothing mattered anymore. I unfolded the five dollar bill Mr. Hingen-Bergen had given me, paid for the drinks and returned to the street. There was a cable car dragging up the hill and it slowed down at my signal. I leaped aboard for the familiar ride to my old neighborhood and the roominghouse. I could no longer think of the ride as going home. Although the trip took a long while it seemed much too short. At my corner, I jumped down.

  The well-remembered sign, BIG MIKE’S BAR & GRILL, the twisted red neon tubing, glowed and hummed above the double doors of the saloon. This was really my home, mine and Helen’s. This was where we had spent our only really happy hours; hours of plain sitting, drinking, with our shoulders touching. Hours of looking into each other’s eyes in the bar mirror. As I stood there, looking at the entrance, the image of Helen’s loveliness was vivid in my mind.

  Rodney, the crippled newsboy, left his pile of papers and limped toward me. There was surprise in his tired face and eyes.

  “Hello, Harry,” he said, stretching out his arm. I shook his hand.

  “Hello, Rodney.”

  “You got out of it, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Congratulations, Harry. None of us around here really expected you—I mean, well . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “That’s all right, Rodney. It was all a mistake and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Sure, Harry. I’m glad you aren’t guilty.” Self-conscious, he bobbed his head a couple of times and returned to his newspapers. I pushed through the swinging doors and took the first empty seat at the bar. It was lunch hour and the bar and cafe were both busy; most of the stools were taken and all of the booths. As soon as he saw me, Big Mike left the cash register and waddled toward me.

  “The usual, Harry?” he asked me quietly.

  “No. I don’t want a drink.”

  Mike’s face was unfathomable and I didn’t know how he would take the news.

  “I didn’t kill her, Mike. Helen died a natural death. It was a mistake. That’s all.”

  “I’m glad.” His broad face was almost stern. “Let’s have one last drink together, Harry,” he said, “and then, I think it would be better if you did your drinking somewhere else.”

  “Sure, Mike. I understand.”

  He poured a jigger of gin for me and a short draught beer for himself. I downed the shot quickly, nodded briefly and left the bar. So Big Mike was glad. Everybody was glad, everybody was happy, everybody except me.

  The overcast had yarded down thickly and now was a dark billowing fog. Soon it would drizzle, and then it would rain. I turned up my coat collar and put my head down. I didn’t want to talk to anybody else. On my way to Mrs. McQuade’s I had to pass several familiar places. The A & P, the Spotless Cleaners, Mr. Watson’s delicatessen; all of these stores held people who knew me well. I pulled my collar up higher and put my head down lower.

  When I reached the roominghouse I climbed the front outside steps and walked down the hall to Mrs. McQuade’s door. I tapped twice and waited. As soon as she opened the door, Mrs. McQuade recognized me and clapped her hand to her mouth.

  “It’s quite all right, Mrs. McQuade,” I said, “I’m a free man.”

  “Please come in, Mr. Jordan.”

  Her room was much too warm
for me. I removed my jacket, sat down in a rocker and lighted one of my cigarettes to detract from the musty, close smell of the hot room. The old lady with blue hair sat down across from me in a straight-backed chair and folded her hands in her lap.

  “It’ll probably be in tonight’s paper, Mrs. McQuade, but I didn’t kill Helen. She died from a heart attack. A quite natural death. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I’m not surprised.” She nodded knowingly. “You both loved each other too much.”

  “Yes. We did.”

  Mrs. McQuade began to cry soundlessly. Her eyes searched the room, found her purse. She opened it and removed a Kleenex and blew her nose with a gentle, refined honk.

  “How about Helen’s things?” I asked. “Are they still here?”

  “No. Her mother, Mrs. Mathews, took them. If I’d known that you . . . well, I didn’t know, and she’s Helen’s mother, so when she wanted them, I helped her pack the things and she took them with her. There wasn’t much, you know. That suitcase, now; I didn’t know whether it was yours or Helen’s, so I let Mrs. Mathews take it.”

  “How about the portrait?”

  “Mr. Endo was keeping it in his room. He wasn’t here, but when she asked for it, I got it out of his room. She burned it up . . . in the incinerator. As I say, I didn’t—”

  “That’s all right. I’d have liked to have had it, but it doesn’t matter. Is there anything of hers at all?”

  “Not a thing, Mr. Jordan. Just a minute.” The old lady got out of her chair and opened the closet. She rummaged around in the small, dark room. “These are yours.” She brought forth my old trenchcoat and a gray laundry bag. I spread the trench-coat on the floor and dumped the contents of the bag onto it. There were two dirty white shirts, four dirty T-shirts, four pairs of dirty drawers, six pairs of black sox and two soiled handkerchiefs.

  At the bottom of the bag I saw my brushes and tubes of paint, and I could feel the tears coming into my eyes. She hadn’t thrown them out after all; she still had had faith in me as an artist!

  Mrs. McQuade pretended not to notice my choked emotion.

  “If I’d known you were going to be released I’d have had these things laundered, Mr. Jordan.”

  “That’s not important, Mrs. McQuade. I owe you some money, don’t I?”

  “Not a thing. Mrs. Mathews paid the room rent, and if you want the room you can have it back.”

  “No, thanks. I’m leaving San Francisco. I think it’s best.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, when you get settled, you’d better write me so I can forward your mail.”

  “There won’t be any mail.” I got out of the chair, slipped my jacket on, then the trenchcoat.

  “You can keep that laundry bag, Mr. Jordan. Seeing I gave away your suitcase I can give you that much, at least.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like a cup of coffee? I can make some in a second.”

  “No, thanks.”

  I threw the light bag over my shoulder and Mrs. McQuade opened the door for me. We shook hands and she led the way down the hall to the outside door. It was raining.

  “Don’t you have a hat, Mr. Jordan?”

  “No. I never wear a hat.”

  “That’s right. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you with a hat.”

  I walked down the steps to the street and into the rain. A wind came up and the rain slanted sideways, coming down at an angle of almost thirty degrees. Two blocks away I got under the awning of a drug store. It wasn’t letting up any; if anything, it was coming down harder. I left the shelter of the awning and walked up the hill in the rain.

  Just a tall, lonely Negro.

  Walking in the rain.

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  NOTE ON THE TEXT

  NOTES

  Biographical Note

  CHARLES WILLEFORD Born January 2, 1919, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Joined U.S. Army in 1936. Served as tank commander in Europe during World War II, earning Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Wrote radio serial “The Saga of Mary Miller” for Armed Forces Radio Service in 1948. First book, poetry collection Proletarian Laughter, published 1948. Married Mary Jo Norton in 1951 (divorced, 1976). First novel, paperback original High Priest of California (1953), followed by other novels written for small paperback imprints: Pick-Up (1955), Wild Wives (1954, also known as Until I Am Dead), Lust Is a Woman (1956), Soldier’s Wife (1958), Honey Gal (1958, also known as The Black Mass of Brother Springer), and The Woman Chaser (1958, also known as The Director). Television play The Basic Approach broadcast by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1956. Retired from military in 1956 with rank of master sergeant. After leaving military attended Palm Beach Junior College; obtained B.A. (1962) and M.A. (1964) from University of Miami, where he worked as instructor in humanities department, 1964–67. From 1967 served as English professor, and later chairman of English and philosophy departments, at Miami-Dade Junior College. Published further fiction including Understudy for Love (1961), No Experience Necessary (1962, in a version drastically revised by publisher), The Machine in Ward Eleven (1962), The Burnt Orange Heresy (1971), Hombre from Sonora (1972), Cockfighter (1962, revised 1972), and Off the Wall (1980). Also published Poontang and Other Poems (1967) and critical study New Forms of Ugly: The Immobilized Man in Modern Literature (1967). Achieved wider success with series of novels about Miami police detective Hoke Mosley: Miami Blues (1984), New Hope for the Dead (1985), and Sideswipe (1987). Also published memoir Something About a Soldier (1986). Died in Miami of a heart attack on March 27, 1988. The final Hoke Mosley book, The Way We Die Now (1988), the memoir I Was Looking for a Street (1988), and another novel, The Shark-Infested Custard (1990), were published posthumously.

  Note on the Text

  This e-Book is drawn from the Library of America’s Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s, which collects five American novels of the 1950s that have come to be identified with the “noir” genre of crime fiction: The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (1952); The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955); Pick-Up by Charles Willeford (1955); Down There by David Goodis (1956); and The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes (1959).

  Charles Willeford wrote Pick-Up, his second novel, while serving as a sergeant in the United States Air Force. He sold the novel to Beacon Books, a paperback line established in 1954 by Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation. (This corporation also owned Royal Books, the paperback line that had published Willeford’s first novel, High Priest of California, in 1953, after it had been rejected by Fawcett Gold Medal.) Pick-Up was published in 1955 as a “Beacon First Award Original Novel” and was the first of five Willeford novels, including a reissue of High Priest of California, to appear as a Beacon Book between 1955 and 1957. Willeford made no changes in the novel after its initial publication. This e-Book prints the text of the first edition.

  This e-Book presents the text of the original printing and typescript chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of its typographic design, such as display capitalization of chapter openings. The text is printed without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number of the hardcover edition: 412.33, She; 419.12, He; 432.16, anyway; 434.32, She; 441.30, acadamic; 460.19, hospital; 468.12, He; 468.32, latrine,; 469.16, Jordan,; 470.23, patient’s; 473.28, dishwasher,; 476.3, on,; 477.21, window,; 477.27, She; 478.32, See; 479.33, so,; 481.37, hand—” whether; 482.11, you,; 488.22, Company; 490.27, seregant; 490.34, She; 491.27, The; 494.14, She; 494.34, She; 502.11, She; 505.26, However;; 506.8, said,; 506.21, colds,; 509.31, winow; 511.16, He; 513.19, He; 520.8, The; 520.21, Why; 522.13, He; 524.10, said,; 527.7, side; 528.5, tne; 530.31, idea.; 530.3
3, He; 531.16, He; 532.1, The; 534.16, it’s; 538.19, Center.; 541.18, city;; 543.20, He; 545.27, He; 545.31, in; 548.18, your; 548.35, litttle; 550.18, He; 551.13, Nothing.; 551.34, nevously; 552.2, She; 552.24, then; 558.34, Meredith,; 562.13, He.

  Notes

  In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of hardcover edition (the line count includes headings). No note is made for material included in standard desk-reference books such as Webster’s Collegiate, Biographical, and Geographical dictionaries. For references to other studies and further biographical background than is contained in the Biographical Note, see Richard Gehr, “The Pope of Psychopulp: Charles Ray Willeford’s Unholy Rites,” Voice Literary Supplement, March 1989; Lou Stathis, “Charles Willeford: New Hope for the Living,” in Charles Willeford, High Priest of California/Wild Wives (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications, 1987); Geoffrey O’Brien, Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir (revised edition, New York: Da Capo Press, 1997); and Lee Server, Over My Dead Body, The Sensational Age of the American Paperback: 1945–1955 (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994).

  430.4 Rocky Marciano] Boxer (1923–69) who held the heavyweight title from 1952 to 1955, when he retired undefeated.

  432.10 Olympia] Painting (1863) by Edouard Manet.

  459.22–25 In a dim corner . . . the shifting gloom.] First stanza of “The Sphinx” by Oscar Wilde.

  500.17–18 Van Gogh’s pool table] In The Night Cafe (1888).

  536.21 T/5] Rank of corporal in the U.S. army technical services.