“I think you’re right,” the policewoman whispered to herself. When no one was looking, she slid a few pages out of the file and slipped them into her morning newspaper, which she folded in half and dropped into her wastebasket.
All the Same
by Bill Pronzini
Bill Pronzini’s “Nameless” detective grows in popularity and critical stature every year. The reason is simple. Pronzini has set for himself the difficult task of writing a man’s autobiography in installments, disguised as private-eye novels. Pronzini is not Nameless but certainly there are many similarities—middle-aged, blue collar, decent, intelligent, grumpy and very, very funny. Dell will soon reissue all of them. Keep checking your newsstand.
First published in 1972.
Jeffords lay on the bed, smoking and thinking about Penny.
Outside the open window, the night was choked with heat. The air smelled of mesquite; there was no moon. He listened to the night sounds. An animal screamed somewhere in the desert, and in the motel courtyard, a car engine idled roughly. Voices rose from the room next door, shrill, plaintive.
The cigarette was raw in Jeffords’ throat. He stubbed it out in the glass ashtray resting on his bare chest. He wore only a pair of shorts, and sweat coated his skin, glistening in the darkness. The sheets were wet beneath him.
“You fool!” somebody said clearly in the next room, and then it was silent again.
Jeffords reached across to the night stand for another cigarette; the pack was empty. He tried to remember if there was a machine in the motel office. Potted plant and wrought iron furniture and a long, flat Formica counter; rack with magazines. . . Was there a damned machine in that office?
His temples had begun to throb. Jeffords swung his legs off the bed and sat with his head in his hands. After a time he got to his feet, located a towel under his clothes on the chair, and wiped his chest dry. Then he put on his trousers and a soiled white shirt, not buttoning the shirt, and opened the door and stepped outside.
The motel was set in the shape of a horseshoe, with the open end facing out toward the highway. The office was the first one on the right as you came in. His room was at the closed end of the horseshoe.
Jeffords stood there breathing the thick air through his mouth. There was a white stone patio in the center of the courtyard, with an oval-shaped swimming pool, a strobe light mounted behind it, at one end. The light flashed red and blue and green, and the glare hurt Jeffords’ eyes after the darkness of the room.
The drive that circled the patio was graveled; his steps crunched loudly in the stillness as he walked toward the office. A small white light burned over the door. As he approached, Jeffords could see a sleek white sports car parked in the driveway beside the office; its engine was idling, and Jeffords thought that it must be the one he had heard from his room. Someone was behind the wheel, a black, still shadow.
Jeffords passed the car and came up to the office. Just as he did, the door opened and a girl came out. He stopped. She was blonde, with her hair pulled into a ponytail at the back, fastened with a wide blue band. She wore a pair of white shorts and a yellow bolero-type shirt with little bobbing tassels on the bottom.
She cocked her head to one side, holding the office door open with one hand, looking at him. A quizzical smile played at the corners of her mouth. Jeffords wanted to say something to her, but he could not think of anything. He wet his lips and nodded meaninglessly. She was still holding the door; he reached out and took it, and she gave him a wide smile and then went to where the car stood idling.
Jeffords watched her get inside. The black shadow at the wheel let out the clutch. The rear tires spun, spewing gravel. The car went to the closed end of the horseshoe and stopped before a room two away from Jeffords’. He realized he was still holding the door open. He turned and went inside.
The fat woman in the shapeless sundress who had given him the room that afternoon was still behind the counter. She was looking at Jeffords as he came in. “Yeah?” she said.
“Do you have a cigarette machine?” he asked.
“Right there against the wall.”
Jeffords turned and saw the machine. He went to it, seeing himself in the mirrored front. His black hair was tangled and damp and beard stubble flecked his gaunt cheeks. His deep-set eyes were rimmed in red. He fished in his pocket for change; all he had was a quarter. He took out his wallet and went to the counter again.
“Change for a dollar?”
“No change,” the woman said.
“What do you mean, no change?”
“Just that. Safe’s locked for the night.”
“Then open it,” Jeffords said irritably. “I want to get some cigarettes.”
“Can’t.”
“Well, why the hell not?”
“Watch your mouth, sonny.”
“Listen,” Jeffords said, “how can you run a damned business? Suppose somebody comes in for a room?”
“I said to watch your mouth,” the woman told him. She had little pig eyes, and they were staring a hole through Jeffords.
“You fat old biddy,” he said.
The woman’s face grew bright red. She stood up, pointed a finger; fat jiggled on her bare arm like gelatin. “I’ll have you thrown out, you bum!” she shouted. “You get out of here or I’ll have my husband throw you out!”
Jeffords stared at her. “You’re all the same,” he said. “Every one of you.”
“What? What?”
He turned and went outside and slammed the door.
Back in his room, he lay once more on the bed. Immediately, he began to think about Penny—his wife Penny. Damn her, why had she run out on him the way she had? What had made her take up with that big, ugly salesman? He’d given her everything, bought her fine clothes, and still she’d run off with that salesman after just three months of marriage. She’d taken all the money with her, too—almost two thousand dollars from their joint checking and savings accounts; all she’d left him was the six hundred dollars in his special account, the six hundred which had dwindled to the four hundred and eighty he now had in his wallet.
Six hundred dollars and the furnished apartment and his car, that was all.
When he’d discovered that she was gone, he’d been half-crazy. He hadn’t known what to do. Finally, he had quit his job and packed his few belongings in his car and gone looking for her. That had been ten days ago, and now here he was, in the middle of the desert, with no idea where to go next. Where was there to go? A hundred places, a thousand places, and all of them empty . . .
Jeffords lay looking up at the ceiling. He had slept very little in the past week, and it was beginning to tell on him; he dozed, lying there. The sharp knocking on the door snapped him off the bed and onto his feet, his heart pounding wildly, the inside of his head spinning with the fog of sleep.
The knocking grew more insistent.
Jeffords put on his trousers and went to the door, shaking his head and wiping sweat and sleep from his eyes. It was the girl from the sports car, the blonde girl with the ponytail. Her eyes were wide and dark and flashing, and the front of her bolero shirt was torn.
“Let me in, will you?” she said.
Jeffords did not know what to think. “What is it?”
“Just let me in,” the girl said. “Please let me in.”
“All right.” He stood aside and she came in and he shut the door behind her.
“He tried to attack me,” she said, turning to look at him.
“Who did?”
“Van.”
“Who’s Van?”
“The fellow I was with,” the girl said. “I had to hit him. I hit him with a lamp.”
Jeffords felt a sudden panic. “Listen, I don’t want to get involved in anything.”
“I knocked him out,” the girl said. “He’s lying in my room, knocked out.”
“Why did you come to me? What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. I remembered you from the offic
e.”
“How did you know which room was mine?”
“I saw you through the window when you came back.”
Jeffords sat down on the bed. “Why did you come here with this Van? Didn’t you know he’d try something?”
“No, he was nice and very polite when he gave me the ride,” the girl said. “When he suggested we stop for the night, he said we’d take separate rooms and he even let me go in to register. I said good night to him but a little while later he forced his way into my room and went kind of wild.” She paused, studying Jeffords. “Look, are you waiting here or something? For somebody to come?”
“No,” he said.
“When are you leaving?”
“In the morning.”
“Can’t you go now?”
“What for?”
“I want to get away from here. Can you take me with you?”
“You’re nuts,” Jeffords said. “I can’t take you.”
“Have you got a wife somewhere?”
“No,” Jeffords said bitterly. “I don’t have any wife.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Los Angeles, maybe.”
“Take me along.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I don’t want to be here when Van wakes up,” the girl said. “I don’t know what he might do.”
“I can’t help you.”
“And I don’t like the police. We don’t get along too well, the police and me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Come on,” she said. “Please.”
Jeffords stared at her, at her pleading eyes, and he felt himself softening inside. Girls like her—like Penny—always affected him that way. He wanted to believe in them, in their basic goodness, and he always ended up getting involved in one way or another.
He moistened his lips. You’re crazy if you do it, he told himself. She’s trouble. Can’t you see it? She’s just like Penny; she’s another one of the same. Don’t do it, don’t get involved with her.
Even as he thought this, he heard himself saying, “All right, come on,” as if his vocal chords and his brain were separate entities, as if he were two people instead of one.
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly. “Thanks.”
Jeffords had just one suitcase, and he threw his clothes into it and put on his shirt. The girl took his arm and they went outside.
He said, “Do you have any luggage?”
“Just one small bag.”
“You’d better get it.”
“I don’t want to go back over there.”
“I’ll go with you. You don’t want to leave your stuff here.”
“What if Van’s conscious by now? I didn’t hit him very hard.”
“If he is, I’ll take care of him.”
They went across to the girl’s unit and inside. Van was a pudgy man in his late forties, lying face down with his arms spread. There was blood on his right temple, but he was breathing. The porcelain lamp the girl had hit him with was shattered on the floor beside him.
“Is he still out?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She gathered up her bag and they went outside again. She said, “Where’s your car?”
“Over there.”
“Let’s go then, before he wakes up.”
Jeffords felt the hot desert wind on his face, blowing in through the open window. He stared out at the long, straight black ribbon of the highway. The desert was a half-world of shadows on either side.
The girl—her name was Marci, she told him—leaned against the passenger door, watching him. After a while she said, “You’re kind of quiet, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
She laughed. “You have to watch out for the quiet ones.”
Jeffords was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What are you doing out here? All by yourself?”
“Just drifting with the wind,” Marci said. “Hitchhiking. Seeing some of this big wide country.”
“You’re kind of young for that.”
“Oh, hell.”
“You can get into a lot of trouble.”
“Like with Van, you mean?”
“Like with him.”
“There aren’t many like him.”
“How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-one.”
“You ought to be married or something,” Jeffords said, and wondered why he had said it.
Marci laughed. “Sure, someday. Right now, my bag is grins. That’s what makes the world go round.”
Like Penny, he thought. Just like Penny. Why did I have to take her with me, why did I have to feel sorry for her?
“Hey,” Marci said, “have you ever been to Los Angeles?”
“Yes,” Jeffords answered.
“It must be some place. Everybody I ever knew who went to Los Angeles said it was some place.”
“It’s tome place, all right.”
Marci yawned and turned on the seat, moving close to Jeffords. She put her head on his shoulder. “I’m getting sleepy,” she said.
“Go to sleep then.”
“Okay. You don’t mind?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
They drove through the night and, subtly, Jeffords felt his mood change. He could smell the soft, sweet fragrance of the girl’s hair, and her body was warm resting against his. She’s just a kid, he thought. Kind of wild, but nice—a good kid. Maybe she’s different from the rest, maybe she’s one of the good ones . . .
It was past dawn when Marci awoke. They were coming out of the desert now, into Barstow. The morning sun was hot, bright, in the eastern sky; the reflection of it off the shining metal of the hood was blinding, but it didn’t bother Jeffords, not at all.
Marci stretched. “Where are we?”
“Barstow. How did you sleep?”
“Like the proverbial log.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Am I!”
“We’ll stop for breakfast.”
They ate bacon and eggs at a small cafe, and Jeffords found himself in a light, carefree mood. It was the girl who made him feel that way. He couldn’t explain it; it was almost as if he were coming alive again, as if things mattered again. Marci, he thought, savoring the name. Marci.
They lingered over coffee, bought sandwiches for the remainder of the trip. They drove through to the coast, stopping once to eat a picnic lunch. They laughed a lot, talked a lot, and Jeffords’ buoyant mood increased. By the time they reached Los Angeles, shortly after dark, he felt as he had on his honeymoon with Penny: right with everything, happy with everything.
“Well,” he said, “we made it.”
“We made it, all right.”
“Do you want to stop somewhere?”
“Okay. You must be tired.”
“I am.”
They took a motel—two rooms with a connecting door between. Marci kissed him good night with feeling and promise, and he went to bed and slept deeply, dreaming good dreams.
He awoke at ten in the morning, rested. He got up and dressed and opened the connecting door, peered into the adjoining room.
Marci wasn’t there.
Jeffords went outside and looked around and didn’t see her. He walked down to the motel office. The same man who had given them the rooms the night before was still there.
“Have you seen the girl I came here with?” Jeffords asked.
“Oh, I saw her, sure,” the man said.
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
The man shrugged. “She got on the San Diego bus.”
“What? She got on the what?”
“The bus for San Diego,” the man said. “It stops right out front. She got on about an hour ago. I figured the two of you—”
Jeffords did not hear the rest of it. He ran outside and back to his room. His temples were pounding as he opened his suitcase; he had put his wallet in there the night before, when he had go
ne to bed. The wallet was still there, spread open on top of his shirts. He picked it up.
It was empty.
Jeffords stood remembering the pudgy man, Van, lying on the floor of the motel unit in the desert. Marci had said he’d tried to attack her, but maybe the truth was, he had caught her going through his things, looking for money or valuables. Or maybe the truth was, she hadn’t wanted to wait for him to go to sleep, and she had hit him with the lamp when his back was turned. Well, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now.
Jeffords put his wallet back into the suitcase. He took the car keys from his pocket, went outside to where his car was parked and opened the trunk. There was a small brown box inside, behind the spare tire, and he took that out and returned to the motel room.
He put the case on the writing desk, unfastened the catches, and took out the gun.
He stood looking at it for a time. Then he put it into his belt, under his shirt, took the suitcase and the small box out to his car, and left the motel. He drove onto the freeway, south toward San Diego.
They’re all the same, he thought. All the same, every one of them in the world.
He knew what he had to do—what he would have to do again and again and again.
When he found Marci, he would put the muzzle of the gun against her heart and he would pull the trigger—-just like he had done with Penny when he’d found her alone in the Las Vegas motel three days before . . .
The View
by Brian Garfield
Brian Garfield has never gotten his due as a writer of prose. His sentences sparkle. There’s never an excess word. And lies equally good at human psychology, his novel Necessity being a good example. He took the woman-in-jeopardy genre, stood it on its head, and created something brand new. He is, in all respects, an intelligent and gifted writer and if you’re trying to learn how to write, study him carefully.
First published in 1983.
The day before the murder I made the usual rounds.
Tom Todhunter’s house on the hilltop was my next-to-last stop on Mondays and Thursdays. Normally I tried to arrive early because the old man was one of my favorite clients and I enjoyed provoking his stories about the early days. Today I was a bit late because I had other things on my mind—Marilynn and the problem of Stanley Orcutt.
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