Modern Masters of Noir

by Ed Gorman (ed)

He watched as Johnny undressed and slid between the sheets, then he turned off the television and the lights. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mac lit a cigarette. He sat there for a long time, smoking and watching Johnny sleep.

  Chapter 8

  He woke up slowly, knowing that he had to move, but putting it off until the last possible moment. Johnny was sprawled next to him, still sleeping soundly. At last, Mac slid from the bed and began to dress. He put on grey slacks, a green knit shirt, the familiar battered windbreaker, and tucked the .45 into his pocket. “Johnny,” he said, as he stood in front of the mirror to comb his hair.

  Johnny stirred, then sat up quickly. “Huh?”

  “Rise and shine, kiddo.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  As Johnny washed and dressed, Mac packed all their belongings, so they wouldn’t have to come back afterwards. He was tired of this room, this city, and only wanted to leave it behind as quickly as possible. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the door as Johnny donned the holster and pulled his jacket on.

  Johnny turned with a smile. “I’m ready.”

  Mac nodded. They each carried a suitcase to the car. “You want to get some breakfast?”

  Johnny thought about it, then shook his head. “After, I guess. Could use a Coke.”

  Mac drove through the parking lot, stopping at the office to pay their bill. On the way back to the car, he got a Coke from the soda machine.

  “Thanks,” Johnny said, taking the can from him. He slumped in the seat, his legs propped against the dash, and drank thoughtfully.

  “You okay?” Mac asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Want to go to Vegas after?”

  “Fine. Whatever you want.”

  “Well, I thought we might. I figured if we could double the money from this job, we could go to Mexico. Nobody would bother us there. You could swim, whatever. How does that sound?”

  “Okay. Whatever you want.”

  Mac sighed. “What do you want, kid? Why does it always have to be my decision? Don’t you have an opinion?”

  Johnny glanced at him. “Sure, I have an opinion.”

  “Terrific. What is it?”

  “I want to do whatever you want. That’s my opinion.”

  Mac looked at him for an instant before turning his eyes back to the road. “Johnny, you’re crazy.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  The car turned and went into the alley behind the apartment building. Mac stopped and shifted in the seat so that he was looking at Johnny. “I was kidding,” he said. “You’re not crazy.”

  Johnny shrugged. “I don’t guess it matters very much one way or the other, does it?”

  Mac reached out a hand and touched Johnny’s arm. “You mad at me?”

  A brilliant smile crossed Johnny’s face. “Of course not. I never get mad at you.”

  “I don’t know why the hell not.”

  He shrugged again. “Because.”

  Mac snorted. “A great reason.”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m crazy.”

  It took him a moment to realize that Johnny was kidding. “Shit,” he said. “Get your ass out of here. Be careful.”

  “Sure.” Johnny got out of the car and walked up the path. It took him a little longer than usual to open the door, but then he gave the familiar V-for-Victory sign and disappeared inside.

  It was exactly one minute later by the clock on the dash that Mac heard the shots. For one frozen, terrible instant, he sat still. It was the first time he’d ever heard the sound of gunfire at one of their jobs, and the echoing roars paralyzed him.

  At last he moved, throwing his body out of the car and running toward the building, pulling the gun from his pocket as he ran. “Johnny!” His cry rang through the quiet morning air.

  He burst into the hall and ran around the corner. The door to Frost’s apartment was marked by several bullet holes. He had time to notice only that one fact before the door was flung open. Frost stood there, a small machine gun in his hands. Bullets began to spray the hallway.

  Mac felt the lumps of hot metal crash against his body. He fell to his knees, dropping the gun. “Johnny?” he said again, this time in a whisper.

  From behind him, someone fired a single shot, and Frost crashed to the floor.

  Mac tried to crawl, but his body wouldn’t do what he wanted it to. “Johnny?” he said through pain-filled gasps. “Babe, where are you?” He couldn’t move.

  A face appeared above him, vaguely familiar. It was the man he’d seen Johnny talking to in the bar. Simon. They looked at one another for a long moment. Mac kept watching as Simon picked up his fallen gun and left another in its place. “Hey,” he managed to say, feeling the blood trail from his mouth. “Johnny?”

  “Yeah,” the guy said. “I know. He’ll be okay.”

  Mac tried to shake his head. This guy didn’t understand. Johnny needed him. But before he could try to explain all of that, he felt a sudden absence of pain, and a grey curtain began to descend slowly over his consciousness. I’m dying, he thought, surprised to realize that the knowledge saddened him. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said in a loud, clear voice. Oh, damnit, he thought. This is so fucking stupid.

  Simon closed McCarthy’s eyes gently. He sat there numbly, only half aware of the screams coming from inside another apartment. His plan, such as it had been, went no further, and he didn’t know what to do next.

  The door to the garage suddenly jerked open with a crash. A primeval roar of naked pain filled the hall. Johnny, blood streaming from the cut on his head where Simon had hit him minutes before, half-crawled and half-ran to the body.

  “Mac?”

  He threw himself across the bloody form. “Mac? Mac? Don’t be dead, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. Please, open your eyes, Mac. I love you, please don’t be dead, please, Mac, pleaseplease . . .” His words dwindled off, becoming soft, unintelligible moans, as his hands kept up their frantic stroking of the dead man’s face.

  Simon could hear the squeal of sirens in the distance. “Come on, Johnny,” he said urgently. “We have to go. Come on.” He took Johnny’s arm with one hand, while his other reached in and took the wallet from Mac’s pocket. He pulled on Johnny, but the crying man didn’t move. Simon got impatient. “Come on,” he said, jerking Johnny away, dragging him across the floor toward the garage.

  “Mac? Mac?” Johnny kept up the whimpering pleas all the way to the car. Simon opened the passenger door and shoved him in. He ran around to the driver’s side and jumped behind the wheel. They pulled out of the garage and drove around the corner just ahead of the first squad car.

  He didn’t relax until they were well away, heading toward the freeway, then he eased up on the accelerator. Johnny sat huddled against the door, still crying. He cried like a child, in long helpless sobs, making no effort to wipe the tears or his running nose. “It’s okay,” Simon muttered. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. It’s all over now, Johnny.”

  Johnny didn’t say anything.

  After another couple of minutes, Simon pulled the car over to the shoulder and stopped. He reached into the glove compartment for some tissues. “Here,” he said.

  The only response was a blank stare from red, tear-filled eyes.

  Simon used the tissues to wipe Johnny’s eyes and nose. “Now stop it,” he said sharply, as if to a misbehaving child. “This isn’t going to help. He’s dead. That’s all. Now stop it.”

  He didn’t even know if Johnny heard him. The tissues went into a wadded heap on the floor and Simon started the car again.

  They drove for a long time, stopping only once for gas and food. Johnny wouldn’t eat, just stared at the hamburger until Simon, angry and frustrated, tore the sandwich into small pieces and fed them to him one by one. “Say something, Johnny, willya? You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  He suddenly remembered something the cop in New York had told him, about Johnny’s mute act the time he got busted. We
ll, Mac wasn’t going to show up this time, so Johnny would just have to snap out of it on his own.

  Simon squeezed Johnny’s shoulder and shook him a little. “I did it for you,” he said. “Don’t you understand?”

  Johnny only looked at him.

  After vaguely heading south, Simon finally stopped at a motel very near the Mexican border. Johnny sat in the car while he registered, paying in advance with some of the cash from McCarthy’s wallet.

  The room was small and not too clean, but it didn’t matter. Johnny sat on one of the beds, both hands folded in his lap, his face blank. Simon sat on the other bed, watching him. “We’ll go to Mexico,” he said finally. “Stay there a while, just in case anybody’s on our tail. I don’t think they are, though.” He waited a moment, but there was no response, so he stood. “I’ll go get some food. You wait here. Understand, Johnny? Stay here.”

  He paused long enough to turn on the television. An old rerun of “I Love Lucy” was on, and Simon saw that Johnny’s eyes shifted to the screen, although his face remained blank.

  The rest of the day and evening passed slowly. They ate in the room and watched television, all in silence, except for Simon’s occasional remarks. The late news came on, and Johnny sat impassively through the lead story of the double-murder in L.A. Even when an old army photo of Alexander McCarthy was flashed on the screen, Johnny did not react.

  Simon walked over and turned the TV off. “We better get some sleep.”

  Johnny stood and began pulling off his bloody clothes.

  Simon waited until the blond was between the sheets before undressing and crawling into the other bed. Once there, he rather surprised himself by falling asleep.

  He didn’t know how long he’d slept or exactly what woke him, but he was jerked into complete wakefulness immediately. Moonlight streamed into the room through the window. Johnny was standing in the middle of the room, his face still empty of emotion, his gun pointed at Simon’s head. Simon felt his gut tighten, but his voice was cool when he spoke. “What the fuck are you doing, Johnny?” he asked mildly. There was no answer and the gun never wavered. “You’re going to kill me, is that it? Gonna blow my head off, boy? Well, you just go right ahead. What the hell; my life ain’t worth shit anyway. Not anymore.” He stared into the pools of blue vagueness shining in the white moonglow. “But, Johnny,” he went on tenderly, “if you kill me, what happens next? You’ll be all by yourself. Do you want to be all alone, Johnny? Mac is dead. If you blow my head off, who’s gonna take care of you? Being with me is better than being alone, right?”

  It was two full minutes before the gun slowly lowered and then dropped to the floor. Johnny stood there, hands at his sides helplessly. Another minute passed before he spoke, the faint whisper so soft that Simon could barely hear him, even in the middle-of-the-night quiet. “We didn’t bring my clothes,” he said. “You’ll have to buy me new clothes, because those are all dirty and I can’t wear them anymore.”

  “In the morning, Johnny.”

  “Blue is my favorite color.”

  “Okay.”

  Johnny took a deep breath. “Can I get into bed with you?”

  Simon stared at him. “What?”

  “I don’t like to sleep by myself.” His voice shook a little and he stopped, rubbing his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Mac always let me.”

  After a moment, Simon nodded. “Okay,” he said. He scooted over as far as he could in the narrow bed.

  Johnny stretched out, not touching him, and they both stayed very still for a long time.

  “Johnny?”

  He turned his head and looked at Simon, but didn’t say anything.

  “Were you and Mac getting it on?”

  “I don’t understand,” Johnny murmured vaguely.

  Simon opened his mouth to explain, then only shrugged. “Never mind, kid. It doesn’t matter.”

  Johnny turned over, so that his back was to Simon. In only a few minutes, his breathing had taken on the even rhythm of sleep. Simon reached across him for cigarettes and matches. Lighting one, he lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  He was tired.

  Epilogue

  The Mexican sun was hot.

  Simon lifted the can of beer and took a long drink. “I could maybe get a job with a security firm or something,” he said thoughtfully. “What do you think?”

  There was no answer from Johnny. Tanned and burnished gold from their long days on the beach, he was busy reading an old copy of TV Guide that some previous American tourist had left in the hotel room. He didn’t even look up when Simon spoke.

  Another gulp of beer. “We just have to decide where we want to go. East somewheres, I guess, huh?”

  Loneliness, Simon had decided during the past three weeks, was sitting in a hotel room with John Griffith.

  It was getting hotter as the sun moved toward its midday peak. Simon finished the beer in a gulp. “We better go in for awhile,” he said. “I don’t especially feel like getting heatstroke.”

  Obediently, Johnny closed the magazine and got to his feet. He carefully brushed the sand from his blue jeans.

  “Chicago, maybe,” Simon continued. “Let’s think about Chicago, huh?” When Johnny didn’t even look at him, Simon felt his fingers clench into a tight fist. “Goddamnit,” he said suddenly, “goddamnit, Johnny. Can’t you ease up just a little? Everybody else is gone. My partner. My wife and kid. They’re all gone. Mac is gone. We can’t bring any of them back, kid. It’s just you and me now. Doesn’t that make us even?” He kept both hands at his sides, wanting to reach out and grab Johnny and shake him until there was some kind of a response. He sighed. “There aren’t any good guys in this story, Johnny. There’s just one dumb Jew ex-cop and one spaced-out TV junkie.” He almost wanted to laugh; it was so fucking stupid.

  Johnny glanced at him. “Can I get an orange juice?” he asked.

  Simon flexed his fingers. “Yeah, kid, sure.”

  “Thank you,” Johnny replied politely.

  Simon kicked at the sand. “Sure.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks and started toward the hotel. Johnny followed, humming some private melody. Simon thought that if this damned lonely feeling inside his gut didn’t disappear he would lose his mind. He stopped walking. “Hey, Johnny, you want to see what’s on at the movie tonight?” The hotel ran English language films once a week for the tourists. “How’s that sound? We’ll eat dinner someplace, then go to the movie. Maybe it’ll be a western. What about it?”

  “Okay, Simon,” Johnny said. “Whatever you want.” He ducked his head, watching as his feet moved through the sand.

  Simon tilted his head back, staring up into the flawless blue sky. He knew exactly what the rest of the day would bring. They’d go into the hotel bar. Johnny would get a large orange juice and punch up that damned Nat King Cole song on the jukebox. He always played the same song, time after time, until Simon sometimes woke up humming “Mona Lisa.” He’d spend the whole afternoon there with Johnny, drinking lousy cheap beer and waiting. He wasn’t even sure what it was he kept waiting for. Maybe it was just for real life to begin again.

  He sighed once more and started walking again, following Johnny across the beach.

  The Luckiest

  Man in the World

  by Rex Miller

  Rex Miller writes about a 500-pound serial killer named Chaingang. For starters, that is. Millers landscape fuses grand opera and traditional film noir . . . Thomas Harris as filmed by Francis Ford Coppola. What gets overlooked in all the clamor is how good Rex is at everyday emotions and fears. He’s a real writer.

  First published in 1989.

  “Zulu Six, Zulu Six.” He could imagine the PRC crackling, the bored tone of somebody’s RTO going, “Dragon says he’s got movement about fifty meters to his Sierra Whisky, do you read me? Over.” And the spit of intercom garble. Guy in the C & C bird keying a handset, saying whatever he says. Fucking lifer somewhere up there generations remov
ed from the bad bush. Yeah, I copy you, Lumpy Charlie, Lima Charlie, Lumpy Chicken. Whatever he says. Bird coming down. Charlie moving at the edge of the woods. Thua Thien Province. Northern Whore Corps. The beast killing for peace, back then. Dirty-Dozened out of the slammer by military puppeteers. Set in place by the spooks. Very real, however.

  “Chaingang” his nickname. The fattest killer in the Nam. Thriving on blast-furnace heat like some fucking plant. He was the beast. He had killed more than any other living being. Over four hundred humans, he thought. A waddling death machine. “Gangbang” they would call him out of earshot. “Hippo.” He had heard them. Other names he ignored. These arrogant children who knew nothing about death.

  He flashed on the woods, so similar to these, and to a pleasant memory from long ago. He was about two miles from the house.

  “There goes Bobby Ray,” the woman called to her husband, who was bringing logs in, and watched a truck throw gravel.

  “Nnn,” he grunted in the manner of someone who had been married a long time.

  “He’s another one don’t have anything to do but run the road all day.”

  The husband said nothing, loading kindling.

  “Drive up and down, up and down, drive a daggone pickup like he was a millionaire.” She had a shrewish, sharp voice that grated on a man, he thought. He put a large log down in the hot stove.

  “Now you gonna’ run to town to pick up that daggone tractor thing an’ you coulda’ got it yesterday when you was in there at Harold’s, but noooooo.” She was a pain in the ass. “You couldn’t be bothered.” She was working herself up the way she always liked to do, he thought. He knew the old bitch like a damn book. “You waste a fortune on gas for that truck and—”

  He spoke for the first time in hours. “Go get the boy.”

  “Then you expect us to get by with the crop money bad as it was last year and—” She just went on like he hadn’t said anything. He looked over at her with those hard, flat eyes. She shut her mouth for a second, then said, “I don’t know where he’s at. He’ll be back in a minute. Anyway, you don’t seem to realize. . .” And she was droning on about how he always thought he could write it off on the tax and that. Christ on a crutch, if he hadn’t heard that a thousand blamed times, he hadn’t heard it once!