Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then, what—?’ She knocked lightly on the door, brushing some hair away from her forehead.

  ‘Nobody’s going to answer,’ I said softly.

  Bess opened the door and went on inside. I followed her, thinking, What am I going to do? Bess just stood there, staring and I could see her start to yell. If she yelled, that was her business. She didn’t. She cut it off and turned and looked at me and blinked. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Well, she just stood there, staring. She didn’t cry or scream or carry on at all, like a woman might. And I was proud of her—that she was my Bess. Then she looked at me again and swallowed.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘That’s the way I found her.’

  She shook her head and went over and slumped into a chair. I got over there and pulled her up and held her. She was trembling a little. I held her tight.

  ‘What d’you suppose happened, Roy?’

  ‘That’s better.’

  I wondered for a moment if she’d thought I’d done this. Sometimes they can cook up some weird things in their heads.

  She looked over there again and whipped her head away. ‘It’s awful!’

  She didn’t even begin to know how awful. It was just hitting her, what had really happened. You could see it come across her face. A shadow of fear, and something like hate.

  ‘Mrs. Nichols?’

  I whirled and it was the young girl who was on her honeymoon, in number eleven. We hadn’t seen anything of them, but now here she was. Her yellow dress was one of these fluffy things, and she had brown hair and brown eyes and she smiled and said, ‘Mrs. Nichols.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Wait.’

  But she was already coming through the door. Bess started toward her with one hand out.

  The girl said, ‘I was just looking for you. I saw you come in here, so I—’ and she stopped. She saw that over there on the floor and she screamed.

  She put both hands against her face and filled her lungs and let it rip. It rocked the house. She really had lungs. Her face got red and she kept on screaming. She turned and ran smack into the screen door, and got it open and went outside, screaming and running for number eleven.

  I looked out the window. Mrs. Donne was standing out there by the beach chair. She held the glass in her hand, but it had all spilled down her front. She watched the girl run across the lawn, trying to brush the spilled drink off her dress. Then she looked over here at number six.

  ‘We’ve got to phone the police.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What d’you mean, wait, Roy? We can’t wait.’

  ‘Wait, anyway.’ I went and sat in the chair and held my head. I felt blocked. I knew there was something I could do. There had to be—

  ‘We’ve got to phone the police right now. Is there any reason why we shouldn’t?’

  ‘Wait.’ I didn’t want her to call the cops. I couldn’t help it, I just didn’t want it, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  ‘Roy, let’s get out of here. I don’t want to stay in this place.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She came over and grabbed my arm. I stood up and we walked over to the door. ‘What’s the matter with you, Roy?’

  ‘All right.’

  The girl from number eleven was standing down there by her porch. She was talking with her husband through the window, waving her arms around. I quit looking at her, but I could hear her damned piping voice talking and talking.

  We got over to the office and Bess sat down at the desk. ‘What’ll I say?’

  I stood there watching her.

  ‘Roy!’

  ‘Just go ahead. Call them.’

  So she did . . .

  ‘How long d’you think it’ll take them to get here, Roy?’

  I sat there on the couch, staring at the floor. I could see Bess’ feet going back and forth on the rug, back and forth. She walked up and down.

  ‘Roy. You just sit there.’

  I stared.

  ‘Did—did you touch her?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s cold.’

  ‘What could have happened? It must have been that man, the one with his arm in the sling. This is awful, Roy! It can ruin business here, too.’

  Business. Business.

  ‘Here come the honeymooners.’

  I looked up and they came along and knocked on the office door. Bess went over and started to open the door, then decided against it.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ the guy said. He was a tall, thin guy, dressed in a gray suit. He had red hair and freckles, and the girl stuck close to him. ‘We were going to stay another week, but now we want this week’s rent back. We’ve decided to move along. That s how—’

  ‘All right,’ Bess said. There was a kind of a sting to the way she said it. ‘Come on in.’

  ‘No,’ the girl said.

  They stood there, shuffling on the doorstep. Bess looked at them for a moment, then went and counted some money out of the cigar box and looked at me and went over and opened the door. She handed the guy the money.

  They turned quickly and walked away without a word. The girl was talking like crazy the minute they were on the front lawn. I sure didn’t envy him his married life with that one. A few more years and she’d really be a dilly.

  ‘I wish they’d come.’

  ‘They will, don’t worry.’

  ‘Roy. Who d’you think she was? Murdered—murdered right here in our place. I didn’t hear a thing. Did you hear anything after we came back from over there?’

  ‘Nope.’

  I got up and went out into the kitchen and washed my hands in the sink. I dried them on the dish towel. Then I took a glass down from the cupboard and filled it with water and stood there drinking. You could taste the chlorine, and the water wasn’t very cold.

  ‘What are you going to tell them, Roy?’

  ‘What can I tell them?’

  She was in the doorway. She came over and stood by the kitchen table. I didn’t want to look at her. At the same time, I wanted to tell Bess everything I knew, all I’d been through with Vivian.

  ‘You’re spilling water all over the floor, Roy.’

  Well, I took that damned glass and I let her go. It whizzed across the room and smashed against the cupboards and busted, and water and glass showered.

  She didn’t move. Just stood there, watching me.

  ‘Honey,’ she said, ‘what’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing. I’m sorry I did that. It’s just things, that’s all. Just things.”

  Chapter 13

  We stood there for a time without saying anything. It began to scare me a little, understanding how easy it is to start a canyon of doubt between two people. We’d been as close as any two people can get in every way, and now I could sense the separation because of doubt, and because I couldn’t, or wouldn’t tell her about things. I couldn’t. And then I knew I wouldn’t ever let it be like that.

  ‘It’s nothing, Bess. I’m just wrought up, I guess. Not getting the money from Albert, and then I went and lied to you about it all, and he writes. All the money we owe, and I can’t see my way clear.’

  I went over to her and put my arms around her. She was kind of stiff, then she let loose and laid her head on my chest and it was like old times.

  ‘And now this,’ I said. ‘Can you understand how I feel?’

  ‘It scares me, Roy.’

  ‘It’s damned well enough to scare anybody.’

  ‘I mean the way she looked. She was beautiful, Roy.’

  ‘I guess maybe she was.’

  ‘How could anybody do a thing like that? And us finding her. Why? Why?’

  I patted her head and squeezed my hand on her arm. I wanted it to be right with us. But how could it ever be right from now on in?

  So finally I let her go, and went in and flopped down on the bed. And I kept seeing that face, red and black. With the tongue.

  Well, yo
u either win—or you lose.

  ‘Roy, that man in the car like a hearse drove by again.’

  ‘Oh? Yeah? Him?’

  ‘He just keeps driving by. It’s the third time I’ve seen him today, Roy. Maybe he’s gone past other times. Just driving by, like he’s going around and around the block. I wonder what he’s up to?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, he’s sure up to something.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Please don’t act that way, Roy!’

  I lay face down on the bed, with my head buried in the pillow.

  ‘I wish the police would come. Why don’t they hurry up?’

  They came quick enough for me. They came to the office and Bess went out there. I stuck with the bed. She told them about number six and they went over there. You could hear them, like elephants.

  You could hear them talking.

  There’s something about the voice of the law. It’s a jumble of solemn and righteous sound. It reached me all the way in the bedroom and I lay there, listening, wondering what I was going to do. What would I tell them? My mind was all cluttered up with that briefcase, and how it had been for the past few days. I kept being with Noel Teece and Vivian in the Lincoln, off and on, cracking up on the Georgia road. And then the hotel room, and the brief case again, around and around.

  ‘Roy?’

  I didn’t move. She came into the bedroom and over to the bed. After a little while, she sat on the bed and put her hand on my shoulder. What did she figure was the matter with me? I’d make a fine crook, all right—running off and trying to hide my head like an ostrich.

  ‘They’re still over there,’ she said. ‘One of them says he wants to talk with you. He said he’d be over here.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘They’re going to take the body away. They’ve been over there an awful long time.’ She paused, then said, ‘I think you’d better come into the office—kind of show yourself. That one, he said—’

  ‘I heard you.’

  ‘Don’t snap so.’ Her hand rubbed on my shoulder, the fingers squeezing. I rolled over and looked at her and she grinned at me. So I grinned at her, and it was like she’d come back to me, after she’d been away a long time. And then I knew she wasn’t really back at all. Because she still didn’t know. But she was with me. That much of it paid for a lot.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Okay, honey,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’ We watched each other, and she put her hand on mine and I took her hand and squeezed it and it was almost as if she knew everything and was with me. So I knew everything was all right, even if she didn’t know.

  ‘What are you going to tell them?’

  I kept looking at her, kind of drinking her in. Then I grunted and got up and went into the bathroom. When I came back, she was still sitting there on the bed.

  ‘They took the body away. I told them we found it together.’

  ‘But, Bess—we didn’t.’

  ‘I told them that, though.’

  ‘Well, all right.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him drive by any more, Roy—not since the police have been here.’

  I looked at her and she looked at me, then down at the floor, then up at me again. I grinned at her and turned and went into the office and sat down at the desk. I felt plenty shaky inside. Maybe she really thought I did it. She was acting funny. Acting good, but—would they think that?

  I heard her come through the hall. She leaned against the jamb in the doorway, with her hands together just the same way Vivian used to do. ‘Here he comes, Roy.’

  ‘Okay. Everything’s going to be all right, now.’

  ‘Shhh! Here he comes!’

  I stared at her. Her eyebrows were all hiked up and my God, I didn’t know what to do. Really, I hadn’t done anything, and yet she suddenly had me feeling so guilty and I was rotten with it. And then I knew it wasn’t her fault. She was trying to do right by me, and I was kicking her for it . . .

  Knock—knock . . . .

  Bess went across the room, stumbling once on the rug, and opened the door. ‘Yes, Officer?’

  ‘Mrs. Nichols, hate to bother you again. Is your husband awake yet?’

  So, I’d been asleep. Great.

  ‘Yes, Officer.’ She held the door open, stepping out of the way, and he came into the office and took his hat off. He stood in the doorway, so she couldn’t close the door. He looked over at me. ‘Mister Nichols?’

  ‘Yes?’

  He stepped into the room and she closed the door and leaned back against it. I could hear old Hughes talking from outside.

  The plain-clothes cop was a little guy, not big at all. His voice was very soft, kind of like purring. He wore dark-brown pants and a light sand-colored jacket, white shirt, and a clean maroon tie. The tie was clipped halfway down with a silver sword and his coat was open so you could just see the hump and the edge of the butt of his holstered revolver. On the left side, for a cross draw.

  ‘Could we talk for a little?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  He had a moon face and it was buttered like a bun with sweat. There were little pouches under his eyebrows, and his eyes looked at you through slits in the pouches. Brown, bright eyes. This was the man whom I’d deal with.

  I couldn’t help staring at him. I’d been waiting to meet him for a long time. Almost ever since that Lincoln picked me up on the Georgia road . . . His hat was brown, like a chocolate drop.

  ‘I’m Ernest Gant.’

  I got up and went around the desk and stuck out my hand. He transferred his hat and we shook once and dropped clean. He had a waistline shake, palm down.

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll be in the kitchen,’ Bess said.

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs. Nichols. You needn’t leave.’

  ‘I just thought—’

  He smiled at her, then looked at me. ‘I wonder if you’d just step over to the other apartment with me a moment, Mister Nichols?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  He grabbed the door and held it open and grinned at Bess again. The grin went away and we were outside and the door was closed.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked him.

  He didn’t say anything. We walked across the grass. A uniformed cop hurried across the lawn toward an official car parked by the curb. The Southern Comfort Motel had become a busy place.

  Gant was nearly as tall as I was, after all—it was just that he seemed smaller, somehow. He wasn’t, though. Not really.

  We went inside number six. There was nobody there. The body was gone.

  ‘Your wife tells me you found the body together?’

  I started to go along with that. Then there was something in the tone of his voice, in the way he looked at me. It gave me a queer feeling and a certain respect for him, too. ‘I want to clear that up. She said that, but it wasn’t quite that way. I came in first.’

  ‘I understand.’

  He went over and stood by a chair. Then he sat down. His actions seemed to be thought out beforehand. He put his hat over his knee and patted his pockets. He came up with a crumpled package of cigarettes.

  ‘Smoke, Mister Nichols?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Well, all right—I guess I could.’ I took one and fumbled for a match. By the time I found one, he had a Zippo going under my nose. It was nice and steady with a big flame. He went over and sat down again.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

  I got over on the couch. I kept looking toward the hall doorway, the area drew my gaze. They had cleared the body away and there wasn’t a trace.

  Somebody came clomping heavily through from the back way. I looked up and it was another harness cop. He walked into the room, his leather creaking, and stepped around the place on the floor where the body had been.

  ‘You want anybody posted outside, Lieutenant?’

  ‘You stick around, all right?’

  ‘Burke’s with me.’

  ‘Tell him t
o stick around, too. I’ll let you know. They’re finished with the floor?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  The cop looked at me. He was a man of perhaps thirty-five and there was nothing at all in his look, the way they look at you. He had very pale blue eyes, and his cap was on very straight. ‘We’ll be out in the car, then.’

  Gant nodded and went on smoking. He had very dark hair, parted neatly on one side and brushed straight back. ‘You came in first?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘When was that? What time, about?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘This is this morning. Could you narrow it down some?’

  ‘Well.’ I didn’t have any idea about time. Time was suddenly all run together like syrup. ‘Maybe nine?’

  He smoked. He would come back to the time later, after I’d thought about it a while. He really had me thinking about time now. When had I come in here?

  ‘And your wife? When did she come in?’

  ‘A little after I came in.’

  ‘Oh. I see. Let me get this straight. I thought you both came over here together, and you came in first. But she—?’

  ‘No. That’s not right. I came over alone.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s straight enough. Then your wife came along. That it?’

  ‘Well, she—yes. That’s right.’

  ‘You just kind of—well, waited around until she decided to come and find the body, too—huh?’

  I looked at him.

  He held his hand up. He grinned. The grin went away and he began to smoke again, really working on the cigarette. He would take a drag and inhale, and hold it and then let it out, and stare at the cigarette, and do it all over again. The cigarette was finished, with that treatment. He held the lungful of smoke and ground the cigarette out in a standing ash tray. Then he let the smoke out in a long sigh, down into his shirt.

  I was getting mixed up, and it made me mad.

  ‘What did you do when you found the body of this woman—girl—in here?’

  I started to blurt something, then paused, and that was all he needed. I could see it in his eyes, no real expression, just a shadow. I wanted to cover it, he was thinking. You couldn’t cover it. You make your slip just once and it stands there, laughing, sneering at you for the rest of your life.