Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

“Yes. Hot.” Sandy opened his overcoat and sighed.

  “But good for business, huh? For indoor sports.”

  “I haven’t noticed,” said Sandy. “I don’t think bowling is seasonal.”

  “I never thought of that,” said the patrolman.

  “Except for the air-conditioning bill,” said Sandy. “I don’t even like to think of that bill.”

  “I can imagine. Nine alleys is a big place to keep cool.”

  “Had your coffee yet?” Sandy asked.

  Sandy asked this every day and the patrolman smiled and said the same thing he said every day. “No. I haven’t,” he said.

  “Put Bob’s coffee on my bill,” Sandy told the barmaid, which also was part of this thing.

  Then the two men nodded at each other and the patrolman watched Sandy go to his booth. He drank his coffee and thought that Sandy could not be too worried about his bowling alley or the air-conditioning bill in August. Sandy wears very nice clothes and has a beer every afternoon and never has troubles or raises his voice. Once Sandy looked up and the two men smiled at each other across the room. That’s how the patrolman got along all around.

  The phone rang at the other end of the bar and the waitress walked over to it. She went slowly because of the heat. She fluffed her blouse in front and did it a few more times when she got to the end of the bar and then picked up the phone. She put it up to her ear and then put it down on the bar. “For you, Sandy,” she said, and walked back to the patrolman.

  Sandy looked across at the girl but did not move. She said, “For you,” again, and then Sandy got up and said, “Crap,” but low so that nobody heard it. When he had picked up the phone he said, “Who is it?” and the voice answered, “Meyer.”

  “What’re you calling here for?”

  “Don’t waste my time, huh?”

  Sandy had his bowling alley on the east side of town, and Meyer had a restaurant an hour’s drive north where the guests could look down at the Hudson. The two men rarely met because everything was well organized, and phone calls were even more rare. Meyer was the bigger of the two and sometimes he called.

  “There’s a man in from the Coast,” he said. “With a message.”

  “Why call here? We got a regular way of . . .”

  “He’s new. His name is Turner, the new errand man, and I told him to meet you at the place where you are.”

  “That was smart. The way I run . . .”

  “It’s arranged. I’m just telling . . .”

  “You keep interrupting me, dammit.”

  “You got nothing to say,” Meyer told him. “And this is rush.”

  Sandy moved the phone to his other hand. Then he said, “With that much of a rush, let him handle it from the Coast. And if it’s a heavy job, I don’t know if I can furnish right now.”

  “Talk to Turner about it, will you?”

  “Listen, Meyer. I don’t run a store with shelf goods, you know that?”

  “You run what’s been set up. What’s been set up is for us to furnish the service, anywhere, and stop thinking like a neighborhood club.”

  Sandy looked across at the patrolman and the girl working the bar and while he did that Meyer hung up. Sandy hung up too, without any show at all, and went back to his seat.

  “In the last booth,” he heard the patrolman say. “The gentleman with the hat.”

  When Sandy looked up he saw the patrolman leave and saw a short man with a round belly come toward him. Turner was suffering from the heat and his suit hung in folds. He looked all folds, except for the belly which came out smooth like an egg.

  “I’m Turner,” he said. “I was told . . .”

  “I know. Sit down.”

  Turner sat down and sighed.

  “You want a beer?” Sandy asked him.

  “Yes. I think a beer would be nice.”

  Turner slid his rear around on the seat and did not look at Sandy. He disliked this kind of booth. The circular table seemed to want to slice into his belly, and the seat was like a curve on a track and gave no feeling of comfort. Then came the beer and Turner watched the girl pour from the bottle. He watched her hand on the bottle, an uninteresting hand but something to look at for the moment.

  “You water the geranium today?” Sandy asked the girl and she said, “Yes.” And then, “Lou does, in the evening.”

  After she was gone Sandy waited a moment, waiting for Turner to talk, but Turner did not look up. He was moving his glass up and down on the table, making rings, and then he took a swallow of beer. Sandy did not want to wait any longer.

  “So?”

  “Yes. Well, we got this job.”

  “I know. What details?”

  Turner picked his beer glass up again but then did not drink. He put it down again and said, “Do I tell you? What I mean is . . .”

  “I’m not the headman,” said Sandy, “if that’s what you mean. But you talk to me.”

  “Yes. Well, you know I just run the errand.”

  “I know.”

  “What I mean is, you’re not the one who does the job, are you?”

  “No.”

  Turner looked at his glass again. There were little webs of foam all around the inside. “Do I talk to the man who does the job?” he asked at the glass.

  “Just tell me about it, will you?”

  Turner did not make clear to himself whether he wanted to see the man whom he would actually send out on this job, but instead stayed uneasy about all this which he blamed on the newness of his work.

  “I thought this was rush,” said Sandy.

  “Yes, well, there’s this hit.”

  Sandy put his face into his hands and rubbed. He said through his fingers, “All right, so there’s this hit. Come on, come on.”

  “Yes. The job is this old guy, name of Kemp. Big once, on the Coast, and . . .”

  “I thought he was dead.”

  “No, no. Just out, you know? But now, we just got this, he’s going to move. He’s been in touch with a new group, something new in Miami, and with what Kemp knows and with what these new ones have in mind about our organization . . .”

  “Where is Kemp?”

  “He’s in Pennsylvania. The rush is, we know he’s going to move, in a week even, the way it’s been figured, and the rush is to get this done now, while he’s still sitting down and has an everyday routine. And while he’s without organization, living retired like with an everyday . . .”

  “You said that.” Sandy took a cigar out of his pocket but did not light it. He only looked at it and then put it away again. “I don’t have anybody,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I said . . .”

  “What do you mean you . . .”

  “Stop yelling, will you, Turner?”

  Turner shut his mouth immediately and then wiped his head. He did not have much hair and suddenly the sweat on his head was tickling him like crazy. And this errand job. He had thought there would be a clear-cut matter of bringing a message, explaining things with the details he had been given, and that would be his work. Perhaps he would also see the man whom he sent out on the job, but he had not thought of any other kind of excitement or anything, really, which would involve him. He did not talk loud again, but with a fast edginess which was almost mean.

  “They say now. I just bring the message and the message is now. And you’re set up for this thing, is the way I got the picture. Why in hell . . .”

  “Now when?” said Sandy.

  “Now, like today. Like now!”

  Sandy nodded and looked across the bar and out of the window.

  “Everybody is that busy?” said Turner. “How can it be that everybody in a big layout like you run here and that Meyer . . .”

  “Not everybody is busy,” said Sandy. “But I can’t send just anybody.”

  “What is there, for Christ’s sake? You get a finger that can bend around a little old trigger . . .”

  “Why don’t you shut your stupid mouth, Turner, huh?�
�

  Turner said nothing and picked up his glass. There was a little warm beer left at the bottom and he drank that down without liking it.

  “Retired or not,” said Sandy, “Kemp is a pro. And special.”

  “Naturally. That’s why.”

  “And there’s three kinds for jobs. There’s the nuts, there’s the dumb ones, and the ones who are special. What you need is special.”

  “Special? All I . . .”

  “They got a lot trained out of them and a lot trained in. That leaves out the nuts, which we never use, and that leaves out the dumb ones, like your finger around a little old trigger.”

  “They said now, is all I know, and that we got nobody for it on the Coast. They said now and your outfit is the one to furnish.”

  “I know. I’m trying.” Sandy folded his paper up and stuck it into his pocket. “I got just one right now to fill the bill. But I got to ask him first.”

  “Ask him? What you got, prima donnas?”

  “No. And not machines, either.”

  Chapter 3

  Jordan did not expect to be met at the train nor was it the order of things to run into each other in public and acknowledge it. He ignored Sandy and the man with him and kept walking. This impressed Turner as exciting.

  Turner had a notion that eyes tell a great deal about someone. He was able to read a great deal into somebody’s eyes. But it did not work in the case of Jordan. The man just looked. He did not squint, dart, hood, sink his eyes at or into anything, and he seemed to carry his head simply to balance with the least possible strain. The face was tilted up a little; he had the neck and head of a man who is thin. Though Jordan was not thin. He had a slow step, like a thin man, but that might have been because he was tired.

  When Jordan walked by, Sandy said, “I got the car outside,” and Jordan said, “Okay,” and kept walking.

  They all walked together or they did not walk together, depending on who was thinking about it. There were a lot of people coming and going. Turner was in a light sweat.

  He felt nobody else was sweating. He felt nobody else wore a coat and hat—as did Sandy—and nobody carried a suitcase—as Jordan was doing. And my God if that suitcase should snap open, what might fall out . . .

  When they all got in the car Jordan sat in the back seat alone. Sandy turned once and said, “Hi,” and Jordan said the same thing. Then Sandy faced front again and drove away from the curb. He drove back and forth through Manhattan waiting for Turner to talk. But Turner did not get to it. He looked out the rear window a few times, and once he saw that Jordan held a dead cigarette and he offered a light. But this did not start anything either. Jordan said no to the light and Turner said nothing else.

  “He’s from the Coast,” said Sandy after a while. “He runs errands.”

  “How do you do,” said Turner. “How are you.”

  “Thank you, fine,” said Jordan.

  “His name’s Turner,” said Sandy. He did not give Jordan’s name.

  Turner had a moment of sudden panic, now that the man in back knew his name.

  “I’m driving around so you can talk,” said Sandy. “Yes. Very good. You went through a yellow light.”

  “It’s a job,” Sandy said over his shoulder.

  “Yes. Would you like a fresh cigarette?” Turner asked the back.

  “What did you want?” said Jordan.

  “Well, yes. It’s about Kemp. You know Kemp?”

  “No.”

  “No? Well, it’s about him. Sort of special.”

  “What’s special?” said Jordan.

  This gave Turner a nervous fit of the giggles, as if Jordan had been making a joke. Jordan had not meant anything like that. What was ever special, he had thought. It upset him to be thinking about this at all. He felt nervous and squinted. I’m tired, he thought and rubbed his face. What’s special? I’m tired. That’s why these crappy thoughts.

  “It isn’t special like being tricky,” said Sandy. “It’s nothing like that. Just it has to be done right away.”

  “I just got back.”

  “Yes, well, but this is about Kemp,” said Turner and when Jordan did not answer, Turner thought he should now explain as much as he could. “Kemp was—I mean, he is the Kemp who organized, when was it . . . I think it was twenty-five years ago, he’s the one . . . You know, he’s the only one left over from that time, before the new setup shaped up, and the decision I’m talking about was made on the Coast . . . You sure you don’t want a light?”

  “He means Kemp’s got to go,” said Sandy.

  “Well, yes,” said Turner.

  “I know you just got back,” said Sandy, “but the way he puts it, there’s no time.”

  “He hasn’t said anything yet,” said Jordan.

  Turner giggled again because he could not stand the remark from the back. It was barren and had to be filled with something, and there had been just enough impatience in it for Turner to build that into a terrible threat.

  He stopped giggling and would now tell the whole thing so he could not be interrupted.

  “This Kemp has been all right for a while, since retiring, living around here and there, not much money or anything, but enough to live around here and there, not too open, you understand, because of the type of background . . .”

  “I don’t need any of that.” said Jordan.

  On the train, coming back, Jordan had sat with his shock, but then it had gone away. A thing like the arm would not happen again. If something like that should happen again it would not be like the first time, it would be without the surprise, and then there was always the trick he knew, a flip-switch type of thing, where he split himself into something efficient. Put the head over here and the guts into a box and that’s how anything can be handled.

  He had settled this, and then he had sat for the rest of the time, almost into New York, but the train-ride dullness had not come. He had tried to unwind, until he had found out there was nothing to unwind.

  This too had happened without his having known it, like seeing his shadow which was no longer like his own shape.

  There was nothing to unwind. What had wormed at him had been something else. He was dreading the nothing, between trips. The job was now simpler than the time in between.

  Jordan dropped his cigarette to the floor of the car and said, “All right. I’ll do it, if it looks all right.”

  Sandy took a breath and kept driving. He nodded at Turner to go on.

  “Well, yes,” said Turner. “That’s the job. Watch the light, Sandy.”

  Sandy pulled the car over to the curb, stopped, looked at his hands. He kept them on the wheel and talked without looking at Turner. “Maybe if there’s no red, green and yellow lights, Turner, and happy motorists driving home from the movies and tired cops dreaming of a cool beer, you think maybe you might get to the cottonpicking point if I fixed all that for you?”

  He got out of the car and slammed the door before Turner could answer and walked to the corner into a telephone booth.

  Turner sat and said nothing. He was afraid Jordan might be as wild and nervous as the other one seemed to be.

  After the call, Sandy drove to an address which was not far away. It took only a few minutes, and the apartment was on the sixth floor. Far away from the traffic, thought Sandy, and close enough so there would be no more of this sweaty stuttering in the car.

  The man who opened the door looked young, well dressed, and a little worn out. A gold chain clinked on one wrist, a gold watch ticked on the other, and he knew Sandy and Jordan. He did not know Turner but smiled at him. He had a vague smile for almost everybody.

  Sandy said, “Thanks, Bob, much obliged,” and the young man said, “Nothing, Sandy, anytime,” and when Jordan walked by he grinned at him and said, “Sam boy, you’re looking good.”

  He closed the door after everybody and said they should go right ahead, straight ahead to the door at the end of the hall. Then he took Sandy’s arm and watched the others wal
k down the hall.

  “You going to be long?”

  “No. But listen, Bob, if it’s inconvenient . . .”

  “No, no, no.” He did not talk very loud. “I just meant, I got these people coming.”

  “We can be out . . .”

  “Just a party, Sandy. Just a party. Besides, you know everybody.”

  Turner opened the door at the end of the hall and said “This one?” and the young man said to go right ahead and then talked to Sandy again. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Business. He’s all right, just business.”

  “Jordan business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll have everybody out in ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s all right. That’s all right. Party’ll be over there, see? Three rooms away, so take all the time.”

  “Okay, Bob.”

  “When you’re done, if you want to join—”

  “Fine. Maybe.”

  “Bring your friend, you know?”

  “Fine.”

  Then Sandy went through the door and the young man closed it behind him.

  The room had a bed with bare mattress, a night table, dresser and chair. It all looked new but there was much dust. The air in the room smelled of dust.

  Turner sat down on the bed, Sandy took the chair, and Jordan stood with his back to the window. He did not look at Sandy and he talked to Turner, so they would get into the business.

  “Are you the spotter?”

  “Huh?”

  “He wants to know,” Sandy told him, “if you did the leg work on this thing. Where Kemp lives, where he goes, what time he gets up, that kind of thing.”

  “Oh! Oh no. I just run errands. I always just run the errands,” he said to Jordan. “Sandy knows that.”

  “All right,” said Jordan.

  “I always just . . .”

  “All right.”

  But then Jordan was sorry to have interrupted because Turner, he thought, might take a long time now. Why do they send a creep, he thought. Why does he sit there and think I’m a ghoul?

  “Tell me the next thing,” said Jordan. “What have you got from your spotter?”

  “Got?”

  “I don’t think there was time,” said Sandy. “Is that right, Turner?”