A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  She was smiling, but there was a hard light in her eyes. “Tell me, Moran,” she said, “how does it feel to kill a man?”

  Moran swallowed heavily. He couldn’t wrench his eyes from her long bare legs, or stop the sudden drumming in his temples.

  When he spoke, his voice was dry. “It’s like anything else you do, like smoking a cigarette or buying a paper, that’s all.”

  She sighed. “You’re such a clod, Moran. You’re like a big heap of dough that’s turning sour.”

  He came closer to her. “I could be different with you,” he said. “You drive me crazy, baby.”

  She laughed with real amusement. “In the Casanova role you’re a riot.”

  “Damn you,” he said hoarsely.

  She laughed again and sat up, putting her feet on the floor. “Let’s break this up,” she said. “You’re a jerk and always will be, Moran. I might have liked you a little if you were smart, or if you had a spare buck to spend on a girl, but as you stand you’re hopeless. So beat it, will you? And stop hanging around the club.”

  “Now wait,” Moran said. His anger broke, melted away. “You don’t mean that. I’ll go, but let me see you again.”

  Her voice was hard. “No. You’re all through. Beat it.”

  Moran stood beside her, reached for her hand. “What would you think if I was smart, if I did have a little dough?”

  “I don’t want to play twenty questions,” she said coldly.

  “This is no gag,” he said. When he saw interest in her face, he slid on the couch beside her and began speaking rapidly, the words spilling out in a rush. “I got a little dough,” he said. “I got it from Dinny Nelson last night. He was the guy I shot. I blew him out like a candle, then took his bundle. It’s all yours, baby, for anything you want. But we got to play it quiet until I get a clean bill from the commissioner’s office. You see that, don’t you?”

  “Are you on the stuff?” she said. “Is this story coming out of a pipe?”

  “No, no it’s on the level,” he said. “I did it for you, baby. I shot hell out of him and got the dough. And I’m in the clear.”

  “Let’s see the dough,” she said skeptically.

  He took the roll from his pocket. He had kept it on him because there was no safer place. Now he spread it in her lap and watched her face. She fingered the money gently and gradually a little smile pulled at her lips. “I might change my ideas about you,” she said at last.

  “Sure you will,” Moran said eagerly. “I’m okay, baby. You’ll see.”

  “I kind of want to find out,” she said, grinning at him. “Want to excuse baby a minute?”

  He watched her as she walked to the bedroom door. Something tightened in him as he saw the way her shoulders tapered gracefully to her slender waist, and the way her hips moved under the silken robe. She turned at the doorway and winked at him, and he saw the gleam of her long legs before she disappeared.

  It was worth it, Moran thought exultantly. He felt happy for the first time since the murder. This was going to make it all right, and the tight ache inside him melted away and he knew it was gone for good.

  He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the cushions, closing his eyes. Linton could go to hell, and so could Pickerton. They had nothing on him, now or ever.

  He opened his eyes when he heard the click of the doorknob. Straightening up, he crushed out a cigarette and got to his feet, a grin on his face.

  The bedroom swung open and Moran’s heart lurched sickeningly.

  Lieutenant Pickerton walked into the room, a gun in his hand. The gun was pointed at Moran’s stomach.

  “You’re all through,” he said.

  Moran stood still, the grin pasted on his face, his mind frozen in the paralysis of panic. He tried to speak but no words came out, and the noise he made was like the grunt of an animal.

  There was the sound of a key in the front door and then Linton came in, gun in hand.

  He glanced at Pickerton. “You get it all?”

  “The works,” Pickerton nodded.

  Linton came to Moran’s side, deftly slipped the gun from his shoulder holster. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Dinny Nelson,” he said formally. “Anything you say may be used against you. As you know,” he added dryly.

  “Yeah, I know,” Moran said numbly. Linton’s words, the old familiar words, released him from paralysis.

  Cherry appeared in the bedroom doorway, stepped around Pickerton and entered the room. She picked up a cigarette and smiled. Her fingers moved to the mark on her cheek where he had struck her.

  Then she looked at Moran. “They wanted me to get you to talk,” she said. “I wasn’t going to, because I’m no informer. I might have warned you that Pickerton was hiding in the bedroom, but after you hit me, I had to pay you back.”

  “That was just one of the stupid things you did,” Pickerton said. He shook his head disgustedly. “What made you think you were smart enough to get away with murder? Your speed is the little stuff, Moran.”

  Moran wet his lips. “What did I do wrong?” he asked. He didn’t know what was happening to him but he felt weak and drained.

  Pickerton glanced at Linton. “You tell him,” he said.

  “We had nothing on you,” Linton said, “except your bad record, and the fact that Dinny’s money had been taken. But you acted from the start in a suspicious manner. During our first talk you were nervous, sweating. Later you came to the Diamond Club, but when you saw me with Cherry, you turned and got out. We saw you, of course.

  “Pickerton came here to Cherry’s apartment because we knew you’d come here. A smart man wouldn’t have. I took Cherry home, drove off. You immediately barged into the building and I came back and followed you up here.”

  He glanced at Cherry, then back at Moran. “You were too nervous to be subtle with her, or to go easy. You pushed her around and that did what we hadn’t been able to do, convinced her to help us. She played you like a sucker. You spilled everything to her, which is the thing only a fool would have done. Fortunately for us, Moran, you’re a fool.” His face became curious. “A cop should have known better. Didn’t you stop to think at all?”

  “I was thinking about the murder,” Moran said slowly. “It was on my mind. That left no room for any thinking about the smart thing to do.”

  Pickerton took his arm and started him toward the door.

  Linton walked over and shook hands with Cherry. “Thanks for the help,” he said. He hesitated, then smiled. “I’d like to see you some time when I’m off duty.”

  Cherry pulled the robe tight around her slim waist. “Any old time—just any old time.”

  Linton grinned. “I’ll call you.”

  He took Moran’s other arm and the three men went out the door.

  Moran walked like a dead man.

  JOHN D. MACDONALD

  John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) was one of the most successful writers ever to come out of the pulp magazines. He took what he learned there, combined it with the interest he had in the literary novels of his time, and created a form of crime fiction that owed as much to John O’Hara and Irwin Shaw as to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

  As good as his peer group of pulpsters was, you find, even in MacDonald’s earliest work, a desire to work outside the confines of formula. He did this largely through backstory. He told you in some depth about his people, good people and bad people alike, how they’d grown up, what they liked and disliked, and what they wanted out of life at this particular point in their lives. This is why he found such a wide audience for his books. Because men and women alike could relate to them, find commonalities lacking in too much crime fiction of the day.

  Travis McGee made him famous and rich, yes. But there are a lot of MacDonald readers who prefer his other, earlier work. His was one of the largest talents in the crime genre. And nobody seems likely to fill his particular shoes for some time to come.

  Murder for Money

  Long ago he ha
d given up trying to estimate what he would find in any house merely by looking at the outside of it. The interior of each house had a special flavor. It was not so much the result of the degree of tidiness, or lack of it, but rather the result of the emotional climate that had permeated the house. Anger, bitterness, despair—all left their subtle stains on even the most immaculate fabrics.

  Darrigan parked the rented car by the curb and, for a long moment, looked at the house, at the iron fence, at the cypress shade. He sensed dignity, restraint, quietness. Yet he knew that the interior could destroy these impressions. He was in the habit of telling himself that his record of successful investigations was the result of the application of unemotional logic—yet his logic was often the result of sensing, somehow, the final answer and then retracing the careful steps to arrive once more at that same answer.

  After a time, as the September sun of west-coast Florida began to turn the rented sedan into an oven, Darrigan pushed open the door, patted his pocket to be sure his notebook was in place, and walked toward the front door of the white house. There were two cars in the driveway, both of them with local licenses, both of them Cadillacs. It was perceptibly cooler under the trees that lined the walk.

  Beyond the screen door the hallway was dim. A heavy woman came in answer to his second ring, staring at him with frank curiosity.

  “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Davisson, please. Here’s my card.”

  The woman opened the screen just enough for the card to be passed through, saying, with Midwest nasality, “Well, she’s resting right now. . . . Oh, you’re from the insurance?”

  “Yes, I flew down from Hartford.”

  “Please come in and wait and I’ll see if she’s awake, Mr. Darrigan. I’m just a neighbor. I’m Mrs. Hoke. The poor dear has been so terribly upset.”

  “Yes, of course,” Darrigan murmured, stepping into the hall. Mrs. Hoke walked heavily away. Darrigan could hear the mumble of other voices, a faint, slightly incongruous laugh. From the hall he could see into a living room, two steps lower than the hall itself. It was furnished in cool colors, with Florida furniture of cane and pale fabrics.

  Mrs. Hoke came back and said reassuringly, “She was awake, Mr. Darrigan. She said you should wait in the study and she’ll be out in a few minutes. The door is right back here. This is such a dreadful thing, not knowing what has happened to him. It’s hard on her, the poor dear thing.”

  The study was not done in Florida fashion. Darrigan guessed that the furniture had been shipped down from the North. A walnut desk, a bit ornate, leather couch and chairs, two walls of books.

  Mrs. Hoke stood in the doorway. “Now don’t you upset her, you hear?” she said with elephantine coyness.

  “I’ll try not to.”

  Mrs. Hoke went away. This was Davisson’s room, obviously. His books. A great number of technical works on the textile industry. Popularized texts for the layman in other fields. Astronomy, philosophy, physics. Quite a few biographies. Very little fiction. A man, then, with a serious turn of mind, dedicated to self-improvement, perhaps a bit humorless. And certainly very tidy.

  Darrigan turned quickly as he heard the step in the hallway. She was a tall young woman, light on her feet. Her sunback dress was emerald green. Late twenties, he judged, or possibly very early thirties. Brown hair, sun-bleached on top. Quite a bit of tan. A fresh face, wide across the cheekbones, heavy-lipped, slightly Bergman in impact. The mouth faintly touched with strain.

  “Mr. Darrigan?” He liked the voice. Low, controlled, poised.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Davisson. Sorry to bother you like this.”

  “That’s all right. I wasn’t able to sleep. Won’t you sit down, please?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll sit at the desk, Mrs. Davisson. I’ll have to make some notes.”

  She sat on the leather couch. He offered her a cigarette. “No, thank you, I’ve been smoking so much I have a sore throat. Mr. Darrigan, isn’t this a bit . . . previous for the insurance company to send someone down here? I mean, as far as we know, he isn’t—”

  “We wouldn’t do this in the case of a normal policyholder, Mrs. Davisson, but your husband carries policies with us totaling over nine hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Really! I knew Temple had quite a bit, but I didn’t know it was that much!”

  He showed her his best smile and said, “It makes it awkward for me, Mrs. Davisson, for them to send me out like some sort of bird of prey. You have presented no claim to the company, and you are perfectly within your rights to tell me to be on my merry way.”

  She answered his smile. “I wouldn’t want to do that, Mr. Darrigan. But I don’t quite understand why you’re here.”

  “You could call me a sort of investigator. My actual title is Chief Adjuster for Guardsman Life and Casualty. I sincerely hope that we’ll find a reasonable explanation for your husband’s disappearance. He disappeared Thursday, didn’t he?”

  “He didn’t come home Thursday night. I reported it to the police early Friday morning. And this is—”

  “Tuesday.”

  He opened his notebook, took his time looking over the pages. It was a device, to give him a chance to gauge the degree of tension. She sat quite still, her hands resting in her lap, unmoving.

  He leaned back. “It may sound presumptuous, Mrs. Davisson, but I intend to see if I can find out what happened to your husband. I’ve had reasonable success in such cases in the past. I’ll cooperate with the local police officials, of course. I hope you won’t mind answering questions that may duplicate what the police have already asked you.”

  “I won’t mind. The important thing is . . . to find out. This not knowing is. . . .” Her voice caught a bit. She looked down at her hands.

  “According to our records, Mrs. Davisson, his first wife, Anna Thorn Davisson, was principal beneficiary under his policies until her death in 1978. The death of the beneficiary was reported, but it was not necessary to change the policies at that time as the two children of his first marriage were secondary beneficiaries, sharing equally in the proceeds in case of death. In 1979, probably at the time of his marriage to you, we received instructions to make you the primary beneficiary under all policies, with the secondary beneficiaries, Temple C. Davisson, Junior, and Alicia Jean Davisson, unchanged. I have your name here as Dinah Pell Davisson. That is correct?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Could you tell me about your husband? What sort of man is he?”

  She gave him a small smile. “What should I say? He is a very kind man. Perhaps slightly autocratic, but kind. He owned a small knitting mill in Utica, New York. He sold it, I believe, in 1972. It was incorporated and he owned the controlling stock interest, and there was some sort of merger with a larger firm, where he received payment in the stock in the larger firm in return for his interest. He sold out because his wife had to live in a warmer climate. She had a serious kidney condition. They came down here to Clearwater and bought this house. Temple was too active to retire. He studied real estate conditions here for a full year and then began to invest money in all sorts of property. He has done very well.”

  “How did you meet him, Mrs. Davisson?”

  “My husband was a sergeant in the Air Force. He was stationed at Drew Field. I followed him here. When he was sent overseas I had no special place to go, and we agreed I should wait for him here. The Davissons advertised for a companion for Mrs. Davisson. I applied and held the job from early 1974 until she died in 1978.”

  “And your husband?”

  “He was killed in a crash landing. When I received the wire, the Davissons were very kind and understanding. At that time my position in the household was more like a daughter receiving an allowance. My own parents died long ago. I have a married sister in Melbourne, Australia. We’ve never been close.”

  “What did you do between the time Mrs. Davisson died and you married Temple Davisson?”

  “I left here, of course. Mrs. Davisson had money of her
own. She left me five thousand dollars and left the rest to Temple, Junior, and Alicia. Mr. Davisson found me a job in a real estate office in Clearwater. I rented a small apartment. One night Mr. Davisson came to see me at the apartment. He was quite shy. It took him a long time to get to the reason he had come. He told me that he tried to keep the house going, but the people he had hired were undependable. He also said that he was lonely. He asked me to marry him. I told him that I had affection for him, as for a father. He told me that he did not love me that way either, that Anna had been the only woman in his life. Well, Jack had been the only man in my life, and life was pretty empty. The Davissons had filled a place in my life. I missed this house. But he is sixty-one, and that makes almost exactly thirty years’ difference in ages. It seemed a bit grotesque. He told me to think it over and give him my answer when I was ready. It occurred to me that his children would resent me, and it also occurred to me that I cared very little what people thought. Four days later I told him I would marry him.”

  Darrigan realized that he was treading on most dangerous ground. “Has it been a good marriage?”

  “Is that a question you’re supposed to ask?”

  “It sounds impertinent. I know that. But in a disappearance of this sort I must consider suicide. Unhappiness can come from ill health, money difficulties, or emotional difficulties. I should try to rule them out.”

  “I’ll take one of those cigarettes now, Mr. Darrigan,” she said. “I can use it.”

  He lit it for her, went back to the desk chair. She frowned, exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  “It has not been a completely happy marriage, Mr. Darrigan.”

  “Can you explain that?”

  “I’d rather not.” He pursed his lips, let the silence grow. At last she said, “I suppose I can consider an insurance man to be as ethical as a doctor or a lawyer?”

  “Of course.”