The Best American Noir of the Century

by Otto Penzler (ed)

When he’d ring the doorbell they’d sort of jump apart, she and Jim, wondering who it was. Wondering if her folks had left the club early, before the spread. Wondering who it could be. She’d say, “I wonder who it could possibly be this time of night.” The way she’d said it the night the wire came that her brother was married in San Diego. Jim would say, “Probably your folks,” just the way Benny had said it the night of the telegram. And she’d say, wrinkling her forehead the way she did when she was disturbed by something, “It couldn’t be. Pop would never leave before the cheese. Unless someone’s sick—”

  Then Jim would go to the door. She wouldn’t come because she’d be wondering who it was. Besides she was nervous at night, even walking down the street with a man she was nervous, looking over her shoulder, skipping along faster. As if she felt something was after her, something that someday would catch up to her. It might have been from her that he got the nervousness of walking down this street at night. No reason why he should be nervous. It wasn’t late, hardly eleven yet. He’d only sat through half the show. He’d seen it before.

  Jim would come to the door. He ought to let Jim have it right then and there. The dirty, cheating, lying —. Sitting around saying. “I don’t want to talk about it, Nan.” Waiting to be coaxed. And she’d coaxed him, turning the sweet smell of her body to big Jim, handsome Jim, the hero of Korea. She got him started, bringing up things about the raid that had been printed in the newspapers along with the picture of Jim. He didn’t want to talk about it but once she got him started, you couldn’t turn him off. He went on and on, not even seeming to see her big blue smoky eyes, not even seeming to hear her little soft furry hurt cries. On and on, practically crawling around the floor, and then he’d stopped and the sweat had broken out all over his red face. “I’m sorry, Nan,” he’d said so quietly you could hardly hear him.

  She didn’t say anything. She just was looking at Jim. He, Benny, had put a hot number on the phonograph, a new Les Brown, and he’d said, “Come on, Nan. Let’s start the joint jumping.” He’d had enough of Jim’s showing off. He’d said it again louder but she didn’t answer him. She sat there looking at Jim, and Jim looking at the floor. Les Brown played on and on not knowing nobody was listening to him. Benny knew that night what was going to happen. Her and Jim. And him out of it.

  It had always been like that for Jim. He got everything. In High he was the one elected captain of the basketball team. He was the junior class president. He was the one the girls were always looking their eyes out at in the halls. He was the one the fellows wanted to double-date with. He’d always got everything. Nan and him sitting together in assembly. Everything. When other guys had pimples, Jim didn’t. When other guys had to sleep in stocking tops and grease their hair to keep it out of their eyes, Jim’s yellow hair was crisp enough to stay where it belonged. When other guys’ pants needed pressing and they forgot their dirty fingernails, Jim didn’t. Korea Jim. The hero. Even in the war he’d come out the big stuff.

  War was supposed to make all men the same. Not one guy with more stripes a hero and another guy already back in civvies. It wasn’t Benny’s fault he hadn’t been sent over. The Army didn’t say, “Would you like to go to Korea and be a hero?” They said you were doing your part just as much being a soldier in your own hometown in the recruiting office. Benny had been pretty lucky being in his own hometown for the war, being in clean work, in safe work. He’d thought he’d been lucky until Jim came back with all those pretty ribbons and his picture in the paper. It wasn’t Benny’s fault. He didn’t ask the Army not to send him over; if he’d been sent he could have been a hero too. He could have led the raiders through frontline fire and liberated those poor starved guys. High school kids like yourself only they were men now, old men. It made Benny shiver to see them in the newsreels. It made him know he was lucky to have been in the recruiting office, addressing envelopes and filing papers.

  Even if Jim had come back a big-shot hero. Jim who’d always had everything and now had this. And Nan, too. He wasn’t going to get away with it this time. He wasn’t going to have Nan. Nan was Benny’s girl. She’d been his girl for almost two years. Jim hadn’t meant anything to her those years. Just one of the gang in Korea. She didn’t talk about him any more than she did about any of the other kids, wondering what they were doing on certain nights while she and Benny were out jumping and jiving at the USO.

  Jim wasn’t going to come back and bust up Benny and Nan. He wasn’t going to be let do it. He could get him plenty of other girls; there were always plenty of girls for a good-looking guy like Jim. All he had to do was whistle. Just because he’d been Nan’s fellow in high school before the war started didn’t mean he could walk back in and take over. Not after leaving her for four years. Jim had left her. He hadn’t even waited for the draft. He’d quit high school and signed up right away.

  It wasn’t Benny’s fault he’d had to wait to be drafted. Jim’s folks had given him permission to sign up. Benny’s mom had just cried and cried and wouldn’t talk about it. So he’d had to wait for the draft. Besides he wasn’t as strong as Jim. He always had colds in the winter just like Mom said. Besides none of that made any difference. He’d been a soldier just like Jim. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t got to be a hero. None of that mattered at all. There was only one thing counting. Nan. His girl. Benny’s girl. Jim was going to find that out. Tonight.

  He was there at the white cement steps, the familiar steps, gray in the night. He didn’t walk on by like he had the night he walked in the soggy rain, his stomach curdled and his thoughts tied in wet red knots. Tonight he climbed the steps without breaking the firmness of his stride. Without trying to be quiet. He wasn’t afraid of Jim. He had as much right here as Jim had. He continued up the short cement walk to the gray stoop, climbed the gray steps and was on the porch.

  The drapes were drawn across the front parlor windows. Only the little light was on inside. He knew from the dim red glow against the drapes, almost purple-red. He pushed the bell once, hard and firm and not afraid. Like he had a right. Like he’d been pushing it for the two years since he ran into Nan at a USO party.

  It happened the way he knew it was going to happen. A wait. Waiting while she and Jim jumped apart and she smoothed her hair while she was wondering who it could possibly be. The wait and then the footsteps of a man coming to the door. Of Jim. Benny’s hand gripped tight on the gun in his pocket. Holding tight that way kept his stomach from jumping around. He had to keep tight so he wouldn’t let Jim have it the way he ought to when Jim opened the door. The dirty, double-crossing, lying...

  The door opened sudden. Before he was quite ready for it to open. Jim was standing there, tall and lanky in the dim hallway, peering out to see who was standing outside. Not expecting Benny. Not expecting him at all. Because his face came over with a real surprised look when he figured out who it was. Jim said, “For gos’ sake! It’s Benny.” He said it more to her, back there in the parlor, than to himself.

  Benny didn’t say anything. He stepped in and Jim had to stand aside and let him pass. She was just starting over to the archway from the couch when Benny walked into the parlor. He didn’t say anything to her either; he simply stood with his hands in his overcoat pockets looking at her. He didn’t even take off his hat. He couldn’t, not without letting her see how his hands were shaking. Keeping his hand gripped on the gun kept it steady, and the other hand a tight fist in his pocket. There wasn’t any reason for them to be shaking; he wasn’t afraid of anything. It wasn’t because he was afraid his voice would shake that he didn’t speak; it wasn’t that at all. It was that he didn’t have anything to say to them. Keeping his mouth shut was easy. Nan started talking the minute he came in.

  She was mad. Her eyes were like sparklers and her words came out of her mouth like little spits of lead. He’d seen her mad before but just a little bit, kind of cute. This was different. If he hadn’t been bigger than she, she’d have used her fists on him. If he hadn’t had a gun ... She didn�
��t know about the gun. But he could hardly hear what she was saying from looking at her. Because she was so pretty she was like a lump in his heart, so little and soft and her cheeks bright and her mouth ... His hand was so tight on the gun that his fingers ached like his heart. He set his teeth together tight as his knuckles so that his head hurt too, so that all the hurts could fuse and he could keep from thinking about the bad one, the inside one. So he wouldn’t cry. He wanted to cry, to bawl like a kid. But he wouldn’t, not with Jim standing there like he owned the parlor, like he was the head of the house waiting to see what this peddler wanted.

  She was saying, “What are you doing here, Benny? You knew very well I was busy tonight. I told you that. What’s the idea of coming here when I told you I was busy? And at this time of night?” He had a feeling she’d been saying it over and over again.

  She was funny sputtering out words that way and not having any idea why he was here or what he was going to do. He wanted to laugh at her, to laugh and laugh until he doubled up from laughing. As if he’d eaten green apples. But he didn’t. He just stood there listening to her until Jim said, “Shush, Nan.” Said it sharp, like he was giving orders to a soldier.

  Benny turned his eyes over to Jim then. The way Jim had said it you’d have thought he was nervous. You’d have thought he knew why Benny had come and that he didn’t want to have it happen, to be shown up in front of Nan.

  Jim said, “Why don’t you take off your things and join us, Benny? We’re just sitting around waiting for Nan’s folks to get home from the club.”

  As if he didn’t know what they were doing. As if he hadn’t known all evening every minute what they were doing. From when Jim got there at seven and she tied an apron around his waist and let him help drip the batter on the griddle. Right through every minute of it. Sitting down together in the breakfast nook and her saying, “Isn’t this fun? Like —” and breaking off and looking embarrassed. That’s the way she was, nice, sort of shy, not like most girls who’d say anything and never be embarrassed.

  Jim said, “Come on, Benny, take off your hat and coat. We’ll have some jive. I brought Nan some new records tonight. There’s a swell new Tatum — have you heard it?”

  Shaming him because he never brought any records to Nan. He’d have brought them if he’d thought of it. He’d just never thought of it. Nan always had the new records.

  Jim didn’t stop talking. He kept on like Benny was a little kid, coaxing him. “— let me have your coat. How about having a Coke with us?”

  Hero Jim. Asking Benny to have a Coke like he was still a high school kid instead of a man. Hero Jim, the plaster saint, acting like he’d never had a slug of gin. Trying to make her think he was a Galahad and Benny a no-good bum.

  “—I was just telling Nan we hadn’t seen you for a long time. Wondered what happened to you. Why you didn’t come around.”

  Yeah. Sure. Rubbing salt in the wounds. That’s what he learned in Korea. Scrub salt in the bleeding. Acting like it was his house. Acting like he and Nan were married. Trying to show Benny up for the outsider. Talking and talking, so sure of himself, so big and brave and handsome and sure of himself.

  Nan stopped Jim. Stopped him by breaking in with a hard icy crust of anger around her soft red mouth.

  “What do you want, Benny?” she asked. Hard and cold and cruel. “If you have anything to say, say it and get out. If you haven’t, get out!” Her voice was like a whip.

  Jim cried, “Nan!” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have said that, Nan.” He was talking to her soft now, like she was the child. “It wasn’t right to say that. Benny’s come to see you —”

  “I told him I wouldn’t see him tonight.” She didn’t bend to Jim. She was too mad. “He knew I was busy tonight.” She turned her eyes again on Benny. They weren’t like Nan’s eyes, they were black like hate. “I’ll tell him now to his face what I told you.” The words came from her frozen mouth, each one like a whip. “I don’t ever want to see you again. Now get out.”

  “Nan,” Jim cried again. His voice wasn’t steady. It was shaky. “Oh, Nan!” He twisted some kind of a smile at Benny. “Come on, Benny, sit down and let’s talk everything over. Nan didn’t mean it. We’re all friends. We’ve been friends for years. Sit down and have a Coke —”

  Benny brought his hand out of his pocket then. He had a smile on his face too, he could feel it there. It hurt his mouth. He had a little trouble getting his hand out of his pocket. Getting it out and holding on to that thing at the same time. But it came out and the gun was still in his hand.

  Jim saw it. Jim saw it and he had sweat on his upper lip and above his eyebrows. He was yellow. Just like Benny had known he’d be. Yellow. Korea Jim, Hero Jim, was scared to death.

  Jim’s voice didn’t sound scared. It was quiet and calm and easy. “Where did you get that, Benny? Let me see it, will you?”

  Benny didn’t say anything. He just held the gun and Jim put his hand down to his side again, slowly, creakingly.

  The sweat was trickling down Jim’s nose. He laughed but it wasn’t a good laugh. “What do you want with a gun, Benny? You might hurt somebody if you aren’t careful with it. Let me see it, will you? Come on, let me have it.”

  He’d had enough. Hero Jim, standing there like a gook, like he’d never seen a gun before and didn’t know what to do about it. Now was Benny’s time to laugh, but the gun made too much noise. Nobody could have heard him laughing with all that noise. Even if Nan hadn’t started screaming. Standing there, her eyes crazy and her face like an old woman’s, just screaming and screaming and screaming. He only turned the gun on her to make her keep quiet. He didn’t mean that she should fall down and spread on the floor like Jim. She shouldn’t have dropped like Jim. She had on her good blue dress. They looked silly, the two of them, like big sawdust dolls, crumpled there on the rug. Scared to death. Scared to get up. Scared even to look at him. That’s the way a hero acted when a real guy came around. Like a girl. Like a soft, silly girl. Lying down on his face, not moving a muscle, lying on his face like a dog.

  They looked like shadows, the two of them, big shadows on the rug. When the gun clicked instead of blasting, Benny stopped laughing. The room was so quiet he could hear the beat of his heart. He didn’t like it so quiet. Not at all.

  He said, “Get up.” He’d had enough of their wallowing, of their being scared.

  “Get up.”

  He said, “You look crazy lying there. Get up.” Suddenly he shrilled it.

  “Get up.”

  Louder. “Get up! Get up! Get up!”

  Scared to death ... scared to death ...

  The gun made such a little noise dropping to the rug. Because his fingers couldn’t hold it. Because his fingers were soft as her hair. They couldn’t get up. They couldn’t ever get up.

  Not ever.

  He hadn’t meant to do it. He didn’t do it on purpose. He wouldn’t hurt Nan. He wouldn’t hurt Nan for anything in the world, he loved her.

  She was his girl.

  He wouldn’t hurt Nan. He wouldn’t kill — he wouldn’t kill anyone.

  He hadn’t! They were doing this to get even with him. He began shouting again, “Get up! Get up!”

  But his voice didn’t sound like his own voice. It was shaky like his mouth and his hands and the wet back of his neck.

  “Get up!”

  He heard his mouth say it and he started over to take hold of Jim and make him stop acting like he was dead.

  He started.

  He took one step and that was all. Because he knew. He knew whatever he said or did couldn’t make them move. They were dead, really dead.

  When his mind actually spoke the word, he ran. Bolting out of the house, stumbling off the stoop down the steps to the curb. He didn’t get there too soon.

  He retched.

  When he was through being sick, he sat down on the curb. He was too weak to stand. He was like the leaves blowing down the street in the little moans of wind.
r />   He was like the shadows wavering against the houses across the street.

  There were lights in most of the houses. You’d think the neighbors would have heard all the noise. Would have come running out to see what was going on. They probably thought it was the radio.

  They should have come. If they had come, they’d have stopped him. He didn’t want to kill anyone. He didn’t want even to kill Jim. Just to scare him off. Just give him a scare.

  She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be, she couldn’t be, she couldn’t be. He sobbed the words into the wind and the dark and the dead brown leaves.

  He sat there a long, long time. When he stood up his face was wet. He rubbed his eyes, trying to dry them so he could see where he was going.

  But the rain came into them again, spilling down his cheeks, filling up, overflowing, refilling, over and over again.

  He ought to go back and close the blurred door. The house would get cold with it standing wide open, letting the cold dark wind sweep through.

  He couldn’t go back there. Not even for his gun.