David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America)

by David Goodis

  He went into the living room and put another cigarette in the holder. He put himself on the sofa and rested there, sucking at the holder. He tried to build a mental microscope to deal with these tiny things he had on the table of his mind. He came to a point that became a wall and he couldn’t slide under or climb over. He had to stay there. Now he was getting tired again. He took the stub out of the holder, crushed it in a tray. He let his head go back against the softness of the sofa. His eyes closed and the thoughts circled his brain, circled more slowly, and slowly, and then he was asleep.

  The door opening pulled him away from sleep. He sat up and looked at her. She was closing the door. Her arms were heaped with packages. Now she came toward him. She said, “How do you feel?”

  He nodded.

  “Everything all right?”

  He nodded.

  She said, “Punctual, am I not? It’s exactly six. And now we’ll have some dinner. Feel hungry?”

  He nodded.

  She went into the kitchen. He could hear her moving around in there. He waited on the sofa, waited for dinner, waited for the buzzer to sound again, waited for Studebaker to come up with the police.

  The dinner tasted fine, even though it went in through the glass straw. There was beef broth, there was the tan cream of a vegetable-beef stew, there was a butterscotch pudding thinned down to liquid. He gestured his willingness to help her with the dishes. She told him to go into the other room and play some records. He went in and got a Basie going under the needle. It was Sent For You Yesterday And Here You Come Today. And Rushing was beginning to yell his heart out when the telephone rang.

  Parry stood up. He looked at the telephone. It rang again just as Rushing repeated his cry that the moon looked lonely. She came out of the kitchen, looked at the phone, looked at Parry. She took a step toward the phone. It rang again. Parry lifted the needle from the record.

  She looked at Parry as the phone rang again. She said, “There’s nothing to worry about. I know who it is.”

  She picked up the phone.

  “Hello? Oh, yes, hello, yes—yes?—oh, I’ve just had dinner—no, thanks anyway—well—well—all right, when can I expect you?—all right—right.”

  She put down the phone and looked at Parry. She said, “That was Bob Rapf. He’ll be here in an hour.”

  13

  PARRY RAISED his arms to indicate that he did not understand.

  She said, “It’ll be all right. You stay in the bedroom. He won’t know you’re here.”

  Parry gestured toward the bedroom, then raised his arms again.

  She said, “He won’t look in the bedroom.”

  Parry lowered his head and shook it slowly.

  “Please don’t worry about it,” she said. He looked up. She was smiling at him.

  He shrugged.

  She went back in the kitchen. When she was finished with the dishes she came in and straightened the living room. As she emptied an ash tray she said, “I know you think it’s a mistake, letting him come here. But it can’t be any other way. I’ve known him for so long, I’ve been seeing so much of him lately, it’s got to a point where I have a definite hold on him. I wish it wasn’t that way. But as long as it is that way, I’ve got to go along with it. I know what happens to him when I refuse to see him. I wish I knew some way to break it without ripping him apart. But there doesn’t seem to be any way to break it. All I can do is wait for it to die out.”

  She emptied another ash tray. She looked at him and saw that he was looking at her.

  She said, “It’s not physical. It never was. It never will be. It can’t be. What he likes about me is the things I say, and the things he thinks I think about, the feelings he thinks I have. All he wants to do is be with me and talk to me and look at me and get a picture of the things I’m thinking. Even when I have nothing to say he just likes to be there with me. I don’t know why I started it. I guess perhaps I started it because I felt sorry for him. He had no one to really be with.”

  All the ash trays were now emptied into one big tray. She took the tray into the kitchen. Then she came out, she said, “I guess that’s what it was. I was sorry for him. I still feel sorry for him. But I can’t let it go on much further. Have you ever seen him?”

  Parry shook his head.

  “He’s a good-looking man,” she said. “He’s thirty-nine now, but he looks older. You can’t see the grey in his hair because he’s blond, but you can see the lines in his face. He has mild blue eyes, and that’s the way all of him is, very mild, even though he’s built heavy. And he’s not very tall. He’s a draftsman and he works at a shipyard. He likes expensive clothes. He likes to spend money. He and Madge had a baby but it died when it was less than a year old. Did she ever tell you about that?”

  He nodded.

  “Did she ever tell you about him?”

  He nodded.

  “I imagine she must have painted him badly. She did that when she spoke to me about him. That was after she knew I was seeing him. She didn’t try to block it. She just struck up a close friendship with me, much closer than I liked, and she began to tell me things about him. She wasn’t very clever about it, for instance she said he was cheap and of course she should have known that I knew differently. She said he was selfish and he isn’t that way at all. What she wanted me to do was give him walking papers, not because she wanted him back, but because she wanted him to lose me. She still wants that. She wants him to lose everything. She keeps telling me I’d be doing myself a big favor if I closed the door on him.”

  Parry nodded.

  “You mean you agree with her?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, you mean she told you the same thing. I suppose she tells everyone that. I can’t understand her. She ought to realize she’ll never be happy as long as she keeps interfering with him. Or maybe that’s the only thing that gives her happiness. Interfering.”

  The buzzer sounded.

  She frowned. “That can’t be Bob. Much too early.”

  Parry stood up. It had to be Studebaker. And the police.

  She said, “Go in the bedroom. I’ll find out who it is.”

  Parry went into the bedroom and closed the door. He sat on the edge of the bed and he was hitting the joints of his fingers together. The itching under the bandage was beginning to grow, to spread, and he wanted to get at it. He sat there, hitting the joints of his fingers together. He heard a door opening. He heard voices and they were both feminine, and one of them belonged to Madge Rapf.

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Irene was saying.

  “Honey, honey, you’ve got to help me. I’m scared out of my wits,” Madge said.

  “Ridiculous.”

  “Why is it ridiculous?” Madge said. “Look what he did to George Fellsinger. You surely read about it. Why, he went up there and—it gives me the shakes just to think of it. And if he did that to George he’ll do it to me. He’s got it in for me, you know that. You’ve got to let me stay here, honey. Let me hide here. Oh, let, let me——”

  “Want a drink?”

  “Yes, please honey, let me have a drink. Oh, my God, I’m in terrible shape. I haven’t been able to eat a thing all day.”

  “Can I fix you something?” Irene said.

  “No, I’m not hungry. How can I be hungry? He’s going to kill me. He’s going to look me up and when he finds me he’ll—oh, God Almighty, what am I going to do?”

  “Pull yourself together,” Irene said. “They’ll catch him.”

  “They haven’t caught him yet. Listen, honey, as long as they haven’t caught him I’ve got to hide. It was my testimony that sent him up. I tell you I’m so scared I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

  “Sit down, Madge. Sit down and relax. You can’t let yourself go to pieces like this.”

  Parry heard a series of dragging, grinding sobs.

  Between the sobs, Madge was saying, “Let me stay here.”

  “I can’t.”

  “W
hy not?”

  “Well, I—I fail to see the necessity of it.”

  “Oh, I see. You don’t want to be put out.”

  “It isn’t that, Madge. Really, it isn’t.”

  “Well, what is it, then? This place is big enough to hold two. It’s——”

  “It’s this—I’m expecting Bob here any minute.”

  “All right, I’ll hide. I’ll go in the bedroom.”

  “No,” Irene said. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s—it’s sort of cheap. You have nothing to hide. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” Madge said. “And then of course there’s another way.” Now she sounded as if she was talking between puffs at a cigarette. “Of course, there’s a chance he’d walk into the bedroom.”

  “Do you think he does that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t know, why do you insinuate? I think we ought to understand each other, Madge. You can’t make statements like that and expect me to take it without a whimper. You’ve said things on that order before, little needles here and there and every now and then, and I tried to think you didn’t mean anything by it. But this time the needle’s gone in just a bit deeper. And I don’t like it. I want you to know I don’t like it.”

  “Honey, you needn’t get all excited. It wouldn’t make any difference to me even if——”

  “Please, Madge.”

  “Let me stay here, honey. I tell you I’m afraid to go out of here alone.”

  “This is silly.”

  “All right, it’s silly, but that’s the way it is with me and what can I do about it? For God’s sake, honey, try to understand what a fix I’m in. You’ve got to let me stay here or else you’ve got to stay with me wherever I go. Oh, come on, honey, let’s pack up——”

  The buzzer sounded.

  “You better go now, Madge.”

  “For God’s sake——”

  “Look, Madge. You go down the hall. Wait there until you hear the door closing. Then leave.”

  The buzzer sounded.

  “But I’m afraid——”

  “Madge, I don’t want you to be here when he comes in.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s not start that again.”

  The buzzer sounded.

  Parry stood up and looked at the window. He wondered if the window offered a way of reaching the fire escape. He knew it was Studebaker down there. It wasn’t Bob Rapf. It was Studebaker. And the police.

  “Go on, Madge. Go now.”

  “Oh, I’m so afraid.”

  “Go now, Madge.”

  The buzzer sounded.

  “I won’t go. I won’t go out alone. I can’t. Parry will find me. I know he’ll find me. Oh, God, I’m so terribly afraid. Please, Irene—oh, honey, why won’t you help me?”

  The buzzer sounded and kept sounding.

  “Look, Madge——”

  “No, I won’t go. No—I won’t leave here alone.” Madge was sobbing again, the grinding dragging sobs that dragged along with the buzzer as it kept sounding.

  “All right, Madge. I’m going to let him come up.”

  The buzzer stopped sounding.

  Parry walked toward the window, walked softly, slowly, came to the window and looked through the wet glass, wet on the other side where the rain was hitting. The rain was rapid and thick, racing down from the broken sky, dark grey now and mottled dark yellow and fading blue. Parry put his fingers on the window handles and started to bring pressure. The window wouldn’t give. He stepped away from the window and watched the rain running down, oblique toward him, coming against the glass and washing down.

  He heard the door opening.

  He heard a man saying, “For Christ’s sake——”

  He heard Madge saying, “Hello, Bob.”

  He heard the man saying, “What takes place here?”

  “Raining hard, Bob?” It was Irene.

  “Pouring,” Bob said. “But what I want to know is what takes place.”

  “Nothing very special,” Irene said.

  “I don’t go for these deals,” Bob said. “This looks as if it’s been arranged.”

  “Why should anything be arranged?” Irene said.

  “I don’t know,” Bob said. “For Christ’s sake, Madge, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m scared,” Madge said. “Honey, should I tell him?”

  “Tell me what?” Bob had a mild voice, trying to get away from mildness.

  “Sure,” Irene said. “Go on and tell him.”

  Madge said, “It’s Vincent Parry. I’m scared he’ll find me. He’ll kill me.”

  “If he does,” Bob said, “I’ll look him up and shake his hand.”

  Madge let out a howl.

  “Bob, that wasn’t necessary,” Irene said.

  “I can’t stand it,” Madge sobbed. “I can’t stand it any more.”

  “Neither can I,” Bob said. “Why don’t you leave people alone? Why do you go around finding excuses to come up here? Irene doesn’t want you here. Nobody wants you. Because you’re a pest. You’re not satisfied unless you’re bothering people. You got on your family’s nerves, you got on my nerves, you get on everybody’s nerves. Why don’t you wise up already?”

  “Do you know what you are?” Madge said. “You’re a hound. You have no feeling.”

  “No feeling for you,” Bob said. “No feeling at all, except I’m annoyed whenever I see you.”

  “You married me,” Madge said. “You’re still married to me. Don’t forget that.”

  “How can I forget it?” Bob said. “You see these lines on my face? They’re anniversary presents. Irene, will you do me a favor? Will you ask her to please leave?”

  “I won’t go out of here alone,” Madge said.

  “She thinks Parry’s looking for her. That’s all he’s got to do, look for her. Listen, Madge, if there’s anyone Parry wants to avoid more than the police, it’s you.” Bob’s voice was getting louder. “You’re the last person he wants to kill. You’re the last person he wants to see. And you know why. And you know I know why.”

  “What kind of a riddle is this?” Irene said.

  “She pestered him,” Bob said. “She kept pestering him until she had a hold on him. That’s why he killed Gert.”

  “You’re a liar,” Madge said. “He killed Gert because he hated her. And that’s why he’ll kill me. He hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you,” Bob said. “Nobody hates you. You’re not the type that makes people hate. You only make people annoyed. He didn’t know he was annoyed. He didn’t have the brains to see it. He was ignorant and he’s still ignorant. If he wasn’t ignorant he wouldn’t have killed Fellsinger. He wouldn’t have come to San Francisco in the first place. Now it’s a cinch they’ll give him the chair.”

  “That’s what makes me scared,” Madge said. “He knows he’s going to get the chair. He knows he has nothing to lose now. When it gets like this they go out of their mind. They don’t care what they do. That’s why I’m afraid to be alone. He’ll find me. He’ll look for me until he finds me.”

  “He won’t look for you,” Bob said. “I know how it is with him.”

  “How is it with him?” Irene said.

  “It’s a matter of psychoanalysis,” Bob said. “The power of suggestion, and a bit of the identification process. Like this—she managed to get a hold on him, and she increased that hold to the point where he thought he wanted her more than anything else. Because he was weak and ignorant, he looked for the easiest way to get rid of Gert. He thought the easiest way was murder. Now he identifies her with trouble. He’ll stay away from her.”