by David Goodis
“Would there be a chapter on me?”
“Not more than a paragraph, if Madge had her way. She painted you as a liar and a rat and a murderer. She said you made a tremendous play for her and not only her but anything you came across in a cocktail bar.”
“Well?”
“It’s all right, Vincent. I’m pretty sure I know the way it was. She pestered you and you didn’t want any part of her so she finally gave it up. That’s what I got from Madge, even though she put it the other way around. I guess we really shouldn’t blame her too much. The old pride angle. When a woman loses everything else she can keep on going as long as she holds onto her pride. Or spirit. Or whatever you want to call it.”
“Okay,” Parry said. “Let’s sit here and feel sorry for Madge.”
Irene smiled. “You know, it’s odd. I ought to get irritated. I ought to get irritated at a lot of things you say. Or maybe it’s because I know what you really mean to say. You say we should sit here and feel sorry for Madge and what you really mean is we should sit here and check Madge off the list and get onto Bob.”
Parry started toward the window, changed his mind, went over to the radio-phonograph and ran fingers along the glazed yellow surface. He said, “When does Bob come into it?”
“About a month or so after I became friendly with Madge. Of course she told me all about him, what a cad he was, what a beast, what a skunk, and I think she went at least halfway through the zoo. I saw a way of maneuvering the situation and when I saw his name in the telephone book I did a very rotten thing. I called him up and told him I was a friend of Madge’s and I was curious to see what he looked like and what he amounted to. He was peeved at first but I put some comedy into it and after some twenty minutes of fencing he agreed to give me a dinner date. I told Madge about it and she got a kick out of it and later I told her about the dinner date and she got a kick out of that, too. But then when there were more dates and she walked in on one of them she stopped getting a kick out of it. She saw I was having a definite effect on Bob and that was when she began to bother me. You know, the subtle approach. An insinuation here and there, a dig, a statement that I could take two ways. She never came out in the open and demanded that I stop seeing Bob. That isn’t her method. When I told Bob about it he said I shouldn’t give it another thought. He said Madge is happy only when she is pestering people. He told me to get into the habit of shutting a door in her face, but I couldn’t get myself to do that.”
“Did Bob ever talk about Gert?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking that.
“He said she was a plague. He said he pitied you.”
“How did he know she was a plague? Did Madge tell him that?”
“No. That was his own opinion.”
“Based on what? Maybe I’m going to find out something. I didn’t know Bob was closely acquainted with Gert.”
“He was seeing her.”
“Oh. So he was seeing her. You mean he admitted that?”
Irene nodded. “He was seeing a lot of her.”
“Because he wanted to?”
“I can’t say for sure. He didn’t go into it with me.”
“What do you think?”
“I think Gert was trying to lasso him.”
“Let’s come back to Madge. Did Madge know about Gert and Bob?”
“I asked Bob about that and he said no. He said he wasn’t seeing Gert during the time Madge had that man watching him. There was no way Madge could know. They were meeting each other in out-of-the-way places. They were very careful.”
“You mean Bob Rapf admitted that to you?”
“He admitted the technical side of it.”
“The technical side,” Parry murmured. “And did it give you anything to work with?”
“No,” Irene said. “There wasn’t enough of it. And it was only one side. Anyway, by that time I wasn’t working on it any more. I was beginning to feel that there wasn’t any way I could help you.”
“Only one side,” Parry murmured, again looking at the floor. “—only one side, and it’s the technical side. All right, let’s stay technical. Let’s put it in numbers. Did he say how many times a week he was seeing Gert?”
“I didn’t ask him that. I didn’t see where it mattered.”
“I don’t see either. But I’m trying to see. During those last two months before she died she was out three or four nights a week. I never asked where she went, because by that time I didn’t give a hang where she went. I don’t know, there could be an opening here. Three or four nights a week, and if I could know definitely she was spending all those nights with Bob Rapf I might have something.”
“And what would you do with it?”
“I don’t know. This sort of thing is out of my line. Those last two months. You see what I’m getting at? I want to know what she was doing those last two months. That’s the keyhole, and now all I need is the key.”
“I’m afraid that’s out, Vincent. It’s too late for the key.”
“Because I’m in no position to go hunting?”
“Because the key is Gert. Only Gert could tell you what she was doing those last two months, those three or four nights a week when she was out. You can’t build anything from what you’ve got now. You have no way of knowing there was anything important between Gert and Bob. Or Gert and anyone. So you can’t do anything with that. You’ve got to find something else. Maybe if you could take yourself back to those last two months you could find something.”
“Make it four months. The last four months. But there’s nothing in that except trouble and heartache, knowing everything was ruined, the way she wouldn’t let me touch her, the way she made me sleep in the living room those last four months. Were you there that day when they got that out of me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was there every day.”
“And you remember when they asked me about other women? You remember the way my lawyer objected and the prosecution claimed it was necessary to establish the factor of other women or perhaps one woman in particular, and you remember what I said?”
“I remember you said there was nobody special. You said you were with other women now and then. They asked you for the names of those other women and you said you didn’t remember. The prosecution said it was impossible for you not to remember at least one or two of those names and you said you didn’t even remember one. I knew you were lying. Everybody in that courtroom knew you were lying. You made a big mistake there, Vincent, trying to protect those other women, because you should have been thinking only of your own case. What you should have done was to say that you remembered but refused to give those names in public.”
“I know,” Parry said. “My lawyer bawled me out for it afterward. But afterward was too late. Anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t have a chance, no matter which way you look at it. And if I start with the what I should have dones and the what I should have knowns all I’ll get out of it is a bad headache. My whole case was built around the theory that it was an accident, that she fell and hit her head on the ash tray. That was really the big mistake. But why go back to it? Why try to do anything about it? It’s too late. It’s much too late. I can’t hang around even though I’ve got this new face, and besides I don’t have the brains for that sort of thing. I don’t know how to go about it. There’s only one thing for me to do, and that’s to get out of this town as fast as I can.”
“You’ll need more money.”
“What you’ve given me already is plenty.”
“Where will you go?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“You do know but you won’t tell me.”
“All right, I do know. Why should I tell you?”
She got up from the sofa. She walked across the room, turned when she came to the wall. She leaned against the wall. She said, “Do you think I’d ever change my mind? Do you think I’d ever let them know where you were?”
“You might.”
“And that’s why you won�
��t tell me?”
“That’s why.”
“That’s not why. You won’t tell me because you think I’ll come there. You think I’ll follow you.”
“You’d be crazy to follow me.”
“Was I crazy to pick you up on that road? Was I crazy to let you stay here?”
“Yes.”
“And if I was crazy enough to do that, I’d be crazy enough to follow you. Isn’t that it?”
“I guess so. I don’t know.” He glanced at the wrist watch.
She took herself away from the wall. She folded her arms, as if she was standing in the cold. She looked very little, standing there. She said, “You do know. You know you could trust me. You know I’d never say anything. But you have a feeling I’d follow you if you told me where you were going. And you don’t want me to do that. You don’t want me there. You don’t need me there. Isn’t that the way it is?”
“I guess that’s the way it is.”
She smiled. She went into the bedroom. When she came out there was money in her hand. She gave the bills to him, one at a time, and it added up to a thousand dollars.
He stood there with the money in his open hand. He said, “I really don’t need this.”
“You’ve got to have something. What you have isn’t enough.”
“All right, thanks.” He put the money in his pocket.
She said, “Shall I call a taxi?”
“Please.”
He felt light, he felt unfettered. She was going to call a taxi and he could walk out of here and get in a taxi and go wherever he wanted to go. He had his new face. He could do whatever he wanted to do. It was as if he had been stumbling along a clogged and muddy uncertain road, and all at once it branched off to become a wide and white concrete road, smooth and clean, and stretching away and away and away.
She was calling a taxi. He lit a cigarette.
She put the phone down. “Forty minutes,” she said. “We’ll have time for breakfast.”
He smiled at her. She was a very dear friend. She was going to make breakfast for him. He said, “That’ll be fine. I’m anxious to see.”
“To see what?”
“How it feels to eat with a knife and fork.”
She laughed brightly and went into the kitchen. He opened the lid of the phonograph. The black roundness was there, waiting for the needle. It was Basie again, the same Basie he had been using for the past four days, concentrating on the trumpet take-off, the wailing. It was Sent for You Yesterday And Here You Come Today. He turned the lever, lowered the needle, and there was the melancholy beginning, the rise of reeds and brass and the continued rise and the sudden break and Basie’s right hand touching against not many keys but just the right keys. And he had almost eighteen hundred dollars in his pocket and he was very rich and he had this new face. And he was going to have a nice breakfast and then he was going to get in a cab and go wherever he wanted to go. And Basie was giving him just the right notes and everything was just right.
The record was ended. He played it again. He played it a third time. He selected another Basie. He kept on playing Basies until she called from the kitchen, telling him that breakfast was ready.
It was a very nice breakfast. The orange juice was just right, the scrambled eggs were just right, and the coffee. And he enjoyed using a knife and fork again. He enjoyed chewing on food, and the feeling of his new face.
He insisted on helping with the dishes. She let him dry them. They had cigarettes while they worked on the dishes. And when they were in the living room again they had more cigarettes. They were talking about Basie, they were talking about Oregon. She liked Oregon. She said the grass was a special shade of green up there. And she liked the lakes up there, the canoeing and the fishing and the hiking through country where there were no houses and everything was quiet and green for miles and miles. She had made many water colors of the Oregon country. She asked him if he would like to see some of her work. He said yes, and she went into the bedroom and he heard her searching for the paintings. Then she was coming into the living room and she had a large packet tied with string. She started to untie the string and the buzzer sounded.
She looked up. She said, “Your taxi.”
“Yes.”
The buzzer sounded again.
She said, “It sounds very final, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re all right now, Vincent. They can’t get you now.”
“I’ll need a new name.”
“Let me give you a name. Even though you’ll change it later let me give you one now. To go with your new face. It’s a quiet face. Allan is a quiet name. Allan and—Linnell.”
The buzzer sounded.
“Allan Linnell,” he said.
“Good-by, Allan.”
He was going toward the door. He turned and looked at her. She was all alone. He had a feeling she would always be alone. She would always be starved for real companionship.
The buzzer sounded again.
She would be all alone here in her little apartment. Her father was dead, her brother was dead, she really had nobody.
The buzzer sounded.
“Good-by,” he said, and he walked out of the apartment.
The rain was flooding the street as he hurried toward the taxi. His eyes were riveted to the open door of the taxi. That was all he wanted to see. And when the door closed all he wanted to do was sit back and shut his eyes and shut his mind. But as the taxi started down the street he turned and looked through the rear window. He looked at the apartment house, at the third row of windows. And he saw something at one of the windows. He saw her standing there at the window, watching him go away.
The taxi took him to Civic Center. He got off on Market, went into an all-night diner and asked for a cup of coffee. He stayed with the coffee for twenty minutes. Last night’s newspaper was on the counter and he picked it up and glanced at the front page. He began to turn the pages. He asked for another cup of coffee. He was on page seven. They were still wondering where he was. They gave him three inches and a single small headline that simply said he was still on the loose. There were no further developments. He looked at his wrist watch and it said six forty. He turned and looked through the grimy window of the diner. It was still raining very hard.
He felt uncomfortable. He told himself there was no reason why he should feel uncomfortable. All he had to do was wait around until nine o’clock, when the stores would open. Then he could go buy himself some clothes and things, and a grip, and he would be ready to check in at a hotel and make his arrangements from that point. Maybe by tonight he would already be on a train, or even a plane. He wondered why he was uncomfortable. He took his glance away from the newspaper and noticed there was a man sitting beside him. He remembered the man had been in the diner when he had come in. The man had been there at the far end of the counter. Now the man was sitting beside him.
The man was rolling a cigarette. He wore a swagger raincoat and a low-crown hat with a fairly wide brim. The cigarette wasn’t rolling very well and the man finally gave it up and let the tobacco spill on the counter. Parry looked at the tobacco.
The man turned his head and looked at Parry.
It was time to go. Parry started to slide away from the counter.
“Wait a minute,” the man said.
Parry looked at the man’s face. The face was past thirty years old. It featured a long jaw and not much eyes and not much nose. There was a trace of moustache.
“What’s the matter?” Parry said. He kept going away from the counter.
“I said wait a minute,” the man said. It wasn’t much of a voice. There was a crack in it, there was alcohol in it.
Parry came back to the seat. He looked at the spilled tobacco. He said, “What can I do for you?” He wondered if his face was changed sufficiently.
“Answer a few questions.”
“Go ahead,” Parry said. He tried a smile. It didn’t give. He said, “I’ve got plenty of time.”
He wondered if that was all right. The man’s face didn’t tell him whether or not it was all right.
The man said, “What are you doing in this weather without a raincoat?”
“I’m absent-minded.”
The man smiled. He had perfect teeth. He said, “Nup. Let’s try it again.”
“All right,” Parry said. “I don’t have a raincoat.”
“That’s better. We’ll go on from there. Why don’t you have a raincoat?”
“I’m absent-minded.”
The man laughed. He played a forefinger into the spilled tobacco. He said, “That’s okay. That’s pretty good. What are you doing up so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not well. I have a bad kidney.”
“That’s tough,” the man said.
“Yeah,” Parry said. “It’s no picnic. Well—” He started to get up.
“Wait a minute,” the man said.
Parry settled himself on the seat. He looked at the man and he said, “What hurts you, mister?”
“My job,” the man said. “It’s a rotten job. But it’s the only thing I know how to do. I’ve been at it for years.”
“Are you on it now?”
“That’s right.”
“What do you want with me?”
“That depends. Let’s have a few statements.”
“All right,” Parry said. “My name is Linnell. Allan Linnell. I’m an investment counselor.”
“In town?”
“No.” He grabbed at a town. He said, “Portland.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Hiding,” Parry said.
“From what?”
“My wife. And her family. And her friends. And everybody.”
“Come on, now. It can’t be that bad.”
“I’ll tell you what you do,” Parry said. “You go up there and live with her for seven years. And then if you’re still in your right mind you come down here and tell me all about it.”
The man shook his head slowly. He said, “I’m sorry, bud. I don’t want to bother you like this, but it’s my job. This town is very hot right now. All kinds of criminals all over the place. We got orders to check every suspicious personality. I’ll have to see your cards.”
