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

by David Goodis

  “I’m getting a little nervous,” Vanning said.

  “So am I,” John said, and he brought up the revolver so that Vanning could see it was still around. “Suppose we both calm down and then maybe nothing will happen.”

  “Should I put on the radio?”

  “No,” John said. “I’ll entertain you. I’ll tell you a little story. Once upon a time there were three bad men. They were very bad. They robbed banks. In Seattle they robbed a bank and got away with three hundred thousand dollars in thousand-dollar notes. Then they stole a station wagon and scooted out of Salt Lake City. Then they were chased and they had to go fast. They went so fast that their station wagon smashed up. But a kind man came along and helped them out. He had a blue automobile and he was very good-natured about the whole thing.”

  From the back seat Pete’s voice came whining in, “I don’t see why you have to tell him about the three hundred grand.”

  “I’ll tell him what I feel like telling him,” John said. “I got the funny feeling he’s going to be with us for a while.” He turned to Vanning. “How about it? Would you like that?”

  “I’d love it,” Vanning said.

  “Turn off at the next crossing,” John said. “There’s a road brings us into Leadville. There’s a doctor in Leadville—anyway, I think it was Leadville—it was a long time ago, but this doctor, if I remember correctly, he was willing to talk business. Anyway, we’ll try Leadville.”

  A quarter of an hour later the blue convertible arrived in Leadville and cruised around for a while, and John was trying to remember where the doctor was located.

  Finally they pulled up in front of a hotel and John went in and came out a few minutes later and they went on down the street, made a turn, stopped in front of a wooden structure that had given up the fight a long time ago. John got out of the car, looked up and down, waited for two middle-aged women to cross the street and go on to another street, and then he gestured to Pete. While Pete carried Sam out of the car, John entered the dead house, his gun nudging Vanning, who walked along just a bit ahead of him as they came into the hallway.

  The doctor wanted five hundred dollars now and another five hundred to be paid in three weeks, at which point Sam would be ready to travel again. John paid the doctor and then he and Vanning and Pete left the house and got back into the car.

  “Now we’ll go to Denver,” John said.

  They arrived in Denver just as the sun was starting to drop. They went into a small hotel in a shabby part of town and they were given a fairly large room on the third floor. John sent a boy out for liquor. The boy came back with liquor and ice and bottles of ginger ale and several packs of cigarettes. John gave the boy a dollar bill and Vanning looked at the boy, but the boy was looking at the dollar bill and then the boy was walking out of the room, the door was closing, the door was closed, the room was quiet.

  John opened a bottle and went to work with ice and ginger ale. Pete was stretched out on the bed, and every few moments Pete would complain about Sam and whine that he didn’t like the Sam angle. Finally John told Pete that if he didn’t keep quiet he would be hit over the head with a liquor bottle.

  “I can’t help worrying,” Pete said.

  “Go out and get some air,” John said. “Do your worrying outside. No. Wait a minute. I have another idea. Stay here. Hold the gun on him a minute. I want to look in the bathroom.”

  “What’s in the bathroom?” Pete said.

  “Usually a skylight, when it’s on the top floor.”

  Pete looked at Vanning, pointing the gun at Vanning. “We ain’t on the top floor.”

  “I’ll make sure,” John said. “Hold the gun on him.”

  John went into the bathroom, came out and said, “It’s all right. No skylight, no windows.” He smiled at Vanning. “Get in there.”

  Vanning walked into the bathroom. They closed the door on him. He could hear them talking in the next room. All at once their voices dropped, and although he had his ear pressed against the door crack, he couldn’t make it out. The low-toned conversation went on for quite a while. And then it faded and there was nothing and the nothing went on for a very long time and Vanning couldn’t understand that.

  He stood at the door and said, “How long do you figure on keeping me here?”

  There was no answer.

  He said, “It’s getting stuffy in here.”

  No answer.

  “At least,” he said, “you might let me have a cigarette.”

  Nothing.

  “Anyway,” he said, “a drink.”

  And there was no answer.

  And he said aloud, “Maybe you’re not even there. Maybe you went out for a walk.”

  No answer.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll find out.”

  He opened the door and stood there looking at the empty room.

  The room was terribly empty. The door was closed. And the room was empty. It was good. And that was why it was bad. It was too good. What made it ridiculously good was the revolver that calmly gazed back at him as he stared at it where it rested, emphatically black against the white bedspread. He walked to the bed, picked up the revolver and put it in his coat pocket. For no good reason at all he walked to the window and looked out. He saw an alley, a dark sky, and nothing else. He moved across the room and picked up a half-empty bottle of whiskey and looked at it and put it down. He picked up a ravaged pack of cigarettes and put one of them in his mouth. He didn’t quite know what to do. He told himself that a little calm reasoning ought to get him at the source of this. And he sat on the bed, looked at the floor and tried to reason calmly.

  What they should have done, if they were smart, was to get him alone somewhere, out in the woods or on a dark street, and then kill him in a hurry and take themselves out of Denver. That was the way to do it without complication. This business of walking out on him, leaving him here alone, leaving the revolver on the bed, it added up to an odd maneuver, and the only way to find the answer was to put himself in their place and think along the same lines as they would think. He told himself he ought to be intelligent enough to box with them, as long as they were in the mood for boxing. He told himself, despite the fact that he and John were in two widely separated fields of endeavor, he ought to be able to outwit John, anyway draw up even with John.

  Knowing that liquor wouldn’t help, he decided to have a drink, regardless. He stood up, walked toward the dresser where the bottles and ice were assembled, and then he stopped dead, at first frowning, then widening his eyes until they hurt, and then frowning again. And he was staring at the top of the dresser, not staring at the bottles, but staring at the satchel.

  There it was, right there in front of him. The black satchel that John had taken out of the station wagon. A new satchel of finely grained leather. Whatever was in it was filling it, making it strain with bulging. He knew what was in it. He told himself he didn’t know what was in it. He told himself to leave the satchel alone, put the gun back on the bed, get out of here and get out of Denver. And do it fast and get it started now. Hurry on to Chicago, go to work at the drawing board, meet a nice girl and start a home. Leave the satchel alone. Leave it alone.

  “Use your head,” he said aloud. “Leave it alone.”

  He rubbed his hands into his eyes. His teeth clicked and clacked. His head was lowered and then he was shaking his head.

  “Come on,” he said. “Come out of it.”

  And then he raised his head and looked at the satchel. It was there, fat and black and shiny and bulging. There was something luscious about it. It looked very smug, sitting there on top of the dresser.

  Vanning moved toward the dresser, his hands stretching toward the satchel, then suddenly veering away, clutching at the nearest bottle. He worked whiskey into a highball glass, studying the amount of whiskey he had poured, telling himself he had never taken that much whiskey in a single drink. He took the glass toward the bathroom door, leaned against the door, looked at the satchel
, kept his eyes on it as his head went back, as he raised the glass toward his mouth. Then his eyes were closed and the whiskey was flowing down his throat, exploding in his belly. And the empty glass fell out of his limp hand and hit the floor and made considerable noise as it cracked apart.

  The noise echoed within Vanning’s brain. He told himself to go to the window and lean out and call for help. Then he laughed at himself. He laughed out loud. The sound of it was attractive in an eerie way and he laughed harder. Maybe if he laughed loud enough, someone would come in and see him here and talk to him. He wanted that badly right now. If he only had someone in here with him, someone with whom he could discuss this. He stared at the satchel.

  He rubbed his hands together, telling himself he looked like a safety man waiting for a punt. Then he walked toward the dresser. He rubbed his hands again. He took hold of the satchel, lifted it, brought it over to the bed and opened it and saw United States currency.

  Thousand-dollar bills. In small packets, ten bills in each packet, and he counted thirty packets. That made three hundred thousand dollars, he told himself. He placed the packets in the satchel, closed it and stared at it.

  Then he came bounding up from the bed, and he picked up the satchel and walked out of the room. He walked down the hall toward the stairway. Just before he reached the stairway someone moved in behind him, something pressed against his side. And the party said, “Keep walking. Be good.”

  Vanning turned his head and he was looking at a man he had never seen before. The man wore a white panama and a pale green suit, a dark green shirt and yellow tie and a yellow handkerchief flowing largely, gracefully, from the breast pocket. The man was tall and heavy, and he had a square face and his skin was sun-darkened.

  “Just keep walking,” the man said. “Downstairs and to the right and we’ll go out through a side door.”

  “You can have the money,” Vanning said.

  “I don’t want the money.”

  “Are you a policeman?”

  The man let out a laugh that suddenly got itself sliced clean. “Just keep walking,” he said.

  They arrived on the second-floor landing. The gun nudged Vanning’s side, then pressed hard, and Vanning winced, and then he was going downstairs with the man that way beside him, the gun that way against him, and they were in the lobby and a few people were standing around doing nothing the way only people in hotel lobbies can do nothing.

  “So help me,” the man said, “if you let out a whimper I’ll let you have it. Now go toward that side door as if you’re going out with me for a stroll.”

  They went toward the side door, the man opened the door, they walked out and down a dark street, and nothing was said until the man told Vanning to make a turn. A minute later he told Vanning to make another turn. They were on a narrow street, weakly illuminated by yellow light coming from second-story windows.

  “Now,” the man said, placing himself in front of Vanning, “let’s have that bag.”

  Vanning handed over the satchel. He looked at the man. The man was smiling. Vanning sighed. He saw the revolver coming up and pointing at his chest. He sighed.

  He said, “I knew it.”

  “Tough,” the man said, “but that’s the way it’s got to be.”

  “Can I have a minute?”

  “That’s too long.”

  “Half a minute.”

  “All right.”

  “How about a break?”

  “Don’t waste time asking for a break. If you want to talk about the weather, we’ll talk about the weather, but if you keep asking for a break I’ll only get annoyed.”

  “Working for John?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why does John use you?”

  “He always uses me for this sort of thing. He doesn’t like to do it himself.”

  “Then why didn’t he use Pete?”

  “Because Pete don’t have a head on his shoulders. Pete has a habit of making mistakes.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m glad you see. I’m glad everything is clear.”

  “Except for one thing.”

  “Ask me, and if I can answer you I’ll give you an answer.”

  “Why did they give me this?” Vanning said, sincere as he said it, completely naïve as he took the revolver out of his pocket and showed it to the man. And the man looked at the revolver and then Vanning looked down at it and realized that it was actually a revolver and that he had it in his hand. And he looked up at the man’s face and saw the dismay. And just as the dismay gave way to rage, Vanning pulled the trigger, pulled it again, then again, the shots bouncing back and forth, up and down, as the man was lowered on an invisible elevator. Vanning stepped back. Now the man was on the ground, squirming, his arms stretched out, his revolver resting near a wrist, his fingers twitching. Then his whole body twitched, gave a convulsive movement that took him over on his back, he twitched once more, his eyes opened wide, his mouth came halfway open, and he was dead.

  Vanning ran. He ran as fast as he could go. There was a hill. He ran up the hill. There was a field. He ran across the field. There was a narrow stream. He went into the stream, and the water came up to his knees, then his waist, then his chest, and he lifted one arm high, wondered why he was doing that, looked at the arm, the thing that dangled from his hand, and it was the satchel. He tried to remember picking up the satchel. He couldn’t remember. But he must have picked it up. It hadn’t walked into his hand. It wasn’t alive. Or maybe it was. The water came up to his chin. He told himself to drop the satchel, let it sink in the stream. He told himself the bullets had hit the man, the man had fallen and dropped the satchel. And he had stood there looking at the dead man. And then he had picked up the satchel and started to run away with it.

  That part of it was too much for him. He didn’t have the gun. He had the satchel. He had left the gun there and had picked up the satchel. He wondered what he wanted with the satchel. He wondered why he had taken it in the first place. For that one he had an answer. He had intended to give the satchel to the police. So that was all right. But he couldn’t figure out why he had taken the satchel from the dead man. Perhaps the answer was identical with the first answer. Perhaps he had still intended to visit the police. And yet that was sort of weak, because now he couldn’t remember holding that idea in his mind. The only thing he now completely realized was that he had killed a man and now in his possession he had a satchel containing three hundred thousand dollars and he was running away. And he was very much afraid of the satchel.

  Gradually, as his physical endurance lessened, the mental side became clearer, and he was putting pieces together and drawing conclusions. The thing that made it very bad was the way John had held the gun so close to him that people couldn’t notice the gun. Even the doctor in Leadville had not seen the gun. And the hotel clerk in Denver. And the people in the lobby. Nobody had seen the gun. All they had seen was John and Pete and himself, together in the blue convertible, together in the hotel, and that made the whole thing miserable. But it had to split somewhere along the line. It couldn’t keep up this way. Maybe in another ten or twenty minutes or so he would have a hold on himself and he would be ready to visit the police and tell them all about it.

  The thought was in there, solid and compact, very pure and logical. But it lasted for only a few moments. After that it began to float away from him because he was telling the story to himself as he would tell it to the police, and it seemed like a foolish story. It seemed a little fantastic and more than a little ridiculous. The bathroom, for instance. They had put him in the bathroom but they had not locked the door. That was the start, and from there on it became downright comical. They had gone out of the room, leaving him in the bathroom with the door closed but unlocked. He had come out of the bathroom. And there on the bed, all ready for him, was a revolver. And there on the dresser, shining and plump, was the little black satchel with all that money in it. He could see the faces of policemen, he could see them lo
oking at each other, he could see them leaning toward him with disbelief jumping out of their eyes. And yet, with all that, one big weapon remained on his side. He still had the satchel.

  He told himself that. He still had it and he could go to them and hand it over and he still had the satchel. He begged himself to believe that he still had it as he raised his hands and looked at his hands, saw two white hands against the background of black woods. And no satchel.

  There was a moment of nothing. No thought, no motion, nothing. Then an attempt to reason it out. Then the realization that he couldn’t reason it out, it was too far away from him. It was away back there an hour ago, or two hours ago, miles away back there. Maybe during the minutes when he was crossing the stream. Maybe ten minutes later in these vast woods. Maybe an hour later. But there was no way of putting it on a definite basis, no way of remembering when he had let the satchel fall from his hand, or where he had let it fall.

  Again Vanning saw the faces of policemen. Big pink faces that formed a circle around him, came moving in on him. And one of them was bigger than all the rest and the mouth was moving. He could hear the voice. The voice hit him, bounced back. He stumbled toward the voice and the voice hit him again.

  The voice said, “You say you came out of that room and you were carrying the satchel. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Vanning said.

  “What were you going to do with the satchel?”

  “Hand it over to you.”

  “All right. Then what?”

  “He came in from behind me and put a gun in my back. We went out of the hotel. Then when we were on that narrow street he took the satchel away and told me it was too bad, but he was forced to do away with me.”

  “Then what?”

  “I took the gun out of my pocket and shot him.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes,” Vanning said.

  “What about his gun?”

  “He didn’t use it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I guess he was too surprised. I guess that was the last thing he expected, my having a gun.”