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

by David Goodis

“I needed this,” the driver complained.

  “Don’t worry,” Vanning said. “Everything’s going to be all right. We’re doing great.”

  “I’m glad you think so. That makes me feel a lot better.”

  Another truck blocked them off on Lexington Avenue. The driver twisted the wheel, they cut between two other cars, and the two other cars came together and there was the sound of a crash. Vanning’s cab continued on its way, and in the distance there was the sound of a policeman’s whistle. And another whistle.

  “You hear that?” the driver said.

  “I heard it.”

  “But that’s the law.”

  “That’s why it sounds so good.”

  “You don’t get me, mister. I said the law. I’m doing the best I can, but we’re working in a crowded city and there’s too much law and not enough space. They’re going to catch this cab.”

  “And the car in back of us.”

  “You know who’s in back of us?”

  “Sure,” Vanning said. “A green sedan. Right?”

  “Wrong,” the driver said. “Take a look. See for yourself.”

  Vanning stared at the driver’s third-rate haircut. Then very slowly he turned and looked through the rear window and he saw another cab. It was quite a distance behind, and some cars were in front of it, but it was pushing its way past the cars. It was coming on.

  “The cab?” Vanning said.

  “Of course it’s the cab. I thought you knew from the beginning.”

  “When was the beginning?”

  “When you climbed in. When we started out on Madison. I saw him making a beeline for that other cab. That’s why we took the long ride. I was trying to help you out.”

  Vanning smashed a fist into his other hand. “It’s John,” he said. “It’s got to be John. It’s got to end here. They’ve got to catch me and they’ve got to catch John. This is the wind-up. The only way it could end.” He knew he was getting onto the hysterical side, but there was nothing he could do about it. His voice sounded odd as he said, “You hear me?”

  “I hear you, mister, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about a bank robber named John.”

  “In that other cab?”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong,” the driver said. “The guy in that other cab is no bank robber. I know what he is.”

  “What?”

  “Detective.”

  At first it didn’t click. It was too far away. Too high up or too far underground, and Vanning had to close his eyes and rub his palms into his eyes, and then he had to take himself back to the phone booth in the drugstore, and he had to remember how long he had stayed on the phone, talking to Denver, and he had to estimate how long it would take Denver to trace the call, how long it would take Denver to call Manhattan police, how long it would take Headquarters in Manhattan to send a man to the drugstore. Vanning figured that out in terms of minutes, and then he shook his head in a convulsive way, he tried to forget that he was in a racing taxi. And just then the whole thing clicked, and it made a tremendous noise in his head. And it was too much for him.

  “Take me to the river,” he said. “I may as well jump in.”

  “Don’t go nuts on me,” the driver said. “Past Second Avenue I’ll drive up an alley and you can hop out. We got a nice lead.”

  “How do you know he’s a detective?”

  “I’ve seen him around.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m telling you he’s a plain-clothes man. I’ve seen him operate. What I ought to do is mind my own business. But you looked all right. You look like a guy who needed a break.”

  “Where’s that alley?”

  “Not far,” the driver said. “From now on,” he promised, “I’ll get my excitement in the movies.”

  “Drive,” Vanning said. “I’m an innocent man. Believe me——”

  Slashing past Second Avenue, the cab almost made contact with another truck, curved away, then out in front of the truck, then past a jalopy, then made a turn into a wide alleyway. On one side there was a gate that ran the length of the alley, and beyond the gate a grim line of wall with no windows showing. On the other side there was a warehouse, and Vanning saw windows and he saw doorways, and a few of the doors were open.

  His wallet was out, he was flipping a twenty-dollar bill toward the front seat, the cab was coming to a stop.

  “Keep moving,” he said. “Drive up the alley. After that I don’t care what you do.”

  He jerked the door handle, leaped out of the cab, sprinted across the alley and threw himself at the nearest open doorway. As he went in, he could hear the noise made by an approaching siren.

  The warehouse was a huge place. It was quite dark in the area across which Vanning moved. He had to move slowly because it was so dark. Men’s voices came from somewhere on the floor above. Vanning walked into a column of boxes, grabbed them as they started to topple over.

  “Charlie Chaplin again,” he murmured. “Come on, you. Cut out the comedy.”

  But he was having trouble getting the boxes back in place, and they were large boxes and they almost knocked him over. He knew he was grinning. And as he kept on grinning he became a little afraid of it. To grin at a time like this was all wrong, unreasonable. And the wrongness of it harmonized with all the other wrong stunts he had pulled.

  The absurd phone call to Denver. He couldn’t get his finger on the exact reason why he had called Denver. Maybe because he wanted to find out how much they knew. Maybe because he wanted to throw some bait their way in the hope of making a bargain. Just what kind of bargain he had figured on making he couldn’t remember. There had to be a trickle of logic in it somewhere, but now, at this special juncture, he saw the phone call as an extremely foolish thing.

  And those other foolish things. Assuming that the car behind the cab had been a green sedan with John and Pete and Sam in it. So very sure that it had been a green sedan, failing to remember that he had taken the green sedan on a ride from the outskirts of Brooklyn. Now he remembered the ride but he couldn’t remember the geography of the ride, he couldn’t remember the location of the house where they had negotiated with him. Not even the approximate location of the house. And he couldn’t remember where he had parked the green sedan. Somewhere near the subway station on Canal Street, but that was no good. There were too many streets, too many alleys near the Canal Street subway. And all this harmony of error was harmonizing with that first tremendous error, that satchel business, and it didn’t get him anywhere to tell himself he was absent-minded. Lapse of memory might be good for a laugh in a courtroom, but bad otherwise.

  All this was saddening, it was downhill. Vanning begged himself to get away from the negative side. Too much of it would lead to complete fear, and if he ever reached that point he might just as well take gas. Defeat was a whirlpool, and the only thing to do was swim away from it, keep swimming, no matter how strong the downward drag. He still had his life, he still had his health, his brain had stalled several times but it was still a brain, it still functioned.

  And now it told him there was no such thing as a super-human being, and even Babe Ruth had suffered a batting slump every now and then, and even Hannibal had undergone military setbacks, even Einstein had flunked in mathematics on one amazing occasion. And then there was another way to look at it.

  Gravity was a powerful thing, but someone had invented the parachute. Oceans had tremendous depths, and yet someone had invented a vessel that would go down and down and then come up again and reach the surface. Vanning told himself to invent an idea that would get him clear of the downhill path and bring him up. It was time for that. He had gone down far enough, too far. It was time to start climbing. It was time to stop the foolish grin and the relaxed submission to all the leering goblins.

  He walked through the warehouse. There was a door leading out to air and sunlight. There were some men standing near the door. A few were in their shirt sle
eves. Others wore overalls. A husky man wearing a cap and smoking a cigar was loudly enthusiastic over a new welterweight from Minneapolis. Vanning walked toward the group. They blocked his path to the door. They turned and looked at him. He stared at them as he approached. He stared past them, indicating that he intended leaving the warehouse. They continued to block the door. They all looked at him.

  “Going out,” Vanning said.

  The big man with the cigar was lowering the cigar from tobacco-stained lips. “You connected here?”

  “City inspector,” Vanning said.

  “Inspecting what?”

  “Plumbing.”

  “How we doing?”

  “Water’s still running,” Vanning said. “That’s good enough.”

  The big man stepped out of Vanning’s way. And Vanning walked through the doorway. Adding distance between himself and the warehouse, he moved on toward First Avenue. He walked fast on First Avenue, watching the street, looking for a cab. There was slightly less than five minutes of this, and then a cab, and then a slow ride downtown, a few cigarettes, and then a short stroll across part of Washington Square, and finally his apartment.

  He took off his coat, seated himself near the window. He sat there doing nothing for quite a while. Heat came up from the Village pavements and threw itself against him. He picked himself up from the chair, walked to the kitchenette, opened the refrigerator. Busy with bottles and ice, he anticipated his drink and enjoyed the idea that he was doing something constructive. He mixed a third of scotch with two thirds of soda, used a good deal of ice, took the glass back to the window, sat down and took his time with the drink.

  Three drinks later he was in a fairly comfortable frame of mind. He looked out and saw the sky taking on a blend of orange and purple, lighting up in the fierce, frantic glow that tries and fails to conquer dusk. When dusk arrived, Vanning told himself to go out and get something to eat.

  There was a lot of satisfaction in that, knowing he could still go out. That part of the situation was the best part, the fact that they didn’t know where he lived. Or to put it another way, they didn’t know where he was hiding out. It was sensible to look a thing like this in the face, because there was a great deal of difference between a home and a hiding place.

  Chapter Eight

  IN THE Fraser apartment the phone rang. She raced to it. And the first thing he said was a big thank you, thanks for everything.

  “You feel better?” she said.

  “I’m with him again.”

  “I knew that,” she said. “I knew it the moment I heard your voice.”

  “I wanted to call earlier——”

  “Of course——”

  “But I couldn’t get away. I’ve been with him ever since he came home this morning.”

  “You sound so excited.”

  “I ought to be,” he said. “Something’s happened. It’s big. He’s home now and I have a chance to breathe. I just checked with Headquarters. They told me he called Denver. The call was traced and they put two and two together. I knew he was making a long call but I couldn’t do the tracing myself. Too many booths in the drugstore. A big place on Madison Avenue. He called Denver and pretended to be a newspaperman. He told them what they already knew. Denver can’t figure that one out. Neither can Headquarters. But I think I can.”

  “You mean he’s working toward giving himself up?”

  “Not yet. I figure he wanted to find out how much they knew.”

  “Wouldn’t a smart criminal do that?”

  “No,” Fraser said. “A smart criminal would know for sure they’d trace the call. Everything he’s done today backs up my ideas about this case. When he left the drugstore he got in a cab. I followed him. Somehow he knew he was being followed and he managed to lose me.”

  “How did you find him again?”

  “He went back to his apartment. He’s there now, across the street. I’m watching the front door.”

  “He got away from you and then he went home?”

  “Right.”

  “He must be stupid.”

  “Not stupid,” Fraser said. “It’s just that he isn’t operating like a guilty party. That phone call to Denver. And then knowing he was being followed. And coming back to his apartment instead of leaving town. A guilty man wouldn’t do things like that.”

  She sighed into the phone. “I guess I’m thick. I just don’t get it. You say he’s a killer and yet he isn’t guilty.”

  “I know. It sounds all mixed up.”

  “Why do you think he’s staying in town?”

  “I’ve got an idea he wants us to find those other men.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Fraser said. “I’m trying to hit an answer.”

  “What did Headquarters say?”

  “They wanted me to bring him in. I begged for more time.”

  “How much more?”

  “Not long,” Fraser said. “Forty-eight hours.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Anything to work on?”

  “Just Vanning. I better hang up now. I’m beginning to worry again. Vanning isn’t enough. I need something else. It’s like waiting for rain in the desert.”

  “Maybe you can talk to him again.”

  “If I could find a good excuse.”

  “But there’s only forty-eight hours——”

  “Don’t remind me,” he said. “Every time I look at my watch I get sick.”

  “Does it make you feel better, talking to me?”

  “A lot.”

  “Stay there and talk to me.”

  “All right, dear.”

  “Tell me things.”

  “Things you don’t know already?”

  “Anything you want to tell me.”

  “Even if it’s unimportant?”

  “Even if it’s silly,” she said.

  “Headquarters told me something funny,” he said. “I shouldn’t even mention it. I haven’t any right to think about it. Not at this point, anyway. It all depends whether you’re in a mercenary mood.”

  “I’m in any mood you’re in.”

  “I don’t know what mood I’m in, dear. I only know right now money’s a side issue. Now I wish I hadn’t said anything.”

  She laughed. “You’ve already opened your big mouth.”

  “How much do we have in the bank?”

  “Seventeen hundred.”

  “Headquarters got a wire from Seattle,” he said, and felt rather cheap saying it. But he was thinking of his wife and his children and the things he wanted to give them, and underneath that he was impelled by the desire to talk, to talk about anything except the big worry at hand, and he might as well talk about this; at least it was something practical, it was a basis for talk. And he said, “If I can get Vanning to tell where the money is, I’ll get a reward of fifteen thousand.”

  “Fifteen thousand?”

  “That’s a lot of cabbage.”

  “Fifteen thousand.”

  “Let’s both forget about it.”

  “We might as well. Even if you bring him in, he’ll never own up.”

  “I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said.

  “We’ll forget about it.”

  “Sure.”

  “How are the kids?”

  “Fine.”

  “And how are you?”

  “Oh, I’m——”

  “I’ve got to hang up,” Fraser said. “He’s out there, coming out of the house. Talk to you later——”

  The receiver clicked. She lowered the phone. She started to light a cigarette, but suddenly there was a commotion in the next room and it sounded as though the children were beating each other over the head. She put down the cigarette and tightened her lips as she went in to break it up. As she entered the room the riot came to an immediate halt, and the three of them looked at her with innocent faces. She tried to appear severe, but she wasn�
��t much good at this, and all at once she laughed lightly and the children started to laugh and she ran at them, gathered them to her, hugged them and kissed them and said, “You little Indians——”

  Chapter Nine

  THE RESTAURANT was a popular sea-food establishment, noted especially for its lobster. Vanning ordered a cup of clam broth and a large lobster. He ate slowly, getting pleasure from the rich pink-white meat dripping butter. It was luxury, this lobster. It was one of the things that made life worth living. There were considerable things that made life worth living. Luxurious things, rich, colorful things, tasty things, and then the quietly pleasant things, abstract things, certain contentments that couldn’t be analyzed in terms of statistics. He thought of those things for a while, but only a little while. The lobster brought him back to the other things, and he found himself thinking in terms of the luxurious, the joys in a materialistic category. Somewhere along that path a few colors entered. There was deep rose against a background of rich tan. There was shining gold. There was blue, a good, definite blue, not bright, not at all watery, but deeply blue. And then the tan again. Healthy tan. And all that added up, and it became Martha.

  The thought became action, and Vanning’s hand shot back and away from the table, went sliding into his coat pocket. For a moment it wasn’t there, and he told himself if it wasn’t there it was no place. Then it came against his fingers, and he took it out of his pocket, the folded paper secure and actual and living against the flesh of his fingers. He unfolded it. He looked at the name. Just Martha. And then the address.

  It was a fake address, of course. It had to be fake. If she was clever enough to fool him as she had done, she would certainly be clever enough to give him a fake address. He congratulated himself on the deduction. And yet that was all it amounted to right now. Nothing more than a deduction. In order to make it a fact, he had to check on that address.

  All right. Granted that the deduction was faulty and she actually lived there. He wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Certainly he had nothing to gain from it. Or maybe he did have something to gain. Maybe if he played fox sufficiently well, he could have his cake and eat it too. The folded paper with her address on it would give him a potential contact with John, without giving John a contact with John’s quarry.