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

by David Goodis

  Kerrigan could see their wide shoulders, the thickness of their arms and wrists. They carried wooden clubs, and they wore brass knuckles.

  Now there was no sound from the other side of the box. They were taking their time about it, and it was as though they were sending him a silent message, telling him they had him where they wanted him, and they’d be willing to wait until he made a move.

  He bit his lip, wondering what he could do. He glanced around at the floor, but it offered nothing, there was no sign of ammunition or weapon. He cursed without sound. Whatever these men were planning to do, whatever damage they had in mind, they’d sure as hell arranged it carefully. He knew they’d followed him from Pier 17, and the thunderstorm had aided them in their scheme to corner him. But storm or no storm, they’d have cornered him anyway. They’d have waited for a convenient moment and a convenient place. As matters stood, they had trailed him to the warehouse, had peered through a window to make sure it was deserted, and then they’d found an entrance. They’d watched him getting soaked out there in the rain, so from there on it was easy. They’d simply unlocked the door to let him know it was dry in here and he was welcome. It was a friendly favor and he ought to thank them. He ought to tell them how much he appreciated their kindness.

  There were five feet of wooden box separating him from the big men and the thick clubs and the brass knuckles.

  One of the men was grinning at him.

  The other man, somewhat shorter and wider than his partner, leaned forward just a little and said, “You ready for it? You ready to take it?”

  “He looks ready,” the taller man said.

  They spoke quietly, yet their voices were distinct against the rumbling of the storm outside. In the shadows their eyes were little points of yellow and green light, and there was the bright gleam of the brass knuckles, the glow reflected on the thick clubs of rounded wood.

  And then there was something else, another glow that caused Kerrigan to glance downward. He saw the glimmer on the metal handle attached under the lid of the box.

  The short wide man was saying, “Let’s find out if he’s ready.”

  “All right,” the other man said. “Let’s take him.”

  Kerrigan grabbed the handle and got a tight two-handed hold on it and with all the power in his body he heaved upward and forward, doing it very fast so that the box was raised and pushed in almost the same moment. It was just as heavy as it was large, and he heard the loud thud as it collided with the men. There was another thud and he knew that one of the men had been knocked down. He was still pushing at the box and he went on pushing until the box toppled over onto the fallen man. There was the sound of something being crushed and the fallen man was screaming and trying to wriggle out from under the box and not being able to do it.

  The short wide man had leaped backward and seemed to be debating whether to aid his partner or make a lunge at Kerrigan. Before he had a chance to arrive at a decision, Kerrigan rushed at him, coming in low, sending a shoulder against his knees and taking him to the floor.

  As they hit the floor the short man used his club on Kerrigan’s ribs. Kerrigan let out a cry of animal pain, and the man hit him again in the same place. It sent white-hot fire through his middle, then more fire as he took another blow from the club. He rolled himself away and managed to evade a blow aimed at his skull. The man leaped at him, kicked him in the spot where he’d been clubbed, then tried to turn him over, sort of prodding him with a heavy foot to get him over on his back. In the next moment he was on his back and he looked up and saw that the club was raised once more. The short man wore a businesslike expression and was taking careful aim with his eyes focused on Kerrigan’s pelvis.

  Then the club came down. Kerrigan raised both legs and took the blow on his thigh. In the same instant he snatched at the club, missed and snatched again and missed again, and the club slammed against his arm. But now he didn’t feel the pain and he was getting to his feet and not thinking about the club or the brass knuckles. He walked toward the short wide man and feinted with his left hand. As the club flashed downward, he pulled away from it, going sideways, then moving in very close and chopping his right hand to the man’s jaw. The man staggered backward and dropped the club. Kerrigan kept moving in, hooked a left to the side of the head, and then hauled off and threw a roundhouse right that lifted the man off the floor and sent him sailing to land flat on his back.

  Kerrigan kept moving in. The man was scrambling to his feet. Kerrigan kicked him in the head and that sent him down again. The man was gasping as Kerrigan kicked him once more. Kerrigan reached down and pulled him to his knees and smashed him in the mouth.

  The man screamed. He made a desperate attempt to flee. Headed for the door of the loading platform, he ran through the narrow path lined with crates and barrels. He found the door and opened it and leaped out upon the rain-swept platform.

  But in the next instant the man was on his knees with Kerrigan on top of him. Kerrigan’s eyes were calmer now. He was thinking in purely practical terms, knowing there was only one way to deal with these professional manglers. He thought, knock him out, then make him talk.

  He had one arm circling the man’s throat. His other arm was drawn back and then he let go with a kidney punch that caused the man to scream again. Then another kidney punch, and the force of it was enough to take the two of them off the loading platform and onto the planks of the pier. As they landed, the man made a frantic effort to break loose, pumping his elbow into Kerrigan’s stomach. Kerrigan groaned and fell back and saw the man running past the planks and onto the concrete driveway that bordered the edge of the pier.

  But there was too much rain, it was coming down too hard, and the man could scarcely see where he was going. The concrete driveway was a foggy, slippery path, made treacherous by the foam coming up from the big waves crashing against the pier. The man had taken only a few steps when he lost his footing. Kerrigan was up very fast, lunging at him and trying to grab him before he went over the edge. There wasn’t enough time for that. The man went over and down and made a splash. The raging current caught him and carried him away and swallowed him.

  Kerrigan walked back to the loading platform and went inside the warehouse. He moved very slowly, wearily, grimacing as he felt the hammering pain in his ribs and stomach. He went on leaden feet toward the spot where the other man was still trying to squirm out from under the heavy box.

  “God in heaven,” the man groaned. “Get this thing off me.”

  Kerrigan smiled dimly. “What’s the hurry?”

  “It’s mashin’ my chest. I can’t hardly breathe.”

  “You’re breathing all right. And you’re talking. That’s all we need for now.”

  The man had one arm free and he raised his hand to his eyes and let out a moan.

  Kerrigan knelt at the side of the man. He took a close look at the man’s face and saw there wasn’t much color. The man’s eyes were glazed and the lips were quivering with pain and supplication. He told himself that maybe the man’s chest was crushed, that maybe the man would die. He decided he didn’t give a damn.

  He said, “Who hired you?”

  The man’s reply was another moan.

  “If you won’t talk,” Kerrigan said, “you’ll stay there under the box.”

  He stood up. He turned away from the moans of the crushed man. Facing the opened doorway of the loading platform, he listened to the sound of the rainstorm. It seemed to merge with the noise of a cyclone that whirled through his brain.

  Just then he heard the man saying, “It was a woman.”

  And after that it seemed there was no sound at all. Just a frozen stillness. Again he turned very slowly, and he was looking down at the man.

  “A woman,” the man said. He moaned once more, and coughed a few times. He wheezed, “She lives on Vernon Street. I think they call her Bella.”

  “Bella.” He said it aloud to himself. Then he reached down and lifted the heavy box off the chest of
the man. He heard the man’s sigh of relief, the dragging sound of air pulled into tortured lungs.

  The man rolled over on his side. He tried to get to his feet. He made it to his knees, shook his head slowly, and muttered, “This ain’t no good. I’m in bad shape. You might as well call the Heat. At least they’ll take me to a hospital.”

  “You don’t need a hospital,” Kerrigan said. He put his hands under the man’s armpits, then used his arms as a hook to raise him from the floor.

  The man leaned heavily against him and said, “Where’s my partner?”

  “In the river,” Kerrigan said.

  The man forgot his own pain and weakness. He stepped away from Kerrigan, his eyes dulled with a kind of brute sorrow. Then he shook his head slowly and said, “It just don’t pay to take these jobs. They’re not worth the grief. I’m all banged up inside and he’s food for the fishes. All for a lousy twenty bucks.”

  “Is that what she paid you?”

  The man nodded.

  Kerrigan’s eyes narrowed. “She pay in advance?”

  “Yeah.” The man put his hand against his trousers pocket.

  “Let’s have it,” Kerrigan said.

  It was two fives and a ten. The man handed him the bills and he folded them carefully. He said, “You sure she didn’t give you more?”

  The man tried to smile. “If she wanted you rubbed out complete, it would have cost her a hundred. For this kind of job, to put a man outta action, we never charge more than twenty.”

  “Bargain rates,” Kerrigan muttered.

  It was quiet for some moments. And then the man was saying, “Look, mister, I got a record. I’m out on parole. Wanna gimme a break?”

  Kerrigan smiled dryly. “O.K.,” he said. He pointed to the doorway.

  “Thanks,” the man said. “Thanks a lot, mister.”

  Kerrigan watched him as he walked away, moving slowly and painfully, pausing in the doorway to offer a final gesture of gratitude, then limping out upon the loading platform and vanishing in the storm.

  Kerrigan looked down at the money folded in his hand.

  15

  DESPITE HIS anxiety for a showdown with Bella, he purposely delayed going home. For one thing, he wanted to be very calm when he faced her. Also, and more important, he wanted the discussion to be strictly private. On Wharf Street he entered a diner, ordered a heavy meal, took a few bites and pushed the plate aside. He sat there ordering countless cups of coffee and filling the ash tray with cigarette stubs. Then later he walked along Wharf through the storm, found a thirty-cent movie house, and bought a ticket.

  When he came out of the movie it was past midnight. The storm had slackened and now the rainfall was a steady, dull drone. He didn’t mind walking in the rain and his stride was somewhat casual as he walked north on Wharf Street. But later, on Vernon, the anxiety hit him again and he hurried his pace.

  Entering the house, he quickly checked all the rooms. Frank was nowhere around, Tom and Lola were asleep, and Bella’s room was empty. He went into the unlit parlor, took a chair near the window, and sat there in the dark waiting for Bella to come home.

  Some nights Bella came home very late. Maybe tonight she wouldn’t be coming home at all. Maybe she was on a bus or a train, telling herself she’d evened the score and it was a wise move now to get out of town. But while the thought drifted through his mind, he saw Bella walking across Vernon Street and approaching the house. She moved somewhat unsteadily. She wasn’t really drunk, but it was obvious she’d been drinking.

  He stood away from the window. The door opened and Bella came in and plumped herself on the sofa. In the darkness of the parlor she didn’t see him, but enough light came through the window so that he could watch what she was doing. Her handbag was open and she was taking out a pack of cigarettes. She put one in her mouth and then she searched for a match.

  Kerrigan spoke very softly. “Hello, Bella.”

  She let out a startled cry.

  “It’s only me,” he said. He flicked the wall switch, and the ceiling bulbs were lit.

  Bella sat stiffly, holding her breath as she stared at him. It seemed that her eyes were coming out of her face.

  Kerrigan moved toward her. He had a match book in his hand. He struck a match and applied the flame to her cigarette, but she didn’t inhale. He kept the flame there and finally she took a spasmodic drag, her body shaking as the smoke came out of her mouth.

  He blew out the match, dropped it into a tray. Then very slowly, as though he were performing a carefully rehearsed ceremony, he reached into his trousers pocket and took out the folded money, the two fives and the ten. He unfolded the bills and smoothed them between his fingers. Then he extended them slowly and held them in front of her bulging eyes.

  She was trying to look at something else, trying to stare at the carpet, a chair, the wall, anything at all, just so she wouldn’t be seeing the money. But although her head moved, her eyes were fastened on the money.

  “Here,” he said, offering her the money. “It’s yours.”

  He waited for her to take the bills. She kept her hands down, her fingers gripping the edge of the sofa. Her throat contracted as though she were trying to swallow something very thick and heavy in her throat.

  Then suddenly her shoulders sagged. She lowered her head. “Oh, my God,” she moaned. “Oh, my God.”

  Kerrigan placed the bills in the opened handbag. He said, “Don’t take it so hard. You haven’t lost anything. After all, you got your money back.”

  She looked at him. “Why don’t you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Knock my teeth out. Break my neck.”

  He shook his head. He said, “I think you’re hurt enough already.”

  She dragged at the cigarette. Then she leaned back heavily against the sofa pillow, gazing past him and saying dully, “How’d you get the money?”

  He shrugged. “I asked for it.”

  She went on gazing past him. “I should have known they’d louse things up.” For a long moment she was quiet. And then, as though she were very tired, she closed her eyes. “All right, tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing much. But they made a nice try. They came damn near earning their pay.”

  She looked at his hands. His knuckles were skinned, and she nodded slowly and said, “It musta been a nice little party.”

  “Yeah,” he said dryly, “it was a lot of fun.”

  “They get banged up much?”

  “Enough to make it a sad ending,” he said. “One of them is out of business for at least a month. The other one is out for keeps.”

  She took another drag at the cigarette. She didn’t say anything.

  He said, “Next time you hire a wrecking crew, don’t pay them in advance.”

  The smoke drifted very slowly from her lips. Her eyes followed the uncurling tendrils as she said, “It wasn’t me who paid them. And it wasn’t my idea to hire them.”

  He seized her shoulders. “What was the setup?”

  Her lips were locked tightly. She started to shake her head.

  “Cut that out,” he said. “You’ve started to tell me and you’re gonna finish.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But you will.” His grip on her shoulders was like a set of metal clamps. “I had a feeling it wasn’t your idea to begin with. It figures there was an agent in charge of this deal. It figures from every angle. There’s someone in this neighborhood who knows I’m looking for him. He knows what’s gonna happen when I find out who he is and get my hands on him. You check what I’m talkin’ about?”

  Bella blinked several times. Her mouth opened but no sound came through.

  “I’m talkin’ about my sister,” he said. “She killed herself because she was jumped and ruined and driven crazy. Whoever he is, he knows I’ll keep looking until I find him. So it stands to reason he don’t want me around. You check it now?”

  She stopped squirming. She stared at him.

  He said,
“The man is nervous. He’s scared. What he’d like most is to see me in a wooden box. But he’d probably settle for less, like a twenty-dollar deal to cripple me. To put me out of action so he’d be safe for a while. And that’s where you come in.”

  She shut her eyes tightly.

  He kept the tight hold on her shoulders. “The way it lines up,” he said, “you were used for sucker bait. The man knew you had it in for me. He appointed himself as a friendly adviser. Tells you there’s a way to even the score, and before you know what you’re doing, you give him the twenty dollars. Ain’t that how it happened?”

  She nodded dazedly.

  Kerrigan went on, “He hands the money to the hooligans. He tells them you’re the customer. That keeps his name out of it, just in case there’s a slip-up. Anyway, that’s what he thought. But you know his name and I’m waiting for you to open your mouth.”

  “No.” She choked on it. “Don’t make me tell.”

  “Come on,” he gritted. His hands put more pressure on her shoulders.

  She winced. His fingers burned into her flesh and there were pain and fear in her eyes. Yet it wasn’t at all like physical pain. And it seemed the fear was more for him than for herself.

  Then all at once there was nothing in her eyes. Her voice was toneless as she said, “It was Frank.”

  Then it was quiet in the parlor. But he had a feeling the room was moving. It was like a chamber on wheels going away from everything, falling off the edge of the world.

  He took his hands away from her shoulders. He turned away from her, and heard himself saying, “As if I didn’t know.”

  Bella had her head lowered. Her hands covered her face.