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

by David Goodis

“It ain’t no such thing,” Whitey said. He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “It’s just the way things are stacked up, that’s all. You mustn’t feel bad about it. Maybe all they’ll do is throw me in a cell.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” the old man said. He lifted his gaze from the floor and looked at Whitey. “Not even with fifty-to-one odds. Or make it a hundred-to-one and I still wouldn’t take it. That Thirty-seventh Precinct is a madhouse. It’s these race riots, getting worse and worse, and now the riots really score and a cop from the Thirty-seventh gets put in the cemetery. And that does it, man, that really does it. That flips the Captain’s lid, and I’m prone to say right now he’s just about ready for a strait jacket.”

  Whitey shrugged. “Maybe he’s wearing it already.”

  “No,” the old man said. “They don’t put strait jackets on police captains.” And then abruptly and somewhat frantically he gripped Whitey’s wrists. “Don’t go back there, Gene. Please. Don’t go back.”

  Whitey shrugged again. It was a slow shrug and it told the old man that Eugene Lindell was headed for the station house. The old man’s hands went limp and fell away from Whitey’s wrists. Whitey turned the doorknob and opened the door and walked out of the shack.

  6

  IT WAS like walking inside an overturned barrel that revolved slowly and wouldn’t let him get anywhere. There were no window lights and no lampposts, as though all electric bulbs were conspiring to put him in the dark and get him lost. It was the same with the sky. There was no moon at all. It was hiding behind thick clouds that wouldn’t allow the glow to come through. The sky was starless and pitch-black.

  The only light that showed was the yellow face of the City Hall clock, very high up there about a mile and a half to the north of the Hellhole. The hands pointed to one-forty-five. But he wasn’t interested in the time element. He wished that the lit-up face of the City Hall clock could throw a stronger light so he could see where he was going.

  He was really lost. There were too many intersecting alleys and narrow, twisting streets to confuse him and take him into more alleys. He was trying to find River Street, so that he could get his bearings and go on from there to Clayton and then to the station house. But in the darkness his sense of direction was confused. And the maze of alleys was like a circular stairway going down and putting him deeper and deeper into the Hellhole.

  One wrong turn had done it. When he’d walked out of the wooden shack he’d gone left instead of right, and after that it was right turn instead of left, then south instead of north, east instead of west. He might have used the City Hall clock as a point of reference, except that it wasn’t there all the time. It played tricks on him and vanished behind the tenement rooftops. Then it showed again and he’d use it for a while until there’d be a dead-end street or alley and he’d have to go back and start all over. Finally the clock was hidden altogether and he couldn’t see anything but black sky and black walls and the dark alleys that were taking him nowhere.

  It went on like that and it got him annoyed. Then very much annoyed. Then it struck him sort of funny. As though the Hellhole were using him to joke around with the law. The Hellhole was getting clever and cute with the Thirty-seventh District. Like saying to the Captain: This stupid bastard wants to give himself up, but you don’t get him that easy. We’ll let him outta here when we’re good and ready.

  Whitey laughed without sound. It was really as though the Hellhole were pulling the Captain’s leg. Or sticking in another needle. Ever so gently. To let the Captain know that law enforcement was not welcome in this neighborhood, that all honest cops were enemies and the dark alleys were friendly to all renegades. With extra hospitality for cop-killers. Nosirree, the Hellhole said to Captain Kinnard of the Thirty-seventh District, this is our boy Whitey and we won’t letcha have him. Not yet, anyway. But don’t worry, Captain, don’t get your bowels in an uproar, it ain’t even two o’clock and maybe you’ll have him before morning.

  It wasn’t anyone’s voice and yet Whitey could almost hear it talking. He began to have the feeling that a lot was going to happen before morning.

  The feeling grew in him and he tried to make it go away but it stayed there and went on growing. He was walking slowly down a very narrow alley and seeing the darkness ahead, just the darkness, nothing else. Or maybe there was something down there that he could see but didn’t want to see. Maybe he was trying not to look at it. He blinked hard and told himself it wasn’t really there.

  Then he blinked again and focused hard and he knew it was there.

  He saw the faint glow pouring thinly from a kitchen window, floating out across the alley and showing the color and the shape of the moving figure.

  Bright green. That was the cap. Black and purple. That was the plaid lumber jacket. The shape was very short and very wide, with extremely long arms.

  Hello, Whitey said without sound. Hello again.

  He stood motionless and saw the short wide man standing there in the back yard under the dimly lit kitchen window. The distance between himself and the man was some forty yards and he couldn’t see clearly what the man was doing. It seemed that the man wasn’t doing anything. Then Whitey noticed the tiny moving form at the man’s feet. It was a gray kitten lapping at the contents of a saucer.

  The glow from the window showed the short wide man stooping over to pet the kitten. The kitten went on with its meal and the man knelt beside it and seemed to be talking to it. Presently the kitten was finished with the meal and the man picked it up with one hand, fondled it with the other, held its furry face to his cheek to let it know it had a friend in this world. The kitten accepted the petting and Whitey could hear the sound of its contented meow. The man put it down and gently patted its head. It meowed again, wanting more petting. The man turned away and moved across the back yard under the glow from the kitchen window, opening the kitchen door and entering the house.

  Whitey moved automatically. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking as he walked down the alley toward the lighted window. He tried to tell himself it didn’t make sense to move in this direction, just as it hadn’t made sense to follow the man when he’d seen him earlier tonight on Skid Row. It just didn’t make sense at all.

  It had no connection with now. It was strictly a matter of past history. Something from ’way back there, seven years ago. There was no good reason for going back. And every damn good reason to stay away from it, not let it take him back.

  Check it, he said to himself. Stop walking and check it and forget about it. Let it rest where it is. For Christ’s sake, bury it, will you?

  But the lighted window said no. The lighted window was a magnet, pulling him closer. He moved on down the alley, his feet walking forward and his brain swimming backward through a sea of time. It was a dark sea, much darker than the alley. The tide was slow and there were no waves, just tiny ripples that murmured very softly. Telling him all about yesterday. Telling him that yesterday could never really be discarded, it was always a part of now. There was just no way to get rid of it. No way to push it aside or throw it into an ash can, or dig a hole and bury it. For all buried memories were nothing more than slow-motion boomerangs, taking their own sweet time to come back. This one had taken seven years.

  He went on down the alley and came to a loose-nailed fence with most of the posts missing. He gazed across the small back yard, seeing through the kitchen window a still-life painting of some empty plates and cups stacked on a sink. The background was faded gray wallpaper, torn here and there, some of the plaster showing. Then some life crept into the painting, but it wasn’t much, just one of the smaller residents of the Hellhole, a water roach moving slowly along the edge of the sink.

  He stood there waiting for more life to appear in the kitchen. Nothing appeared and there was no sound from inside the house. It was a small two-story wooden house, very old and with a don’t-care look about it. Typical Hellhole real estate. On either side it was separated from the adjoining dwellings by not m
ore than a few inches of empty air. In addition to the kitchen window there was the back door and one dark window on the second floor and then there was a very small cellar window with no glass in it, and he thought: They’re not living very high these days. Looks like business ain’t been so good.

  Just then someone came into the kitchen. It was the short wide man. He had taken off the bright-green cap and the lumber jacket and he stood there at the sink pouring himself a glass of water. He filled the glass to the brim, jerked it to his mouth, and drained it in one long gulp. Then he put down the glass, turned slowly so that Whitey saw him in profile, and began a meditative scratching along the top of his head.

  His head was completely bald. It glistened white and there were seams in it from stitched scars and it was like a polished volleyball. He had very small ears and the one that showed was somewhat mashed. His nose was badly mashed, almost completely disorganized, so that it was hardly a nose at all. His lips were very thick and the lower lip was puffed at the corner. Also, his jaw was out of line, as though it had been fractured more than once. It was hard to tell his age, but Whitey knew he was at least fifty.

  Whitey stood some fifteen feet away from the kitchen window, his hands resting on the back-yard fence, his eyes focused on the man in the kitchen, his lips saying without sound, Hello, Chop.

  And then someone else appeared in there. A big woman. She was very big. Really huge. Around five-eleven and weighing over three hundred. Built like a tree trunk, no shape at all except the straight-up-and-down of no breasts, no belly, no rear. She was in her middle thirties and looked about the same as she’d looked seven years ago. Same bobbed hair, with the neck shaved high and the mud-brown hair cut very close to the sides of her head. Same tiny eyes pushed into the fat meat of her face like tiny pins in a cushion. Same creases on her thick neck and along the sides of her big hooked nose. Same great big ugly girl named Bertha.

  Hello, Whitey said without sound. Hello, Bertha.

  He watched the two of them in there in the kitchen. They were talking. The window was closed and he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He saw Chop taking another drink of water, then moving to the side to make room for Bertha at the sink. Bertha turned on the faucet and started to wash the dishes. She washed them without soap and used her hand for a dishrag. Chop walked out of the kitchen and Bertha continued to wash the dishes. She paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and while she was lighting it another face appeared in profile in the window.

  It was a man wearing a bathrobe and smoking a cigar. The man was in his middle forties, sort of flabby and out of condition but not really unattractive. He was a six-footer and weighed around 190, and if it hadn’t been for the paunch it would have been a fairly nice build. He had all his hair and it was a thick crop, dark brown, parted on the side and flowing back in long loose waves. His features were pleasantly shaped and balanced and wholesomely masculine. The cigar looked very appropriate in his mouth. His appearance summed up was that of a medium-successful businessman.

  Whitey looked at the six-footer in there in the kitchen. Without sound Whitey said, Hello, Sharkey.

  Then his hands were tighter on the top of the wooden fence. He was waiting for another face to appear in the window. He told himself he’d seen three of them and that made it three fourths of what he’d come here to see. Or maybe the three he’d seen were nothing more than preliminaries leading to the windup. If that fourth face showed, it would really be the windup. And he’d paid a lot for his ringside seat. He’d paid plenty. The ticket of admission was a stack of calendars. Seven calendars.

  He went on waiting for the fourth face to appear in the window. And he said to himself: All you want is a look-see, that’s all, you just wanna get a glimpse of her.

  Just a glimpse. Just a chance to look at her again after all these years. He thought: What a chance, buddy, what a chance to let it hit you between the eyes and cut through you and eat your heart out. If you had one grain of brains you’d get the hell away from here.

  But he stayed there at the fence, grabbing at the chance, just as he’d grabbed at it when he’d seen Chop walking past the hash house on Skid Row; when he’d followed Chop down River Street, with his thoughts not on Chop, but only on Chop’s destination, the long-shot bet that wherever it was, whatever it was, she might be there and he could peer through a window and get a look at her.

  And while he waited, all other factors drifted away. He forgot where he was. The locale didn’t matter in the least. Instead of a kitchen window in a Hellhole dwelling it might be any old window in any old Main Line mansion. Or Irish castle. Or Chinese pagoda. It might be the eyepiece of a telescope aimed at the moon. He stood there focusing with his eyes burning hard like dry ice getting harder. With his mind pulled away from all current events involving the Skid Row bum named Whitey, the captain named Kinnard, the detective lieutenants named Pertnoy and Taggert, the old man named Jones Jarvis, who’d come out with the cosmic conclusion, “Every man has an ax to grind.”

  But cosmic conclusions and current events had no connection with the kitchen window. In the blackness of the night it was the only thing that showed, the only thing that mattered. It was the chance to get a glimpse of her.

  He went on waiting. The window showed Sharkey smoking his cigar and having a quiet discussion with Bertha. Then Sharkey walked out of the kitchen and Bertha resumed washing the dishes. She worked very slowly, and once she stopped to light another cigarette, then stopped again to scratch herself under her arms. Some minutes later she was finished with the dishes and finished with the cigarette. She threw the stub in the sink and reached up toward the wall switch.

  No, Whitey said without sound. Don’t put that light out.

  But Bertha was walking out of the kitchen and her thick finger flicked the switch. So then it was just an unlighted window that showed black nothing.

  Well, Whitey thought. That’s it. The show’s over. But you didn’t see what you came to see and you oughta get your money back. Or get a rain check and come back tomorrow night.

  But he knew there’d be no rain check for tomorrow night. By then he’d be in the grip of the law and locked up in a little room with barred windows. Or in a bed in a white room with his face all bandaged, a pulpy mess resulting from the two big fists of Captain Kinnard. Or maybe the Captain’s fists would take it all the way, and Pertnoy’s mention of a trip to the morgue would be no exaggeration.

  At any rate, there’d be no show tomorrow night. No second chance to visit this house and take a look through the kitchen window and get a glimpse of her.

  His brain came back to current events. This man here was just a Skid Row bum named Whitey, just a punching bag for the slugger named Kid Fate. So what the hell, he thought, it’s easier to take the slugging than to wait and think about it.

  He told himself to start walking and find his way back to the station house.

  He let his hands slide off the fence. He started to turn away and took one step going away and came to a rigid halt.

  The kitchen window was lighted again.

  He looked. He saw her.

  He saw a woman in her late twenties. She was about five-four and very slim, almost skinny except for the sinuous lines that twisted and coiled, flowing warm-thin-sirupy under gray-green velvet that matched the color of her eyes. Her hair was a shade lighter than bronze and she had it brushed straight back, covering her ears. Her features were thin and her skin was pale and she was certainly not pretty. But it was an exciting face. It was terribly exciting because it radiated something that a man couldn’t see with his eyes but could definitely feel in his bloodstream.

  Hello, he said without sound. Hello, Celia.

  He stood there sinking into yesterday, going down deeper and deeper and finally arriving ’way down there at the very beginning. . . .

  *

  The beginning was the orphanage, the day he’d won first prize in the singing contest. Someone told someone about how this kid could sing. Then that s
omeone told someone else. Eventually some papers were signed and his legal guardian was a third-rate orchestra leader who paid him thirty-five a week. He was seventeen at the time and had the idea he was a very lucky boy, getting all that money for merely doing what he enjoyed doing most of all. No matter what songs they gave him to sing, he sang with gladness and fervor and a certain rapture that really melted them. It finally melted the orchestra leader, who told him he was too good for this league and belonged up there in the big time. The orchestra leader gave up the orchestra and became the personal manager of Gene Lindell.

  When Gene Lindell was twenty-three, he was making around four hundred a week.

  A few years later Gene Lindell was making close to a thousand a week and they were saying he’d soon hit the gold mine, the dazzling bonanza of naming his own price. Of course, the big thing was his voice, but his looks had a lot to do with it, the females really went for his looks. They went for his small lean frame, which was somehow more of a nerve-tingler than the muscle-bound chunks of aggressive male, the dime-a-dozen baritones with too much oil in their hair and in their smiles. There was no oil in Gene’s pale-gold hair, and his smile was as pure and natural as a sunny morning. It was the kind of smile that told them he was the genuine material, everything coming from the heart. So they couldn’t just say he was “cute” or “nifty” or “keen.” They really couldn’t say anything; all they could do was sigh and want to touch him and tenderly take his head to their bosoms, to mother him. There were thousands upon thousands of them wanting to do that, and some of them put it in writing in their fan letters. There were some who took it further than sending a fan letter, and managed to make physical contact, and these included certain ladies from the Broadway stage, from café society and horsey-set society, from the model agencies and small-town beauty contests. And there were a few who were really expert in their line, veteran professionals from high-priced call houses, the hundred-dollar-a-session ladies who never gave it for free, but when Gene pulled out his wallet they wouldn’t hear of such a thing. You wonderful boy, they said, and walked out very happy, as though he’d just given them a gift they’d never forget.