David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (12 page)

Parry turned the pages and arrived at the woman’s section. Somebody was telling the women how to cook something. He remembered she hated to cook. They ate out most of the time. There were nights when he came home very tired and he cringed at the thought of going out and standing in line at the popular and expensive restaurants she liked, and how he wished she would learn to cook, because even on the few nights when they ate at home she gave him uncooked food, cold cuts or canned fish and the only thing hot was the coffee. Once he tried to talk to her about it and she started to yell. She took the percolator and poured the coffee all over the floor.

He remembered she took two thirds, more than two thirds of the thirty-five a week he made. He remembered she hardly ever smiled at him. When she did smile it wasn’t really a smile, it was because she was amused at something. She never told him what amused her. And things that amused her didn’t amuse him. He remembered once they were walking down the street and there was a traffic jam and one car bumped into another and they locked bumpers. She said, “Good.” She started to laugh. He tried to see something funny in it. He tried to laugh. He couldn’t laugh.

Once they were walking toward the apartment house and a delivery boy passed them on a bicycle, with the wire tray heaped with packages on the handle bars. The bicycle hit a bump and turned over. The boy fell on his face and the packages went flying all over the street. The boy had a cut on his face and he was sitting there in the street and putting a handkerchief to the blood on his face. She started to laugh. He asked her what she was laughing at. She didn’t answer. She kept on laughing.

He was beginning to feel tired again. The pain in his face was dull now, and he was getting accustomed to it. But as he sat there measuring the pain he gradually realized there was something else besides the pain. Like little feathers under the bandage.
That was the itch Coley had talked about. The healing process, the mending was under way. He welcomed the itch. He told it to get worse. He turned the pages of the newspaper and saw nothing to catch his interest, and besides he was very tired. He pushed the newspaper aside and let his head go back against the pillow. He closed his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t sleep, knowing he would just stay there, resting. Feeling the pain, feeling the itch under the bandage, flowing into the pain, then crawling under the pain. Once he opened his eyes and looked toward the window. There was going to be rain in San Francisco. The sky was a heavy, muttering grey, getting ready to let loose. He closed his eyes again. He didn’t care if it rained. He was here, he was in here, he was all right in here. And in less than five days he would be out of here and he would be going away with his new face and everything would be all right. And the buzzer was sounding and everything would be all right. And the buzzer was sounding.

He sat up.

The buzzer was sounding again. Then it stopped. He sat there waiting. It sounded again. It was a needle going into him. And then it stopped.

He waited. He wondered who it was down there. He took himself off the bed and walked to the window and waited there. Then he saw someone going away from the apartment house and walking across the street, walking toward the Studebaker that was parked on the other side of the street. And it was the man who had given him the lift. It was Studebaker.

It was really Studebaker, with different clothes, new clothes and no hat, and really Studebaker. And Studebaker was looking for him. Studebaker alone. No police. Parry couldn’t get that, couldn’t get anywhere near it.

The sky gave way. Rain came down.

Parry stood there at the window and watched Studebaker getting into the car. The car crawled, jolted, went forward, went on down to the corner and made a turn. Parry began to quiver. Studebaker was going to the police. But why now? Why not before? Why now? If Studebaker hadn’t talked to the police until now, why was he going to see them now?

The rain came down hard and steadily. Parry went away from the window, went toward the bed, then stopped and went toward
the dresser and stood before the dresser, looking in the mirror. He decided to take off the bandage and get out of the apartment before Studebaker came back with the police. He brought his hands to his face and his fingers came against the adhesive. He tugged at the adhesive. A tremendous burst of pain shot across his face and went leaping through his head. His fingers came away from the adhesive. He told himself that he mustn’t be afraid of the pain. He must try again. He must get out of here, and he couldn’t afford to be wearing the bandage when he went out. He got his fingers on the adhesive and once more he tugged at it and once more the pain slashed away at him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stand any more of it. He decided to stay here and let them come and get him. He went into the living room and seated himself on the sofa and looked at the floor. He sat there for a while, and then he got up and went into the bedroom and got the cigarette holder. He returned to the living room and picked up a pack of cigarettes.

He sat there looking at the floor and smoking cigarettes. He smoked nine cigarettes in succession. He looked at the stubs in the ash tray. He counted them, saw them dead there in the heaped ashes. Then he wondered how long it would take until the police arrived. He wondered how long it would be until he was dead, because this time he wouldn’t be going back to a cell. This time they had him on a charge that would mean the death sentence. He looked at the window and saw the thick rain coming out of the thick grey sky, the broken sky. He decided to take a run at the window and go through the glass and finish the whole thing. He took a step toward the window and then stopped and turned his back to the window and looked at the wall. He stood there without moving for almost a full hour. He was going back and taking chunks out of his life and holding them up to examine them. The young and bright yellow days in the hot sun of Maricopa, always bright yellow in every season. The wide and white roads going north from Arizona. The grey and violet of San Francisco. The grey and the heat of the stock room, and the days and nights of nothing, the years of nothing. And the cage in the investment security house, and the stiff white collars of the executives, stiff and newly white every day, and their faces every day, and their voices
every day. And the paper, the plain white paper, the pink paper, the pale-green paper, the paper ruled violet and green and black in small ledgers and larger ledgers and immense ledgers. And the faces. The faces of statisticians who made forty-five a week, and customers’ men who sometimes made a hundred and a half and sometimes made nothing. And the executives who made fifteen and twenty and thirty thousand a year, and the customers who sat there or stood there and watched the board. The customers, and some of them could walk out of that place and get on their yachts and go out across thousands of miles of water, getting up in the morning when they felt like getting up, fishing or swimming around their grand white yachts, alone out there on the water. And in the evening they would be wearing emerald studs in their shirtfronts with white formal jackets and black tropical worsted trousers with satin black and gleaming down the sides, down to their gleaming black patent-leather shoes as they danced in the small ballrooms of their yachts with tall thin women with bared shoulders, dripping organdie from their tall thin bodies as they danced or held delicate glasses of champagne in their thin, delicate fingers. And when these customers came back to the investment security house they came in their gleaming black limousines and they came in very much tanned and smiling and he would be there in his cage, looking at them, thinking it was a pity such fortunate people had to eventually die, because it was really worthwhile for them to live on and on, they had so much to live for, they had so many things to enjoy. He liked to see them coming in wearing their expensive clothes, smoking their expensive cigars, talking with their expensive voices. He was so very glad when they came in, when they stood where he could see them, because he got a lift just looking at them. There were times when he wished he could talk to them, when he wished he had the nerve to start a conversation with one of them. If he could only have a talk with one of them so he could hear all about the wonderful things, the wonderful houses they lived in, the wonderful trips they made, the wonderful wonderful things they did. As he looked at them, as he thought of the lives they led, the luxuries they enjoyed, he decided that if he used his head and had some luck he might be able to climb up toward where they were. That was
all it really was, a matter of using his head and having a little luck, and he decided to get started. And that was about the time when he decided to take the correspondence course in statistics.

He went into the living room and put another cigarette in the holder. He put himself on the sofa and rested there, sucking at the holder. He tried to build a mental microscope to deal with these tiny things he had on the table of his mind. He came to a point that became a wall and he couldn’t slide under or climb over. He had to stay there. Now he was getting tired again. He took the stub out of the holder, crushed it in a tray. He let his head go back against the softness of the sofa. His eyes closed and the thoughts circled his brain, circled more slowly, and slowly, and then he was asleep.

The door opening pulled him away from sleep. He sat up and looked at her. She was closing the door. Her arms were heaped with packages. Now she came toward him. She said, “How do you feel?”

He nodded.

“Everything all right?”

He nodded.

She said, “Punctual, am I not? It’s exactly six. And now we’ll have some dinner. Feel hungry?”

He nodded.

She went into the kitchen. He could hear her moving around in there. He waited on the sofa, waited for dinner, waited for the buzzer to sound again, waited for Studebaker to come up with the police.

The dinner tasted fine, even though it went in through the glass straw. There was beef broth, there was the tan cream of a vegetable-beef stew, there was a butterscotch pudding thinned down to liquid. He gestured his willingness to help her with the dishes. She told him to go into the other room and play some records. He went in and got a Basie going under the needle. It was
Sent For You Yesterday And Here You Come Today
. And Rushing was beginning to yell his heart out when the telephone rang.

Parry stood up. He looked at the telephone. It rang again just as Rushing repeated his cry that the moon looked lonely. She
came out of the kitchen, looked at the phone, looked at Parry. She took a step toward the phone. It rang again. Parry lifted the needle from the record.

She looked at Parry as the phone rang again. She said, “There’s nothing to worry about. I know who it is.”

She picked up the phone.

“Hello? Oh, yes, hello, yes—yes?—oh, I’ve just had dinner—no, thanks anyway—well—well—all right, when can I expect you?—all right—right.”

She put down the phone and looked at Parry. She said, “That was Bob Rapf. He’ll be here in an hour.”

P
ARRY RAISED
his arms to indicate that he did not understand.

She said, “It’ll be all right. You stay in the bedroom. He won’t know you’re here.”

Parry gestured toward the bedroom, then raised his arms again.

She said, “He won’t look in the bedroom.”

Parry lowered his head and shook it slowly.

“Please don’t worry about it,” she said. He looked up. She was smiling at him.

He shrugged.

She went back in the kitchen. When she was finished with the dishes she came in and straightened the living room. As she emptied an ash tray she said, “I know you think it’s a mistake, letting him come here. But it can’t be any other way. I’ve known him for so long, I’ve been seeing so much of him lately, it’s got to a point where I have a definite hold on him. I wish it wasn’t that way. But as long as it is that way, I’ve got to go along with it. I know what happens to him when I refuse to see him. I wish I knew some way to break it without ripping him apart. But there doesn’t seem to be any way to break it. All I can do is wait for it to die out.”

She emptied another ash tray. She looked at him and saw that he was looking at her.

She said, “It’s not physical. It never was. It never will be. It can’t be. What he likes about me is the things I say, and the things he thinks I think about, the feelings he thinks I have. All he wants to do is be with me and talk to me and look at me and get a picture of the things I’m thinking. Even when I have nothing to say he just likes to be there with me. I don’t know why I started it. I guess perhaps I started it because I felt sorry for him. He had no one to really be with.”

All the ash trays were now emptied into one big tray. She took the tray into the kitchen. Then she came out, she said, “I guess that’s what it was. I was sorry for him. I still feel sorry for him.
But I can’t let it go on much further. Have you ever seen him?”

Parry shook his head.

“He’s a good-looking man,” she said. “He’s thirty-nine now, but he looks older. You can’t see the grey in his hair because he’s blond, but you can see the lines in his face. He has mild blue eyes, and that’s the way all of him is, very mild, even though he’s built heavy. And he’s not very tall. He’s a draftsman and he works at a shipyard. He likes expensive clothes. He likes to spend money. He and Madge had a baby but it died when it was less than a year old. Did she ever tell you about that?”

He nodded.

“Did she ever tell you about him?”

He nodded.

“I imagine she must have painted him badly. She did that when she spoke to me about him. That was after she knew I was seeing him. She didn’t try to block it. She just struck up a close friendship with me, much closer than I liked, and she began to tell me things about him. She wasn’t very clever about it, for instance she said he was cheap and of course she should have known that I knew differently. She said he was selfish and he isn’t that way at all. What she wanted me to do was give him walking papers, not because she wanted him back, but because she wanted him to lose me. She still wants that. She wants him to lose everything. She keeps telling me I’d be doing myself a big favor if I closed the door on him.”

Parry nodded.

“You mean you agree with her?”

He shook his head.

“Oh, you mean she told you the same thing. I suppose she tells everyone that. I can’t understand her. She ought to realize she’ll never be happy as long as she keeps interfering with him. Or maybe that’s the only thing that gives her happiness. Interfering.”

The buzzer sounded.

She frowned. “That can’t be Bob. Much too early.”

Parry stood up. It had to be Studebaker. And the police.

She said, “Go in the bedroom. I’ll find out who it is.”

Parry went into the bedroom and closed the door. He sat on the
edge of the bed and he was hitting the joints of his fingers together. The itching under the bandage was beginning to grow, to spread, and he wanted to get at it. He sat there, hitting the joints of his fingers together. He heard a door opening. He heard voices and they were both feminine, and one of them belonged to Madge Rapf.

“But that’s ridiculous,” Irene was saying.

“Honey, honey, you’ve got to help me. I’m scared out of my wits,” Madge said.

“Ridiculous.”

“Why is it ridiculous?” Madge said. “Look what he did to George Fellsinger. You surely read about it. Why, he went up there and—it gives me the shakes just to think of it. And if he did that to George he’ll do it to me. He’s got it in for me, you know that. You’ve got to let me stay here, honey. Let me hide here. Oh, let, let me——”

“Want a drink?”

“Yes, please honey, let me have a drink. Oh, my God, I’m in terrible shape. I haven’t been able to eat a thing all day.”

“Can I fix you something?” Irene said.

“No, I’m not hungry. How can I be hungry? He’s going to kill me. He’s going to look me up and when he finds me he’ll—oh, God Almighty, what am I going to do?”

“Pull yourself together,” Irene said. “They’ll catch him.”

“They haven’t caught him yet. Listen, honey, as long as they haven’t caught him I’ve got to hide. It was my testimony that sent him up. I tell you I’m so scared I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

“Sit down, Madge. Sit down and relax. You can’t let yourself go to pieces like this.”

Parry heard a series of dragging, grinding sobs.

Between the sobs, Madge was saying, “Let me stay here.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I—I fail to see the necessity of it.”

“Oh, I see. You don’t want to be put out.”

“It isn’t that, Madge. Really, it isn’t.”

“Well, what is it, then? This place is big enough to hold two. It’s——”

“It’s this—I’m expecting Bob here any minute.”

“
All right, I’ll hide. I’ll go in the bedroom.”

“No,” Irene said. “Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s—it’s sort of cheap. You have nothing to hide. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Madge said. “And then of course there’s another way.” Now she sounded as if she was talking between puffs at a cigarette. “Of course, there’s a chance he’d walk into the bedroom.”

“Do you think he does that?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know, why do you insinuate? I think we ought to understand each other, Madge. You can’t make statements like that and expect me to take it without a whimper. You’ve said things on that order before, little needles here and there and every now and then, and I tried to think you didn’t mean anything by it. But this time the needle’s gone in just a bit deeper. And I don’t like it. I want you to know I don’t like it.”

“Honey, you needn’t get all excited. It wouldn’t make any difference to me even if——”

“Please, Madge.”

“Let me stay here, honey. I tell you I’m afraid to go out of here alone.”

“This is silly.”

“All right, it’s silly, but that’s the way it is with me and what can I do about it? For God’s sake, honey, try to understand what a fix I’m in. You’ve got to let me stay here or else you’ve got to stay with me wherever I go. Oh, come on, honey, let’s pack up——”

The buzzer sounded.

“You better go now, Madge.”

“For God’s sake——”

“Look, Madge. You go down the hall. Wait there until you hear the door closing. Then leave.”

The buzzer sounded.

“But I’m afraid——”

“Madge, I don’t want you to be here when he comes in.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s not start that again.”

The buzzer sounded.

Parry stood up and looked at the window. He wondered if the window offered a way of reaching the fire escape. He knew it was Studebaker down there. It wasn’t Bob Rapf. It was Studebaker. And the police.

“Go on, Madge. Go now.”

“Oh, I’m so afraid.”

“Go now, Madge.”

The buzzer sounded.

“I won’t go. I won’t go out alone. I can’t. Parry will find me. I know he’ll find me. Oh, God, I’m so terribly afraid. Please, Irene—oh, honey, why won’t you help me?”

The buzzer sounded and kept sounding.

“Look, Madge——”

“No, I won’t go. No—I won’t leave here alone.” Madge was sobbing again, the grinding dragging sobs that dragged along with the buzzer as it kept sounding.

“All right, Madge. I’m going to let him come up.”

The buzzer stopped sounding.

Parry walked toward the window, walked softly, slowly, came to the window and looked through the wet glass, wet on the other side where the rain was hitting. The rain was rapid and thick, racing down from the broken sky, dark grey now and mottled dark yellow and fading blue. Parry put his fingers on the window handles and started to bring pressure. The window wouldn’t give. He stepped away from the window and watched the rain running down, oblique toward him, coming against the glass and washing down.

He heard the door opening.

He heard a man saying, “For Christ’s sake——”

He heard Madge saying, “Hello, Bob.”

He heard the man saying, “What takes place here?”

“Raining hard, Bob?” It was Irene.

“Pouring,” Bob said. “But what I want to know is what takes place.”

“Nothing very special,” Irene said.

“I don’t go for these deals,” Bob said. “This looks as if it’s been arranged.”

“Why should anything be arranged?” Irene said.

“I don’t know,” Bob said. “For Christ’s sake, Madge, what’s wrong with you?”

“
I’m scared,” Madge said. “Honey, should I tell him?”

“Tell me what?” Bob had a mild voice, trying to get away from mildness.

“Sure,” Irene said. “Go on and tell him.”

Madge said, “It’s Vincent Parry. I’m scared he’ll find me. He’ll kill me.”

“If he does,” Bob said, “I’ll look him up and shake his hand.”

Madge let out a howl.

“Bob, that wasn’t necessary,” Irene said.

“I can’t stand it,” Madge sobbed. “I can’t stand it any more.”

“Neither can I,” Bob said. “Why don’t you leave people alone? Why do you go around finding excuses to come up here? Irene doesn’t want you here. Nobody wants you. Because you’re a pest. You’re not satisfied unless you’re bothering people. You got on your family’s nerves, you got on my nerves, you get on everybody’s nerves. Why don’t you wise up already?”

“Do you know what you are?” Madge said. “You’re a hound. You have no feeling.”

“No feeling for you,” Bob said. “No feeling at all, except I’m annoyed whenever I see you.”

“You married me,” Madge said. “You’re still married to me. Don’t forget that.”

“How can I forget it?” Bob said. “You see these lines on my face? They’re anniversary presents. Irene, will you do me a favor? Will you ask her to please leave?”

“I won’t go out of here alone,” Madge said.

“She thinks Parry’s looking for her. That’s all he’s got to do, look for her. Listen, Madge, if there’s anyone Parry wants to avoid more than the police, it’s you.” Bob’s voice was getting louder. “You’re the last person he wants to kill. You’re the last person he wants to see. And you know why. And you know I know why.”

“What kind of a riddle is this?” Irene said.

“She pestered him,” Bob said. “She kept pestering him until she had a hold on him. That’s why he killed Gert.”

“You’re a liar,” Madge said. “He killed Gert because he hated her. And that’s why he’ll kill me. He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Bob said. “Nobody hates you. You’re not the type that makes people hate. You only make people annoyed. He didn’t know he was annoyed. He didn’t have the brains
to see it. He was ignorant and he’s still ignorant. If he wasn’t ignorant he wouldn’t have killed Fellsinger. He wouldn’t have come to San Francisco in the first place. Now it’s a cinch they’ll give him the chair.”

“That’s what makes me scared,” Madge said. “He knows he’s going to get the chair. He knows he has nothing to lose now. When it gets like this they go out of their mind. They don’t care what they do. That’s why I’m afraid to be alone. He’ll find me. He’ll look for me until he finds me.”

“He won’t look for you,” Bob said. “I know how it is with him.”

“How is it with him?” Irene said.

“It’s a matter of psychoanalysis,” Bob said. “The power of suggestion, and a bit of the identification process. Like this—she managed to get a hold on him, and she increased that hold to the point where he thought he wanted her more than anything else. Because he was weak and ignorant, he looked for the easiest way to get rid of Gert. He thought the easiest way was murder. Now he identifies her with trouble. He’ll stay away from her.”

“What do you know about psychoanalysis?” Madge said. “What do you know about these things? You never had any brains yourself. All you know is T squares and drawing boards and you don’t even know much about that. What are you? You’re nothing.”

“Yes, I know that,” Bob said. “We’ve been through that before. A couple hundred thousand times. A couple hundred thousand years ago, when I was a monkey and I didn’t know that the only way to stop hearing that voice of yours was to walk so far away that I wouldn’t be able to hear it.”

“I could say plenty,” Madge said.

“That’s very true,” Bob said. “Your mouth is the greatest piece of machinery I’ve ever seen. Even if Parry is already out of his mind he’ll have enough sense to stay away from that mouth of yours. You’d not only talk him out of killing you, you’d talk him into taking up with you again.”

“You’re a dirty liar,” Madge said. “He never had anything to do with me.”

“And Santa Claus has nothing to do with Christmas,” Bob said. “Listen, Madge, I got out of kindergarten a long time ago. And
I only sleep eight hours a day. The rest of the time my eyes are wide open. And my hearing is perfect. Put it together and what have you got?”

“Either you’re lying,” Madge said, “or someone was lying to you.”

“Gert wasn’t a liar,” Bob said. “She was many other things but she wasn’t a liar.”

“She lied,” Madge said. “She lied, she lied——”

“Every word she said was God’s honest truth,” Bob said. “And don’t sit there with your eyes bulging out as if you can’t make head or tail of it. Will you deny that he went to your apartment?”