David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (60 page)

“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.

D
ESPITE 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.

“Well,” he said, “it adds up. The twenty dollars was the one thing he needed. He never has a nickel in his pockets.”

She spoke in a broken whisper. “I should have guessed what was in his mind. But I couldn’t think straight. I was half crazy. Or maybe crazy all the way. I just wanted to see you get hurt.”

“He knew that,” Kerrigan said. “He knew it wouldn’t be no trouble to sell you a bill of goods.”

She was quiet for some moments. And then, in a lower whisper, “I came near spending more than the twenty.”

“Did he ask for more?”

“
He wanted me to spend a hundred.”

He turned and looked at her. “Why didn’t you?”

Bella stared at the carpet. “I didn’t have it.”

“Did he tell you what a hundred would buy?”

“He said it would put you in a grave.”

Kerrigan breathed in slowly. He thought, This is worse than a grave, worse than hell.

Then gradually his mouth hardened. His arms were stiff at his sides. “All right,” he said. “Where is he?”

She raised her head. She looked at him and saw something in his eyes that made her go cold.

“You don’t hafta tell me,” he said. “I’ll find him.”

He moved toward the door. His hand was on the doorknob when Bella leaped from the sofa, ran to him, and grabbed his arms.

“No,” she gasped. “No, don’t.”

“Let go.”

“Please don’t,” she begged. “Stay here for a while. Think it over.”

He tried to pull away from her. “I said let go.”

She was using all her strength to drag him away from the door. “I won’t letcha,” she said. “You’ll only do something you’ll be sorry for.”

Her grip was like iron. Now she had her arms wrapped around his middle and he could hardly breathe. “Goddamn you,” he wheezed. “You gonna let go?”

“No,” she said. “You gotta listen.”

“I’ve listened enough. I’ve heard all I need to know.”

“You know what’ll happen if you go out that door?”

Instead of answering, he gave her a vicious jab with his elbow. It caught her in the side and she groaned. But she wouldn’t release her hold on him. He jabbed her again as she went on dragging him backward. She grunted and held him more tightly. It was as though she wanted him to keep jabbing her, to take it out on her.

“If you don’t let go,” he hissed, “you’re gonna get hurt.”

“Go ahead and hurt me. You got both arms free.”

“You’re askin’ for grief.”

Her breath came in grinding sobs. “I’m askin’ you to listen, that’s
all. Just listen to me. I want you to go in your room and pack your things. And then I’ll walk you to the streetcar. You’ll take that ride uptown. And you’ll stay there. With her.”

His arms fell limply at his sides.

Bella relaxed her hold just a little. “Will you do it?”

He was looking at the door. He didn’t say anything.

“Please do it,” Bella said. “Go to her and live with her and never come back here. Don’t even use the phone. Or write. Just forget about all this. Forget you ever lived in this house.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Sure it’s easy. You said so yourself. Just a matter of spending the carfare.” Her voice was torn with a sob. “Fifteen cents.”

“That’s cheap enough,” he said. “Maybe it’s too cheap. I think it costs more than that to break off all connections.”

Then slowly, gently, he took hold of her wrists, he unfastened her arms from around his middle. She didn’t look at him as she stepped away, giving him an unimpeded path to the door. But as
she heard the sound of the doorknob turning, she made one last try to hold him back, calling on the only power that could stop him now, moaning, “Dear God, don’t let him do it.”

But the door was already open. Bella sank to her knees, weeping without sound. Through the window she saw him as he stepped down off the doorstep. His face was like something carved from rock, a profile of hardened whiteness, very white against the darkness of the street. Then he was crossing Vernon and she saw the route he was taking. He moved along a diagonal path aiming at a foggy yellow glow in the distance, the window of Dugan’s Den.

A
S HE
entered the taproom he heard voices and saw faces but everything was a blur that didn’t seem real and had no meaning. His eyes were lenses going past the faces and searching for Frank. But Frank wasn’t there. He told himself to stand near the door and wait. And just then someone yelled, “Come join the party.”

It was the voice of the skinny hag, Dora. She sat with several others at a couple of tables pushed together for what seemed like a celebration. Kerrigan focused on the drinkers. Dora was seated between Mooney and Nick Andros. The other chairs were occupied by the humpbacked wino and Newton Channing. Next to Channing there was an empty chair and the person who’d been sitting on it was prone on the floor, face down and out cold. He looked at the sleeper and saw the orange hair and shapeless figure of Dora’s friend Frieda.

For some moments he stood there gazing down at Frieda. She had one arm outstretched and he saw something that glittered on her finger. It was a very large green stone and he didn’t need to be told it was artificial.

Dora said, “It cost a goddamn fortune.” She reached across the table to nudge Channing’s arm. “Go on, tell him how much it cost.”

“Three-ninety-five,” Channing said.

“You hear?” Dora screeched at Kerrigan. Then again she nudged Channing. “Now tell him what it’s for. Tell him why we’re celebrating.”

“Gladly,” Channing said. He stood up ceremoniously. He was wearing a clean white shirt and a straw-colored linen suit. His face was solemn as he bowed to the sleeping woman on the floor. Then he bowed to Kerrigan and said, “Welcome to our little gathering. It’s an engagement party.”

“You’re goddamn right it is,” Dora hollered. She reached through a maze of bottles and glasses and found a water glass containing gin. Lifting the glass, she tried to rise for a toast and couldn’t make it to her feet. She leaned heavily against Mooney,
spilling some gin on his shoulder as she pronounced a toast for all the world to hear:

“The yellow moon may kiss the sky,

The bees may kiss the butterfly,

The morning dew may kiss the grass,

And you, my friends—”

“Knock it off,” Nick Andros cut in. He pointed to the empty chair and shouted to Kerrigan, “Come on and sit down and have a drink.”

Kerrigan didn’t move. “I’m looking for my brother,” he said. “Anyone here seen my brother?”

“The hell with your brother,” Nick said.

“The hell with everybody,” Dora yelled. “The yellow moon may kiss the sky—”

“Will you kindly shut up?” Nick requested. He kept beckoning Kerrigan to take the empty chair.

Kerrigan looked at Mooney. “You seen him?”

Mooney shook his head slowly. His eyes were half closed and he looked drunk. But he was studying Kerrigan’s face and gradually his mouth opened, his eyes widened, and he sat up straight and stiffly. He tried not to take it further than that, but his hands were lifted and then came down hard on the table and a bottle fell off the edge and crashed to the floor. At the table all talk was stopped. The only sound in the room was the squeaky tune coming from behind the bar. Kerrigan looked in that direction and saw Dugan standing with his arms folded, his eyes closed, humming the melody that took him away from Vernon Street.

Moving toward the bar, Kerrigan said, “Hey, Dugan.”

Dugan opened his eyes. The humming slowed down just a little.

“My brother been here?” Kerrigan asked.

Dugan shook his head. Then his eyes were closed again and he picked up the tempo of the tune.

A hand touched Kerrigan’s arm. He turned and saw Mooney. The sign painter’s face was expressionless.

“Is this what I think it is?” Mooney asked quietly.

Kerrigan pulled his arm away from Mooney’s hand. “Go back to the table.”

Mooney didn’t move. He said, “Why don’t you tell me?”

“It don’t concern you.” But then he remembered the water-color portrait in Mooney’s room. He gazed past Mooney and said, “Well, I guess you got a right to know. I’ve been putting some facts together and finally got the answer.”

Mooney just stood there and waited.

Kerrigan closed his eyes for a moment. He heard himself saying, “The creep who jumped my sister was her own brother.”

“No,” Mooney said. “Don’t tell me that. You can’t tell me that.”

“But I am telling you.”

“You know what you’re saying?”

Kerrigan nodded.

“You sure?” Mooney’s voice quivered just a little. “You absolutely sure?”

“I got it all summed up,” Kerrigan said. “It checks.”

“You have proof?”

“I know what I need to know. That’s enough.” He looked down at his hands. His fingers were distended, bent stiffly, like claws.

Mooney said, “We got some hundred proof on the table. I’ll fix you a double shot.”

“No,” Kerrigan said. “I don’t want that. All I want is to see him walking in here.”

“Now look, Bill—”

But Kerrigan wasn’t looking or listening. He wasn’t feeling the urgent grip that Mooney put on his arms. He spoke in a choked whisper, saying, “Gonna wait here for him. He’ll show. And when he does—”

“Bill, for God’s sake!”

“Gonna put him where he put her. Gonna put him in a casket.”

And then again everything was a blur. He heard a jumble of noises coming from the table where Nick Andros was telling Dora to shut up and Newton Channing laughed lightly at some comment from the humpbacked wino. From behind the bar the humming sound of Dugan’s tune provided vague background music for the clinking of glasses and the drinkers’ voices. It went on and on like that, with Mooney’s voice begging
him to come to the table and have the double shot, and his own voice telling Mooney to leave him alone. Then suddenly he heard a sound that wasn’t glass on glass or glass on tabletop or anyone’s spoken words. It was the sound of the door as someone came in from the street.

He turned his head and saw his brother.

He heard himself making a noise that was like air coming out from a collapsed balloon.

And after that there was no sound at all. Not even from Dugan.

The quiet stretched as a rubber band stretches and finally can’t stretch any more and the fibers split apart. In that instant, as he moved, he sensed Mooney’s hands trying to hold him back and his arm was a scythe making contact with the sign painter’s ribs.

Mooney sailed halfway across the room, came up against a table, sailed over
it, and took a chair with him as he went to the floor. Then Mooney tried to get up and he couldn’t get up. He was resting on his side with all the breath knocked out of his body. He saw Kerrigan lunging at Frank, and Kerrigan’s hands taking hold of Frank’s throat.

“I can’t let you live,” Kerrigan said. “I can’t.”

Frank’s eyes bulged. His face was getting blue.

“Your own sister,” Kerrigan said. “You ruined your own sister.” And then, to everyone in the room, to every unseen face beyond the room, “How can I let him live?”

He squeezed harder. There was a gurgling noise. But it wasn’t coming from Frank. It came from his own throat, as though he were crushing his own flesh, stopping the flow of his own blood. He told himself to close his eyes, he didn’t want to watch what he was doing. But his eyes wouldn’t close and he was seeing the convulsive movement of Frank’s gaping mouth. He realized that Frank was trying to tell him something.

His fingers reduced the pressure. He heard Frank gasping, “I didn’t do it.”

He released the hold. Frank was on his knees, trying to cough, trying to talk, making gagging sounds that gradually gave way to sighs.

“Talk,” Kerrigan gritted. “Talk fast.”

“
I didn’t do it,” Frank repeated. “I swear I didn’t.”

For some moments there was no sound in the room. Yet in the stillness there was the feeling of something racing through the air, whirling around and around to turn everything upside down.

Frank was lifting himself from the floor. He staggered sideways and leaned heavily against the bar. His eyes were shut tightly and he had his knuckles pressed against his temples.

“You gonna talk?” Kerrigan demanded.

But Frank didn’t hear. He seemed to be alone with himself. Then gradually his eyes opened and he was staring up at the ceiling. His hands were lowered, his arms loose at his sides. He spoke to whatever he saw there on the ceiling. “It’s straight now,” he whispered. “I finally got it straight.”

Then it was quiet again. Kerrigan had his mouth open but he couldn’t speak. He was trying to get hold of his thoughts, the hollow thoughts that wouldn’t add and wouldn’t fit and had him trapped somewhere between icy rage and the misty abyss of puzzlement.

And finally he heard Frank saying, “It comes back. All of it. Comes back on all four wheels.”

“Spill it.”

Frank’s voice was level and calm. “The night it happened I was plastered. Couldn’t remember where I went or what I did. And all these months it’s been like that, getting worse and worse until it reached the point where I gave up trying. I told myself it was me who did it. I really believed it was me.”

Kerrigan spoke slowly, the sound edging through his tightened lips. “You sure it wasn’t you? You absolutely sure?”

“It couldn’t be me,” Frank said. And then, completely certain of what he was saying, not trying to force it, just saying it because it was true, “I spent that night in a joint on Second Street. Went in before dark and didn’t come out till the next afternoon.”

Kerrigan’s eyes narrowed. He was studying Frank’s face.

Frank said, “I been sick with this thing a long time. It’s been like a spike jabbing into my head. I ain’t been able to sleep, and couldn’t eat, and there were times I could hardly breathe.”

Kerrigan didn’t say anything. He could feel the truth coming out of Frank’s eyes.

He heard Frank saying, “A spike in my head, that’s what it was. And every time you looked at me, that spike went in deeper. As if you were telling me what I was telling myself. It got so bad I couldn’t take it any more.”

“Is that why you hired the gorillas?”

Frank nodded. “I musta gone haywire, just crazy enough to want you out of the way. Musta figured the only way to get rid of that spike was to use it on you.”

Kerrigan took a deep breath. It was more like a sigh, as though a tremendous weight had been eased off his chest.

Frank said, “You sure as hell choked it outta me.” He grinned weakly and rubbed his throat. “You squeezed just hard enough to loosen that spike. So now it’s out.”

Kerrigan smiled. He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. Frank grinned at him with a mouth that didn’t twitch and eyes that weren’t glazed.

“I’m all right now,” Frank said. “You see the way it is? I’m really all right now.”

Kerrigan nodded. He gazed past Frank. The smile gradually faded from his lips as he thought of Catherine. And he was saying to himself, You still don’t know who did it.

And then, very slowly, he felt the answer coming.