David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (56 page)

“Damn if it ain’t,” Frieda shouted.

“And he’s all dressed up in his Sunday best,” Dora declared. She let out a high-pitched, jarring laugh. “We thought you was a federal.” She folded her arms and unfolded them and then folded them again. “Why the special outfit?”

“This here’s a special table,” Frieda said. She made a gesture to indicate Channing, who sat there relaxed and smiling dimly.

Dora had stopped laughing and her face was pleated with lines curving downward. “It may be special, but it ain’t reserved. If they can sit here, so can we.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Frieda said. She took the chair next to Channing. Then she shifted the chair so that the grimy fabrics covering her hip came up against the side of his clean jacket.

Dora sat down beside Kerrigan. She put her arm around his shoulder. He cursed without sound, took hold of her wrist, and pushed her arm away. But then her arm was there again. He said, “
What the hell,” and let it stay there.

“Gonna buy us a drink?” Frieda asked Channing.

“Why, certainly,” Channing said. “What would you like?”

“Gin,” Dora said. “We don’t drink nothing but gin.”

Channing called to Dugan and said he wanted a bottle of gin and two glasses. At the bar the humpbacked wino had turned and was looking at the table. The face of the wino was expressionless.

“Would you like something?” Channing asked the wino.

“Go to hell,” the wino said. He said it with an effort. There was no more wine in his glass and he had seven cents in his pocket and wine was fifteen. He took a deep dragging breath and said, “You can go to hell.”

“Same to you,” Frieda yelled at the wino. “We want no part of you, you humpbacked freak.”

“Don’t say that,” Channing said mildly. “That isn’t nice.”

Frieda twisted in her chair and glowered at him. “Don’t you tell me how to talk. I’m a lady and I know how to talk.”

“All right,” Channing said.

“We’re both ladies, me and my friend Dora. That’s Dora there. My name’s Frieda.”

“
Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’m Newton Channing.”

Frieda spoke loudly. “We don’t give a damn who you are. You ain’t no better than us.” She sat up very straight, and her eyes were hard. “What makes you think you’re better than us?”

“Is that what I think?”

“Sure,” Dora said. “You ain’t kidding nobody.”

Channing shrugged. Dugan arrived at the table with the bottle of gin and two glasses. Channing looked at Kerrigan. “What’s yours?”

“I don’t want anything,” Kerrigan mumbled. “I’m getting out of here.” He tried to twist away from the pressure of Dora’s skinny arm. She put her other arm around him and held him there.

He didn’t hear the sound of the door and he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps in his struggle to pull away from Dora. Then something caused him to look up and he saw her standing at the side of the table, he saw the lovely face and golden hair of Loretta Channing.

She was looking at him. Her gaze was intent and she was ignoring the others at the table.

Frieda said, “Who’s this tramp?”

“This tramp,” Channing said, “is my sister.”

“She ain’t bad-lookin’,” Dora commented.

“What’s she doin’ here?” Frieda asked. “She lookin’ for a pickup?”

“There’s one over there,” Dora said, and pointed to the humpback at the bar. “Go on over and talk to him,” she told Loretta. She didn’t like the way Loretta was looking at Kerrigan. Her arm pressed tighter around Kerrigan’s shoulder and she spoke louder. “Can’t ya see we’re teamed up here? Ya can’t sit here unless you’re with a man.”

Loretta went on looking at Kerrigan.

Dora began to breathe hard. “All right, you,” she hissed at Loretta. “You quit puttin’ your eye on him. He’s with me. Ya wanna see him, ya gotta see me first.”

“That’s right, tell her,” Frieda said.

Channing was chuckling. “Be careful, Dora. My sister packs a punch.”

“She don’t worry me,” Dora said. “She starts with me, she’ll need nurses day and night.”

She saw that Loretta was ignoring her and continuing to look at Kerrigan. She stood up and put her face close to Loretta’s face and shouted, “Now listen, you, I told you to stop lookin’ at him.”

“Don’t shout in my face,” Loretta said quietly.

“You keep it up and I’ll spit in your face.”

Loretta smiled. Her eyes stayed on Kerrigan as she murmured, “No, don’t do that.”

“You dare me?” Dora screeched.

“Sure she dares you,” Channing said. “Can’t you see she’s looking for trouble?”

“Well, sure as hell she’s gonna get it,” Dora stated. “When I’m with a man I don’t want no floozie buttin’ in.”

Loretta looked at the skinny hag. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. I’m very sorry.” She backed away from Dora and then turned and walked toward the bar.

But Dora wasn’t satisfied. Dora yelled, “You don’t get off that easy, you tramp.” She lowered her head and went lunging across the room. At the last moment Loretta stepped to one side and Dora collided with the bar and bounced back and landed flat on the floor. She rolled over on her side, tried to get up, and tripped over her own legs and went down again. She made another attempt to rise, managed to get on her feet, and saw Loretta standing with hands on hips, waiting for her. There was something in Loretta’s eyes that told Dora to think in terms of personal safety.

As Dora backed away from Loretta, the humpbacked wino let out a quiet laugh of disdain. Dora whirled on the wino and began to blast him with a stream of curses. Loretta turned away from them and told Dugan she wanted whisky. At the table, Frieda was telling Channing that he ought to get himself a wife and settle down. She began to speak in low tones, discussing the various benefits to matrimony. Channing had turned in his chair to face her and give her his undivided attention. Frieda declared that every man needed a woman to live with, that in order to preserve one’s health it was necessary to lead a wholesome domestic life. Channing agreed with her. He said he was definitely in favor of a wholesome domestic life. He asked Frieda what her age was, and she said forty-three. Channing nodded thoughtfully and then he asked her what she weighed
and she said one-seventy. He told her that one-seventy was all right and then he asked her if she knew how to cook. She said no. Channing’s eyes were steady and level on the shapeless hag with orange hair. His voice was serious as he told her that she might as well start learning how to cook.

Kerrigan sat there and listened to it and he was staring at the camera. He heard Frieda saying, “You mean it?” and Channing said, “Yes, Frieda,” and then Frieda said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned.” Kerrigan was trying to drag his eyes away from the camera. He told himself to get up and get out of here. He heard the gin-rusty voice of Frieda as she said, “You mean I’ll actually be your wife and you’ll be my husband?” Without the slightest hesitation, Channing answered, “Absolutely, if that’s what you’d like.” Kerrigan took hold of the table edge and tried to lift himself from the chair, but the lens of the camera had hold of his eyes and he couldn’t move. Frieda was saying, “When do we do it?” and Channing said, “You set the date.”

The legs of Kerrigan’s chair scraped the floor, and then he was up from the table. He looked down at the shapeless hag and said, “Why do you let him tease you?”

Frieda gazed up at him. Her mouth sagged. “Is that what he’s doing?” She turned her head to study Channing’s face. She said, “You just sittin’ here and havin’ fun with me?”

Channing was pouring more whisky into his glass. He took a long, slow drink, the equivalent of three shots. He said, “I told you to set the date.”

Kerrigan scowled at Frieda and said, “You damn fool. Can’t you see he’s pulling your leg? He’s making you pay for the gin. Only thing he wants is entertainment.”

“Aw, dry up,” Frieda said. “I ain’t askin’ for your opinion.” She turned to Channing and smiled fondly at him. There was some sadness in the smile. “It’s all right, I know it’s just a gag. I know you can’t really mean it.”

“But I do mean it,” Channing said. His voice was soft, his eyes were tender. He spoke to her as though Kerrigan weren’t there. “Believe me,” he said. “Try to believe me.”

Kerrigan snorted. He pulled away from the table and turned toward the door. He took a step in that direction and then he saw Loretta at the bar on the other side of the room. He stood motionless, looking at her as she leaned over the bar. Gradually his
eyes narrowed. He went back to the table and picked up the camera. He walked slowly across the room and came up beside her and put the camera on the bar.

He said matter-of-factly, “You left this in the pier office.”

He was turning to leave. She put her hand on his arm. “Please don’t go.”

“I have a date.”

She looked him up and down. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”

He didn’t reply.

For a long moment she studied his eyes. Then she said, “Of course you have a date. With me.”

“Since when?”

“Since you took a bath and shaved and put on your best clothes.”

He frowned. “I didn’t do it for you.”

She slanted her head, regarding him from a side angle. “For who else would you do it?”

He opened his mouth to give her a fast vicious answer, but no words came out. He waited for her to let go of his arm so he could walk away from her. Then he realized she wasn’t holding his arm, she’d released it several moments ago. He wondered why he had the feeling she was still holding onto his arm.

Behind the bar Dugan was waiting to be paid for a whisky and water. Loretta opened her purse and took out a dollar bill and gave it to him. He gave her the change, two quarters and two dimes. The transaction was made without haste and Kerrigan wished they’d speed it up. He couldn’t understand his impatience. For some unaccountable reason he was in a hurry, and it was as though he couldn’t move unless she moved along with him.

He stood there and waited while she put the seventy cents in her purse and slipped the purse into her skirt pocket. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and watched her sipping the whisky and water. She sipped it slowly, and without sound he said, Come on, come on. She turned and looked at him. She placed the glass on the table, picked up the camera, and smiled at him as she murmured, “I’m ready now, if you are.”

The floor seemed to slide under his feet, taking him away from the
bar. The ceiling moved backward and the walls moved and the door came closer. Behind him there was the sound of Dora’s shrill voice as she went on yapping at the humpbacked wino. And the sound of lower voices, the continued conversation of Frieda and Channing. And also the sound of a squeaky tune that came humming from the lips of Dugan. But all the sounds were meaningless, a chorus adding up to nothing. What he heard was a roaring in his brain as he walked with Loretta toward the door, and past the door, and out of Dugan’s Den.

H
E STOOD
with her on the corner outside the taproom. He saw the little sport car parked across the street. It was clean and shiny, and the moonlight seemed to give it a silvery gleam. It glimmered like a jewel against the shabby background of shacks and tenements. He thought, It don’t belong here, it just don’t fit in with the picture.

He looked at Loretta. She was waiting for him to say something. He swallowed hard and mumbled, “Wanna go for a walk?”

“Let’s use the car.”

They crossed the street and climbed into the MG. She started the engine. He leaned back in the seat and tried to make himself comfortable. He felt very uncomfortable and it had nothing to do with the seating arrangement. She saw him squirming and she said, “It’s such a tiny car. There isn’t much room.”

“It’s all right,” he said. But it wasn’t all right. He told himself he didn’t belong in the car. He wanted to open the door and get out. He wondered why he couldn’t get out.

The car was moving. He said, “Where we going?”

“Any place you’d like. Would you care to ride uptown?”

He shook his head abruptly.

“Why not?” she asked.

He didn’t have an answer. He had his arms folded and he was staring straight ahead.

“I can show you where I live,” she said.

“No.” His voice was gruff.

“It isn’t far away,” she urged mildly. “Just a short ride. Not even twenty minutes.”

“I don’t want to go there.”

“Any special reason?”

Again he couldn’t answer.

She said, “It’s very nice uptown.”

“I bet it is.” He spoke between his teeth. “A damn sight nicer than it is down here.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“
I know what you meant.” His hands put a tight grip on the edge of the seat. “Do me a favor, will you? Quit trying to put things on an equal basis. You’re from up there and I’m from down here. Let’s leave it that way.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. That’s stupid.”

“All right, it’s stupid. But that’s the way it is. So just drive toward the river.”

The car moved faster. It came onto Wharf Street and he told her to turn north. They went north for several blocks and presently he told her to park up ahead. He pointed to a wide gap between the piers. It was a grassy slope, slanting down to the water’s edge.

It was mostly weeds and moss, not much more than a mud flat, and during the day it was nothing to see. But under the moon it was serene and pastoral, the tall weeds somehow stately and graceful, like ferns.

“Very pretty,” she murmured. “It’s nice here.”

“Well, it’s quiet, anyway. And there’s a breeze.”

For some moments they didn’t say anything. He wondered why he’d directed her to this place. It occurred to him that he used to come here when he was a kid, coming here alone to feel the quiet and get the river breeze. Or maybe just to get away from the shacks and the tenements.

He heard her saying, “It’s so different here. Like a little island, away from everything.” Then he looked at her. The moonlight poured onto her golden hair and put lights in her eyes. Her face was entrancing. He could taste the nectar of her nearness.

He told himself he wanted her, he had to have her. The need was so intense that he wondered what kept him from taking her into his arms. Then all at once he knew what it was. It was something deeper than hunger of the flesh. He wanted to reach her heart, her spirit. And his brain seethed with bitterness as he thought, That ain’t what she wants. All she’s out for is a cheap thrill.

The bitterness showed in his eyes. He spoke thickly. “Start the car. Let’s get away from here.”

“Why?” She frowned slightly. “What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t look at her. “You’re just fooling around. Having yourself a good time.”

“
That isn’t true.”

“The hell it isn’t. I been around enough to know what the score is.”

“You’re adding it up backward.”

“Am I?” He glowered at her. “Who do you think you’re kidding?”

She didn’t say anything, just shook her head slowly.

He pointed to the key dangling from the ignition lock. “Come on, start the car.”

She didn’t budge. Her hands were folded loosely in her lap. She looked down at them and said quietly, “You’re not giving me much of a chance.”

“Chance for what?” His voice was jagged. “To play me for a goddamn fool?”

She looked at him. “Why do you say these things?”

“I’m only saying what I think.”

“You sure about that? You really know what you’re thinking?”

“I know when I’m being taken. I know that I don’t like to be jerked around.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Sure I trust you. As far as I could throw a ten-ton truck.”

She smiled again, but there was pain in her eyes. “Well, anyway, I tried.”

He frowned. “Tried what?”

“Something I’ve never done before. It isn’t a woman’s nature to do the chasing. Not openly, anyway. But I knew it was the only way I could get to know you.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry you’re not interested.”

His frown deepened. “This on the level?”

She didn’t reply. She just looked at him.

“Damn it,” he murmured, “you got me all mixed up. Now I don’t know what to think.”

She went on in a tone of self-reproach, “I tried to be subtle. Or clever. Or whatever it was. Like today on the docks, when I used the camera. But deep inside myself I knew the real reason I wanted your picture.”

He looked away from her.

She said very quietly, “I wanted to keep you with me. I had to settle for a snapshot. But later, when I left the camera on the table,
I was strictly a female playing a game. What I should have done was say it openly, bluntly.”

“Say what?”

“I want you.”

He could feel his brain spinning. He fought the dizziness and managed to say, “I’m not in the market for a one-night stand.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

For some moments he couldn’t speak. He was trying to adjust his thoughts. Finally he
said, “This is happening too fast. We hardly know each other.”

“What’s there to know? Is it so important to find out all the details? The moment I met you, I felt something. It was a feeling I’ve never had before. That’s all I want to know. That feeling.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know. I know just what you mean.”

“You feel it too?”

“Yes.”

They sat there in the bucket seats of the MG, and the space between the seats was a gap between them. Yet it seemed they were embracing each other. Without moving, without touching her, he caressed her eyes and her lips, and heard her saying, “This is all I want. Just this. Just being near you.”

“Loretta—”

“Yes?”

“Don’t go away.”

“I won’t.”

“I mean, never go away. Never.”

She sighed. Her eyes were closed. She murmured, “If you really mean it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I want this to last.”

“It will,” she said. “I know it will.”

But it wasn’t her words that he heard. It was like soft music drifting through the dream. And the dream was taking him away from everything he’d known, every tangible segment of the world he lived in. It took him away from the cracked plaster walls of the Kerrigan house, the noises of the tenants in the crowded rooms upstairs, the yelling and bawling and cursing. It took him away from the raucous voice of Lola, and the empty beer
bottles cluttering the parlor, and his father snoozing on the sofa. And in the dream there was a voice that said good-by to Tom, good-by to the house, good-by to Vernon Street. It was a murmur of farewell to the tenements and the shacks, the thick dust on the pavements, the vacant lots littered with rubbish, the yowling of cats in dark alleys. But there was one dark alley that refused to accept the farewell. Like an exhibit on wheels it came rolling into the dream to show the rutted paving, the moonlight a relentless lamp glow focused on some dried bloodstains.

His eyes narrowed to focus on the kin of the number-one suspect.

His voice was toneless. “Tell me something.”

But he didn’t know how to take it from there. It was like a tug of war in his brain. One side ached to hold onto the dream. The other side was reality, somber and grim. His sister was asleep in a grave and she’d put herself there because a man had invaded her flesh and crushed her spirit. He told himself he had to find the man. Regardless of everything else, he had to find the man and exact full payment. His hands trembled, wanting to take hold of an unseen throat.

She was waiting for him to speak. She sat there smiling at him.

He stared past her. “You like your brother?”

“Very much. He’s a drunkard and a loafer and very eccentric, but sometimes he can be very nice. Why do you ask?”

“I been puzzled about him.” He looked at her. “I been wondering why he comes to Dugan’s Den.”

For some moments she didn’t reply. Then, with a slight shrug, “It’s just a place where he can hide.”

“What’s he hiding from?”

“From himself.”

“I don’t get that.”

Suddenly her eyes were clouded. She looked away from him. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“It isn’t pleasant.” But then, with a quick shake of her head, “No, I’m wrong. You have every right to know.”

She
told him about her family. It was a small family, just her parents and her brother and herself. An ordinary middle-class family in fairly comfortable circumstances. But her mother liked to drink and her father had his own bedroom. She said they
were dead now, so it didn’t matter if she talked about them. They had an intense dislike for each other. It was so intense that they never even bothered to quarrel, they hardly ever spoke to each other. One night, when her brother was seventeen and had just got his driver’s license, he took their parents out for a ride. He came home alone with a bandage around his head. The father had died instantly and the mother died in the hospital. Within a few weeks Newton began to have fits of hysterical laughter, wondering aloud if he’d done it on purpose, actually doing them a favor and giving them an easy way out. A bachelor uncle came to take charge of the house but couldn’t put up with Newton’s ravings and strange behavior and finally moved out.

When Newton was nineteen he married the housekeeper, a woman in her middle forties. She was a short and very skinny woman and her face was dreadfully scarred from burns in a childhood accident. No man had ever looked twice at her and she did her best to please Newton but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her to be harsh and nasty and downright vicious. He was always trying to agitate her, trying to make her lose her temper. Whenever that happened he seemed delighted, especially when she’d claw him or throw dishes at him. After seven years she couldn’t take it any more and she went to a lawyer and got a divorce. A few months later Newton married a Hungarian gypsy, a fortuneteller, a
tall, bony, beak-nosed woman who already had several husbands in various parts of the nation. She was in her early fifties and used liquid shoe polish to keep her hair black. Sometimes she’d get very thirsty and drink the shoe polish. At other times she forced Newton to give her large sums of money so she could buy cases of expensive bourbon. He had an income of sixty dollars a week from his father’s insurance money and some weeks the entire sixty dollars went for liquor. Loretta was working in a dental laboratory and making forty a week and couldn’t keep much for herself because Newton and the gypsy woman were always asking for money.

When Loretta was twenty, she married a young dentist. For a while they lived in a small apartment. But she was always worried about Newton, she had a feeling there was a bombshell in him and sooner or later it would burst. Her husband kept telling her to forget about Newton but she couldn’t do it, and
eventually she insisted on moving back to the house. He refused. They argued. The arguments became worse. Finally he walked out on her. She blamed herself, and got in touch with him, told him she was sorry, and asked him to come back. But she didn’t really want him back. By this time she was very confused and she wasn’t sure what she wanted. She was really relieved when the dentist told her it was no use trying a reconciliation, he cared for her very much but he had enough sense to know when a thing was ended. He advised her to get a divorce. She got the divorce and went back to live in the house with Newton and the gypsy woman.

It wasn’t easy, living there with them. They were drunk most of the time, the gypsy woman made no attempt to keep the house clean, and the sink was always stacked with dirty dishes. There were empty bottles all over the place. Sometimes the gypsy woman would hurl the bottles at Newton’s head. At other times she’d try to crack his ribs with a broom handle. On one occasion she hit him very hard and broke two of his ribs. He sat on the floor, grinning at her, telling her that she was a fine woman and he adored her.

Loretta told herself she couldn’t stay in this madhouse. But she had to stay. She had to look after Newton. He was getting worse, drinking more and more. One time he went out and purchased a skeleton costume. In the middle of the night the gypsy woman heard a noise in the room and woke up and saw the skeleton and began to scream at the top of her lungs. The skeleton moved toward her, laughing crazily, and she passed out cold. After that night, she walked around with a blank look in her eyes. Some weeks later she caught cold, neglected it, developed pneumonia, and died. At the funeral Newton had another of his laughing spells. Then, for some months, he was all right and he got a job in an agency selling foreign automobiles. He worked very hard, and kept away from liquor. He was extremely considerate of Loretta, and extravagantly generous. For Christmas he gave her the little British car, the MG. They had a very nice Christmas dinner, just the two of them. He was gracious and quietly gallant. She was so thankful, the way he was behaving these days. She was so proud of him. But less than a week later he had another laughing spell. And the next day he quit his job. And then he began to drink again.

“
When was that?” Kerrigan asked.

“About a year ago.”