David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (64 page)

The policeman shot and missed and fired again and the .38 slug
punctured the window sill an inch away from Whitey’s ribs. Whitey threw a sad-eyed, scared-rabbit glance backward at the seething room and saw all of it in a flashing instant that showed convulsive, tumultuous activity. It was a very busy room. The noise was terribly loud, a cracking-up noise that sounded like the end of everything. In the same instant that he glimpsed the frenzied action, Whitey saw the two men who were not taking part in the action, just standing on the side lines and watching it. The two men were Lieutenant Pertnoy and Captain Kinnard.

The Lieutenant stood in the corridor doorway and he had his hands in his trousers pockets. One side of his mouth was curved up, but it wasn’t a smile; it was sort of quizzical, like the expression of a man looking at a blackboard and studying a mathematical equation. A few feet away from the Lieutenant the bulky shoulders of Captain Kinnard were limp and the Captain’s arms hung loosely and he was shaking his head very slowly. His eyes were half closed and his mouth sagged. He was slumped there against the wall like a fighter on the ropes getting hit and hit again and not allowed to fall.

Whitey saw all of that but couldn’t see more of it because now there was another shot and the bullet split the glass of the raised window above his head. He decided he wasn’t traveling fast enough, and instead of climbing through the window and then climbing down, he dived through, going headfirst and then twisting in the air, twisting hard to bring his legs down. He landed on his side on the gravel driveway some ten feet below the window. He rested there with his eyes closed, wondering whether he had a broken hip. He felt it and it wasn’t broken and he told himself to get up. He got up and started to walk. At first he walked slowly and with a limp. Then he limped faster. The injured hip gave him a lot of pain, but it was more flesh burn than bone hurt, and maybe if he didn’t think about the pain he wouldn’t need to limp. He stopped thinking about the pain and stopped limping and started to run.

He ran. He picked up speed and told himself he needed more and then he was really sprinting.

I
T WAS
three minutes later and they were chasing him down an alley off Clayton Street. Then it was five minutes later and he was in another alley four blocks east of Clayton. He was moving east and coming out of the alley and running across River Street. They came running after him and he went twenty yards going south on River, then ducked into a very narrow alley and headed east again in the thick blackness of the Hellhole, going toward the river and telling himself it might work out all right if he could reach the river. Along the water front there were a lot of places where he could hide. And maybe later he could sneak onto one of the ships. But that was for later. Much later. Right now the river was a long way off. And the law was very near. And he was very tired.

He heard them coming down the alley and he hopped a fence, getting over it before their flashlights could find him. Then across the back yard and over another fence. Then a third fence, and a fourth, with the back yards very small and piles of wood stacked here and there for fuel in the wooden shacks, just enough space for the firewood and the garbage can and the outside toilet. It was a matter of running zigzag to get to the next fence. He knew the next fence would be the last because now he was really all in. He got there and climbed over the fence and fell on his back. There was a dragging, weak clanking sound like the useless noise of stripped gears, and he knew it came from inside his chest. He had the feeling that all the flesh inside him was stripped and burned out. But it was nice to rest there flat on his back. They’d be coming soon and maybe when they saw what shape he was in they’d take him to a hospital instead of returning him to the station house. That would be a break. He closed his eyes and dragged the wonderful air into his lungs and waited for them to come.

But they didn’t come. Several minutes passed and they didn’t come. There was no sound and no reflection of flashlights. He reasoned they were still headed east, they probably figured it wouldn’t be these back yards and their man was trying for the river.
That meant their search would be concentrated along the water front. He decided they’d be busy there for the rest of the night and he might as well go to sleep here. His arm curled under his head and he closed his eyes.

The wind from the river was very cold but he was too tired to feel it. It took him less than a minute to fall asleep. An hour later he opened his eyes and a light hit him in the face. It was a flickering light and it had nothing to do with the back yard. He told himself he was still asleep. But then he opened his eyes again and realized he was really awake and this wasn’t the back yard.

It was the interior of the wooden shack. He was resting under some blankets on a narrow cot against the wall. The other furniture was a three-legged stool and a two-legged table with the other two sides supported on wooden fruit boxes. The flickering light came from a candle in a small holder on the table. Along the walls there were rows of gallon jugs containing colorless liquid. On the table there was a bottle half filled with the colorless liquid, and alongside the bottle there was an empty water glass. There was only one door in the room and Whitey knew that what he’d thought was the back yard was really the front yard. So this place had no back yard; in the back it was just another alley and then more wooden shacks. He knew it because now he was fully awake and able to think fairly clearly, able to judge the distance he’d covered from the station house to here. This was strictly seven-dollars-a-month territory. This was the Afro-American section of the Hellhole.

The door opened and a colored man came in. The colored man was as dark as the emery strip of a match book. He was around five-nine and couldn’t have weighed more than 115 at the most. There was no hair on his head and there weren’t many wrinkles on his face and it was impossible to tell how old he was. He wore rimless spectacles and a woman’s fur coat made of squirrel.

Whitey was sitting up in the cot and looking at the woman’s fur coat.

“Don’t get the wrong notion,” the colored man said. He fingered the squirrel collar. “I just wear this to keep warm. I’m an old man and I can’t take cold weather. Gotta have this fur on me to keep the chill away.”

The colored man had several chunks of firewood tucked under his arm and he moved slowly across the room and put the wood in a small old-fashioned furnace that had a crooked handmade outlet going up through the ceiling. For some moments the colored man was busy with the furnace and then he closed the lid and walked to the three-legged stool and sat down. He had his back to Whitey and all he did was sit there, not moving, not saying anything.

It went on like that for the better part of a minute. There was a certain deliberateness in the way the colored man sat there motionless with his back to the man in the cot. It was as though the colored man were experimenting with the man in the cot, waiting to see what the man would do while he had his back turned.

Whitey caught the drift of it. “You don’t hafta test me,” he said. “I’m straight.”

“Yiz?” the colored man said. He still had his back turned. “How do I know?”

“You musta thought so, or you wouldn’t have brought me in here.”

“I brought you in cause you were out there freezing. You were half froze when I dragged you in. Just as stiff as a carrot in an icebox.”

Whitey didn’t say anything. He was thinking about the colored man’s accent. There was some South in it, but not much. It was mostly New England. Some of the words were clipped and the edges polished and it was like the highly cultured voice of someone on a lecture platform. Other words were spoken in the nasal twang of a Vermont farm hand. Then at longer spaced intervals there’d be a word or two from ’way down deep in Mississippi. It was as though the colored man weren’t quite sure where he’d come from. Or maybe he was continually reminding himself of all the places he’d seen, all the accents he’d heard. Whitey had the feeling that the colored man was very old and had been to a lot of places.

“I hadda go out to use the toilet,” the colored man said. “I saw you out there flat on the ground and I didn’t like that, I didn’t like that at all.”

“Did it scare you?” Whitey said.

“No,” the colored man said. “I never get scared.” He was quiet for a
long moment. And then, very slowly, “But sometimes I get curious.”

Whitey waited for the colored man to turn on the stool and face him. The colored man didn’t move from his position facing the table.

“You wanna leave now?” the colored man said.

“I’d like to stay here for a while. That is, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m thinking about it,” the colored man said. There was another long pause. And then, again very slowly, “You wanna help me decide?”

“If I can.”

“I guess you can.” The colored man turned on the stool and looked at Whitey and said, “All you gotta do is tell me the truth.”

“All right.”

“You sure it’s all right? You sure it won’t hurt you to tell the truth?”

“It might,” Whitey said.

“But you’re willing to take a chance?”

Whitey shrugged. “I got no choice.”

“That ain’t the way I see it. I’m prone to think you might try to bluff me.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that.”

“You mean you couldn’t do that.” The colored man took off his rimless spectacles and leaned forward just a little, his eyes glinting bright yellow, like topaz. There was a certain see-all, know-all power coming from the topaz eyes and shooting into Whitey’s head. And the colored man said, “I want you to know it in front. No use trying to bluff me. Ain’t a living ass in this world can bluff Jones Jarvis.”

Whitey nodded in agreement. It was a slow nod and he meant it. He had the feeling that the colored man was not bragging or exaggerating, but merely stating a fact.

“Jones Jarvis,” the colored man said. “Once when I had a phone they’d get it wrong in the book and list me under Jones. Did that year after year and finally I got tired telling them to change it. Got rid of the phone. Man has a right to have his name printed correct. It’s Jones first and then Jarvis. The name is Jones Jarvis.”

“Jones Jarvis,” Whitey said.

“
That’s right. That’s absolutely correct. I like everything to be correct. Exactly in line. It’s gotta be that way or there ain’t no use talking. So now I want to hear your name.”

“They call me Whitey.”

“You see, now? You’re pulling away from it, you’re not telling me correct. I want your real name.”

Whitey winced slightly. He told himself it was seven years since he’d used his real name. All the reasons why he’d stopped using it came back to him and hammered at his head and he winced harder. In the instant that his eyes were closed he saw the short and very wide and very long-armed man with the bright-green cap and black-and-purple plaid lumber jacket. Just for that instant, and that was all. And then his eyes were open and he was looking at Jones Jarvis. He heard himself saying, “My name is Eugene Lindell.”

The colored man sat motionless for some moments and then very slowly raised his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I know that name,” he said.

Whitey didn’t say anything.

The colored man went on squinting up at the ceiling. “I’m sure I know that name,” he said. “I’ll be a sonofabitch if I ain’t heard that name before.”

Then it was quiet and Whitey waited and wondered whether the colored man would remember. The colored man was trying hard to remember, snapping his fingers as though he thought the sound of it would bring back the memory.

Finally the colored man looked at Whitey and said, “Tell me something. We ever meet before?”

“No,” Whitey said.

The topaz eyes were narrow. “You sure about that?”

Whitey nodded.

“Well, anyway,” the colored man said, “I know that name. I swear I’ve heard it someplace. Or let’s see now, maybe I read about it someplace.” He was looking past Whitey. He raised a wrinkled finger to his chin. “Let’s see,” he murmured aloud to himself. “Let’s see if we can hit this.”

“It ain’t important,” Whitey said. Something in the way he said it caused Jones Jarvis to look at him, and he added offhandedly, “At least, it ain’t important now.”

The topaz eyes narrowed again. “Was it important then?”

Whitey looked at the floor.

“Want me to skip it?” the colored man said.

Whitey went on looking at the floor. He nodded very slowly.

“All right,” Jones Jarvis said. “We’ll skip it. Whatever happened to you long ago ain’t none of my business. Only questions I’m privileged to ask are about tonight. I wanna know what you were doing on my property.”

“Hiding,” Whitey said.

“From who?”

“Police.”

“I figured that,” Jones said. And then, for the first time, he showed a smile. “Can always tell when a man is hot, even when he’s freezing. I took one look and you were hot, really hot.”

Whitey pulled his legs from under the blanket and lowered them over the side of the bed. He smiled back at Jones and said, “I’m still hot. I’m hot as hell.”

“Don’t I know it?” Jones said. “I’m taking your temperature right now. Using two thermometers.” And he pointed to his own eyes. Then, leaning back a little, with the squirrel coat unbuttoned to show the toothpick build attired in pale-green flannel pajamas, crossing one skinny leg over the other and clasping his knees, he said conversationally, “Tell me about it.”

“It happened about an hour ago,” Whitey said. “Or maybe ninety minutes. I’m not really sure.”

“Let’s check that,” Jones said. “I always like to be sure of the time.” He reached into a pocket of the squirrel coat and took out a large pocket watch and looked at the dial. “It’s one-twenty-six
a
.
m
.,” he murmured. “That help you any?”

Whitey knew he was still under close scrutiny and technical appraisal. He realized that one wrong answer would lose him this hiding place that he needed very badly. The topaz eyes told him to get his answers exactly correct.

He said, “Closest I can come is a little after midnight. Let’s say twelve-ten.” He smiled openly and truthfully. “That’s really the best I can do.”

“All right,” Jones said. He put the watch back in his pocket. “Where were you at twelve-ten?”

“On a side street not far from here.”

“How far?”

“I’d say a coupla blocks.”

“
What were you doing?” Jones asked.

“Taking a walk.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” Whitey said. But he couldn’t take it past that. He knew he couldn’t make mention of the man he’d been following, the man who wore a bright-green cap and a black-and-purple plaid lumber jacket. If he started talking about it he’d be going away from tonight, going in reverse, going back seven years, and it would get very involved. It would be like opening a tomb in his mind and seeing a part of himself that had suffered and died and wanted to stay dead and buried.

Yet somehow he could feel it straining to come alive again, as he’d felt it earlier tonight when he’d seen the very short, very wide man who wore the bright-green cap. He could feel the tugging, the grinding, the burning of a deep pain that tightened his mouth and showed in his eyes.

And the pain was there in his cracked-whisper voice as he said, “I won’t say what I was doing on that street. It’s got nothing to do with why I’m hiding from the law.”

Jones Jarvis was quiet for some moments. He was studying the pain-racked eyes of the small white-haired man. When Jones finally spoke, his voice was very soft and almost tender. Jones said, “All right, Eugene. We’ll let it ride.”

“But I want you to believe me. I’m giving it to you straight.”

“Yes,” Jones said. “That’s the impression I get. Even though it’s kind of blurry at the edges.”

“It’ll have to stay that way. I can’t trim it down any closer.”

“I guess you can’t,” Jones said. “But all the same, you got me sidetracked. You tell me it was past midnight and you’re out for a stroll. In the Hellhole. You’re just taking a stroll down here in the Hellhole. Where no man in his right mind walks alone after midnight. Unless he’s looking to get hurt. Or do some hurting.”