David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (69 page)

He nodded.

“Well,” Sharkey said, taking another easy pull at the cigar, “it figures. I guess she told you everything.”

Then from upstairs along the platform there was the sound of the train moving away and gathering steam.

“We stopped her when she got out of the cab,” Sharkey said. He laughed softly, amiably. “She’s some girl, that Celia. She didn’t even blink. I told her to get in the car with Chop and Bertha and she said, ‘O.K., Boss.’ She always calls me Boss.”

The train was going away. He tried to tell himself there’d be another train. He begged himself to believe there’d soon be another train and they’d be on it. But the sound of the departing train was a good-by sound, like music fading out,
saying, No more, no more.

“They took her home,” Sharkey said. “I knew you’d be here in the waiting room and it was time for you and me to talk.”

He looked at the cigar in Sharkey’s mouth. It was coming apart and he knew it was a cheap cigar. Then he looked at the camel’s-hair coat that must have cost over a hundred when it was new but now it was very old and wouldn’t bring fifteen in a secondhand store. The same applied to the brown beaver. The band was tattered and the crown was dull from loss of fibers. Without seeing inside Sharkey’s wallet, he knew it contained one-dollar bills or maybe none at all. For some vague reason he felt like treating Sharkey to something. He heard himself saying, “I’m gonna have dinner. Join me?”

“All right,” Sharkey said.

They walked into the station restaurant and took a table. There was a wine list and Sharkey ordered double bourbon straight and a water chaser. The bourbon was a bonded brand costing eighty cents a shot. Then Sharkey ordered a four-fifty T bone.

He said, “Make it two,” and the waitress wrote it down and walked away from the table. He looked at Sharkey and said, “I’d have a drink with you, except I don’t drink.”

“
It’s better not to,” Sharkey said. “I don’t use it much myself. Not on an empty stomach, anyway. It don’t pay to drink too much on an empty stomach.”

“I wonder why they do it,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Drink themselves half crazy.”

“You mean,” Sharkey murmured, “the way she does?”

He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t looking at Sharkey.

“I’ll tell you,” Sharkey said. “She don’t get crazy from it. Fact is, it does her a lot of good. She needs it.”

“Why?” And now he looked directly at Sharkey. “Why does she need it?”

“Problems,” Sharkey said.

“You think she’ll do a lot of drinking now?”

Sharkey put his large hands flat on the tablecloth and looked down at his thick fingers. “What do you think?”

“I think she’ll do an awful lot of drinking.”

“For a while, anyway,” Sharkey said. He went on looking down at his fingers. “Let’s say a few days. A week at the most.”

“Longer than a week,” he said. “You know it’ll be longer than a week.”

“Maybe.” Sharkey nodded slowly. “Maybe an entire month. Maybe six months.” He looked up, showing the soft easy smile. “Maybe she’ll stay drunk for a year.”

“And then into next year. And the next.”

“Well,” Sharkey said, “that’s up to her.” He leaned back and hooked his arm over the back of the chair. “Tell ya the truth, I don’t care if she stays drunk the rest of her life. Just so long as she stays with me.”

“What if she gets sick?”

“I’ll take care of her.”

“What I mean is, really sick. I mean—”

“Look, I’ll put it this way,” Sharkey said, his smile very gentle, his voice soft and soothing. “My main interest in life is taking care of her. It’s the only real enjoyment I get. I just wanna take care of her. If she was in a wheel chair I’d spend all my time wheeling her around. If she was flat on her back I’d stay in the room with her day and night. You get the general idea?”

“Yes,” he said. “I get it.”

Sharkey took the mangled cigar from his mouth and put it in the
ash tray. He sighed softly and said, “It’s a queer thing. I used to be a cake of ice when it came to women. I mean, they were all right to play with, but aside from that I wasn’t in the market. Sure, I got married a couple of times, but only so’s I’d have it ready for me when I came home. In each case it wasn’t any deeper than the mattress. The first one turns out to be a nympho and I pay her off and send her to Nevada. The next number is all right in the beginning, but then she develops a weakness for rumba teachers and I hafta throw her out. Then this one comes along and I take one look and it’s like falling off a cliff with nothing underneath, just falling and falling. All the time falling.”

The double bourbon arrived and Sharkey shot it down and ordered another. Then he had a third, and he was on the fourth when he laughed apologetically and said, “Look at me, the man who says he don’t drink on an empty stomach.”

“Go on and drink. Drink all you want.”

Sharkey went on laughing lightly. “You wanna get me drunk?”

“No, it isn’t that.”

“I think I know what it is,” Sharkey said. “You feel that you owe me the drinks, the steak dinner. Sure, that’s what it is, you just feel that you owe me something.”

“Maybe,” he said, and he was staring past Sharkey. “I’m not really sure.”

“Well, anyway,” Sharkey smiled, “I’ll have another drink.”

Sharkey was on the seventh double bourbon when the waitress brought the T bones. The steaks were large and prime and he watched Sharkey tackling the plate with considerable appetite. His own appetite was less than zero and he tried a few bites and couldn’t go on with it. He pushed his plate aside and lit a cigarette, and it was quiet at the table except for the sound of Sharkey’s knife and fork working methodically on the T bone, Sharkey with seven double bourbons in him but not the least bit drunk, doing a thorough job on the steak and French fries, doing it medium fast and with reasonable etiquette and finally lifting the napkin to his lips and saying, “Goddamn, that was good.”

He smiled sadly. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“What about yours? Something wrong with yours?”

“No,” he said. “I’m just not hungry.”

Sharkey nodded slowly and understandingly and somewhat sympathetically. The waitress came to the table and asked if they would like dessert. Sharkey told her to bring a pot of coffee and another double bourbon. Then Sharkey grinned at him and said, “It ain’t often I get a treat like this. I might as well take advantage of it.”

He didn’t say anything. He went on smiling sadly.

“Another thing,” Sharkey said. “Maybe I’ll get my name in the columns. I’m having dinner with a celebrity.”

“I’m not a celebrity.”

“Well, maybe not yet. But you’re getting there. You’re really getting there. I heard you on the radio last week. The disc jockey played three of your records, one right after another. They never do that except with the solid talent.”

It was a genuine compliment and he started to murmur thanks. But it wouldn’t come out. His hands gripped the edge of the table and he said, “Listen, Sharkey—”

And Sharkey went on quickly: “You’re a cinch to hit the top brackets. I can tell. It’s like at the races when I look at a horse and I just know it’s gotta come in. So it’s—”

“Listen,” he said, not loudly but aiming it, shooting it. And then, sending in the clincher, “I want her.”

Then it was quiet. Sharkey was looking down at the table. He had a technical expression in his eyes, like a dealer studying all the cards face up.

“I want her.” Now it was louder. And it quivered. “I can’t give her up. Just can’t do without her.”

Sharkey went on looking at the table. His lips scarcely moved as he said, “You know something? I think we’re in trouble.”

Then quietly again, and feeling very friendly toward Sharkey but wishing Sharkey didn’t exist, he said, “I’m gonna take her.”

“Goddamn.” As if the cards on the table showed a sorry mess. “We’re in real trouble.”

“I’ve gotta
have her and I’m gonna have her, that’s all.”

Sharkey looked up. The technical expression went out of his eyes and the only thing in his eyes was sadness. It was sincere sadness and his voice was gloomy as he said, “It’s a goddamn shame.”

“Well, anyway, now you know. You know what I’m gonna do.”

“
Yeah,” Sharkey said. “I know. I wish you hadn’t told me.”

The rest of it was rapid and blurred and there was no thought, no plan, no logic in the pattern of getting up and leaving Sharkey sitting there at the table. He lunged toward the waitress and jammed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. He ran out of the restaurant, leaving his hat and coat on the hanger, his suitcase forgotten, everything forgotten in the rush to get out of there and get into a cab. The only symbols in his brain were the four numbers of the address where she lived with Sharkey and Chop and Bertha, and what he had to do was erase those numbers, take her out of there, take her far away and make sure they’d never carry her back.

As he entered the cab and gave the address to the driver, he didn’t feel the winter cold, he didn’t notice the evening blackness, and of course he paid no attention to the telephone wires stretched high above the street, glimmering silver against the darkness. If he had focused on the wires, if he’d been able to think clearly and with a reasonable amount of arithmetic, he would have known what was happening up there at this very instant. He would have known that the wires were carrying Sharkey’s voice from a phone booth to the address where the cab was headed.

When he arrived there, they were waiting for him, ready for him. The short wide man opened the door for him and he walked in and then the short wide man moved in close behind him and swung a blackjack and knocked him unconscious. The big woman who weighed more than three hundred was smiling down at him and then she picked him up from the floor and carried him as if he were a child. Or as if she were a child carrying a rag doll. The smile on her face was childlike, and while she carried him down the cellar stairs she purred, “You pretty little boy. You’re so cute.”

He heard the voice but he didn’t know what it was saying. He had a feeling of being carried but there was no way to look and make sure. It seemed there was a thick spike planted in his skull, cutting off all communication between one side of him and the other.

At intervals he could hear her saying, “Really cute.”

And then the voice of the short wide man: “Why don’tcha kiss him? Go on, kiss him.”

She laughed and said, “Should I? Well, maybe I will, while I got the chance.”

He wasn’t sure that the big woman was kissing him, he couldn’t feel anything on his face except the pressure of some gushy substance, tons of it, as if a carload of jelly had fallen on him.

Then for a long time there was nothing.

When he heard the voices again, Sharkey’s voice was included and Sharkey was saying, “Make sure he don’t come back.”

“You mean finish him?” It was the woman.

“No,” Sharkey said. “That’s out. Don’t do that.”

“Why not?” It was Chop. “It’s easier that way. All we gotta do is—”

“Please keep quiet and listen to me.” The soft gentle voice of Sharkey. “All I want is a guarantee that he don’t come back.”

“That’s gonna be complicated,” the woman said.

“It’s complicated already,” Sharkey said. “It’s so goddamn complicated it’s making me sick.”

“I think we oughta finish him,” Chop said. “We could do it right here in the cellar.”

“Hell, no,” the woman said. “I been working all day cleaning up this place. I don’t want it messed up.”

“It wouldn’t be no mess,” Chop told her. “What we do is put him in the furnace.”

“Not in one piece,” she said. “He wouldn’t fit. We’d have to cut him up and that needs a meat cleaver. It means I’ll hafta use a scrubbing brush for at least an hour. It’s eight-fifteen now and I wanna be upstairs
when Bob Hope comes on.”

“He ain’t on tonight,” Chop said. “It’s tomorrow night.”

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “I know when he comes on.”

“I’m telling you it’s tomorrow night.”

The woman spoke loudly. “You stupid sonofabitch, you don’t even know what day it is.”

“Don’t shout at me, Bertha. You don’t hafta shout at me.”

“I wouldn’t hafta shout if you weren’t so stupid.”

“That’s another thing I don’t like,” Chop said. “I don’t like when you call me stupid.”

“I’ll call you stupid whenever you’re stupid. All right?”

“Now look, Bertha—”

“Drop it,” Sharkey cut in. His voice was low and thoughtful. “Here’s
what I want you to do. You’ll carry him outta here. Put him in the car and take him away from town.”

“In the country?” Chop asked.

“Yes,” Sharkey said patiently. “Someplace in the country. Say like twenty, thirty miles out of town.”

“Like in the woods?” Chop asked.

“No.” It was Bertha again. “We’ll find a place where there’s a crowd. So they can stand and watch while we do it. We’ll sell tickets.”

“Lay off me,” Chop mumbled.

“Please,” Sharkey said. “Please, the two of you. Keep quiet and listen carefully. You’ll get him off on a side road someplace. Now check this, I want it clearly understood you’re not to finish him. All you do is convince him. He’s gotta be convinced. You see what I mean?”

“You mean really convinced?” Chop asked.

“Yes,” Sharkey said.

“Goddamnit,” the woman said. “Thirty miles out in the country. Now I’m gonna miss Bob Hope.”

They carried him out of the house and put him in the rented car. Some twenty minutes later he started to regain consciousness. Then it was forty minutes and he was able to focus and realize what was happening. He was sitting in the back of the car with Bertha. He saw Chop sitting up front behind the wheel. The car was moving very fast on a bumpy road. They were passing through open countryside and there were some lighted windows here and there, but not many. Then minutes later it was another road, much narrower, and more trees and higher grass and no lighted windows.

He sat up straighter. He reached slowly for the door handle and Bertha saw him doing it. She grabbed a handful of his hair and her other hand was a big fist banging him hard on the cheek just under the eye. He went on trying for the door and she hit him again in the same place. He wondered if his cheekbone were broken. It really felt broken. While he thought about it he kept going for the door handle and Bertha kept pulling his hair and hitting him in the face. The car slowed down and Chop said, “What’s the matter back there?”