David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) (71 page)

They began to see that he didn’t give a damn and gradually they lost interest in him. It took a longer time for the manager to lose interest, but when it happened it was definite. The manager said bluntly, “Look, Gene. I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. But I can’t help a man who don’t wanna be helped. It’s plain as day that you don’t really care.”

A shrug. And the lazy smile.

“Well, I’m sorry, Gene. Fact is, I got other clients need my attention. I’m afraid we gotta call it quits.”

A slow nod. The lazy smile. The limp hand extended. His manager took it and patted him on the shoulder regretfully.

“Good luck, Gene.”

As he walked out of the manager’s office he passed a wall mirror and it showed him that his hair was turning white. But of course that didn’t matter, either.

It was on the fourth floor, but he didn’t take the elevator going down. For some reason the stairway seemed like a better idea. He walked down the stairs very slowly, enjoying the feeling of going down one step at a time, lower and lower, nice and easy, no effort at all.

One step at a time. He stopped going to the doctor. He started gambling. He was able to announce his bets in a very weak whisper. Then it became a louder whisper as the larynx continued to heal. And finally it was a cracked hoarse whisper that spoke every night at the dice tables or the card tables, with the lazy smile always there, the hair getting whiter, the eyes getting duller. And the cards and dice eating into his bank account, bringing it down from sixteen thousand to fourteen to eleven to eight and always going down. Some nights he’d get ’way ahead but he’d sit there and make stupid bets and manage to lose it all, and then more. One night it was five-card stud and he bet several thousand on his two pair against
a very evident three queens. As he walked out with an empty wallet, he heard their comments drifting through the hall.

“Can’t figure that one. He plays like he wants to lose.”

“Sure. I’ve seen a lotta them that way. It’s a certain condition they get in.”

“Whaddya mean? What condition?”

“Like suicide. Doing it slow.”

“Slow-motion suicide.” And then, with a chuckle, “That’s a new one.”

“All right, ante up. Let’s raise it a hundred.”

He went back the next night and dropped another roll. It went on that way, and on one occasion he dropped forty-seven hundred dollars. The following day he walked into the bank and took out what was left. It amounted to a little over seven hundred. That afternoon he decided it was time to start with alcohol. He’d never tried alcohol, and he was curious as to what it would do.

It did plenty. It took him a few thousand feet above the rooftops, then dropped him with a thud, and the windup was an alley with a couple of muggers rolling him for every cent.

So then it had to be employment. He got a job washing dishes. But he wasn’t thinking in terms of rent money or food money. He liked the idea of alcohol; it was a very pleasant beverage. He began spending most of his weekly earnings on whisky. As the months passed he needed more whisky, and more, and still more.

Going down. One step at a time.

He was fired from so many jobs that he lost count. He was picked up for drunkenness and tossed into cells where other booze hounds were sleeping it off. It reached the point that it always reaches when there isn’t sufficient cash for whisky. He started to drink wine.

And from there it was only a few steps down to Skid Row.

On Skid Row it was a bed for fifty cents a night or any old floor where he happened to fall. Or else it was a free mattress in the alcoholic ward of whichever hospital had available space. No matter where it was, he’d be waking up at five-thirty and wanting more wine.

Twenty-nine cents for a bottle of muscatel. It was the outstanding
value in the universe. There was no better way of killing time.

But sometimes he didn’t have the twenty-nine cents, or any sum near it, and when that happened he’d go for anything that was offered. It might be homemade rotgut or something made from dandelions or ruined plums handed out free at the water-front fruit market. It might be the liquid flame that they sold in Chinatown for a dime a jar. They made it from rice and it was colorless and had no smell, but going down the throat it was relentless and when it hit the belly it was merciless. And then of course there was the canned heat, strained through a dirty rag or a chunk of stale bread. And the bay rum. And on one very thirsty night, a really difficult night, there was a long delightful drink from a bottle of shoe polish.

Through winter and summer and winter again.

Through all the gray Novembers of getting up early to distribute circulars door to door. It had to be that kind of job. It didn’t take much thinking. It paid two dollars a day, and sometimes three dollars when the weather was bad and the pavements were icy. On some mornings the sign was out, “No Work Today” and if the sign stayed there for three days in succession it was a financial catastrophe; it meant a long cold wait in the soup lines.

And sometimes he’d go lower than the soup lines, much lower than that, lower than any graph could indicate.

He’d stand in a shadowed doorway with his palm out.

“Got a nickel, buddy?”

The cold stare. “What for?”

He’d always reply with the lazy smile. “I’m kinda thirsty.”

“Well, at least you’re honest about it.”

“That’s right, mister.” With the coin dropping into his palm. “It’s the best policy.”

But at other moments it was the worst policy and they’d look at him with disdain and disgust and walk away.

Or else they’d take the trouble to say, “Why don’t you wise up?”

Or “Nothing doing. I don’t give people money to poison themselves.”

Or the sour voice of a blasphemer saying, “Tell you what. You go ask Jesus. He’ll never fail you.”

Then another Samaritan and another nickel. And finally, wi
th fifteen cents in his hand, he’d go looking for Bones and Phillips. They’d pool their resources and make a beeline for the nearest joint that sold the bottled ecstasy.

It was the only ecstasy they sought.

But every now and then the other kind would come his way, a Tenderloin slut just slumping along and looking for company. It would be like a meeting of two mongrels in the street, no preliminaries necessary. Her bleary eyes would say, I need it tonight, I need it something awful.

He’d look at the shapeless chunk of female wreckage. No matter who she was, she’d be shapeless. If she didn’t weigh much, she’d be a string bean. If she carried a lot of poundage, her body would resemble a barrel. The women of Skid Row had lost their figures long ago, along with their hopes and their yearnings. But the juice was still there, and every now and then it churned and bubbled and they had to announce their gender.

His eyes would say, All right, Lola.

Lola, Scotch-Portuguese-Cherokee. Or it would be Sally, of Polish-Peruvian ancestry. Or chinless Lucy, descended from Wales and Norway and certain ports on the shores of Arabia. And others whose prebirth histories went back to various ports along various shores. From anyplace at all where long dead sailors and drifters had met the long dead great-great-grandmothers. So now the result was the walking debris, walking with Whitey toward the dusty hovel where the stuffing was spilling from the mattress.

At any rate, he’d think, it’s a mattress, it’s better than a cold floor.

Then in the dark it would happen as it happens with the animals. Nothing to say, nothing to think about, just doing it because one was male and the other was female. And it was preferable to being alone.

Yet somehow it was ecstasy, a sort of rummage-sale brand, but ecstasy nonetheless. For one spasmodic moment it took him away from River Street and sent him sailing up into cloudland. And even though the clouds were gray, it was nice to be so high above the Skid Row roofs. He’d hear a sigh, and that was nice, too.

Later she’d say, “You wanna sleep here?”

“Might as well.”

“All right. Good night, Whitey.”

“Good night.”

He’d fall asleep very fast. It was easy to fall asleep because there was nothing to occupy the mind. But at five-thirty in the morning he’d be wide awake and telling himself he needed a drink.

Why?

Then automatically it would come, the lazy smile. And he’d say to himself: Quit asking, bud. You know why.

It never went further than that. He’d get up from the mattress and walk out. He’d hit the street and join the early-morning parade that moved in no special direction, the dreary assemblage of stumble bums going this way and that way and getting nowhere.

From November to November. And on and on through all the gray Novembers.

Seven Novembers.

He stood there in the alley and his thoughts returned to now. He gazed across the back yard and through the kitchen window and saw the gray-green eyes and the bronze hair, the face and the body, the living cause of it all.

He wasn’t sure what he was thinking or feeling. Whatever it was, there was too much of it, a mixture of uncertain contradictions that choked the channels of his brain. His mental mechanism was like a flooded carburetor.

But finally he managed a single thought, pushing it through the maze to make it objective and practical, saying to himself: All right, you’ve had it, you’ve seen her, and now it’s time to get moving.

He told his legs to move, to backtrack down the alley and resume the march that would take him back to the station house.

And that’ll do it, he thought. That’ll really finish it, make it final and complete, so the Thirty-seventh District is the end of the road, it’s the cashier’s desk where you’ll get the pay-off, the last installment of what you’ve earned.

You’ve really earned it, he thought. You’ve played a losing game
and actually enjoyed the idea of losing, almost like them freaks who get their kicks when they’re banged around. You’ve heard tell about that type, the ones who pay the girls to burn them with lit matches, or put on high-heeled shoes and step on their faces. That kind of weird business. And it’s always the same question. What makes them that way? But you never took the trouble to figure the answer. What the hell, it was their private worry, it didn’t concern you.

Not much it didn’t. So now you’re getting to see. You’re in that same bracket, buddy. You’re one of them less-than-nothings who like the taste of being hurt. That makes you lower than the mice and the roaches. At least they try to save their skins, they got a normal outlook. But you, you’re just a clown that ain’t funny. And that’s a sad picture, that’s the saddest picture of all. Like on the outside it’s the stupid crazy smile and inside it’s a gloomy place where all they play is the blues.

He frowned. It was a solemn frown and he was saying to himself: It’s high time you made some changes.

Like what? he asked himself.

He was searching for an answer and not looking at the kitchen window. His eyes aimed downward through the fence posts and all he saw was the rutted black earth of the back yard. The only sound was the purring of the kitten on the doorstep. Then another sound flowed in and at first he didn’t hear it. The sound was cautious and very slow and creeping, coming down the narrow alley, coming toward him, stalking him, the way leopards stalk their supper. They were only a few feet away when he heard them and he looked up and sideways and saw the coffee-colored faces of two Puerto Ricans.

One of them carried a knife. It was a large ripple-edged bread knife. The other Puerto Rican was armed with a beer bottle that had its neck broken off.

He wasn’t looking at the knife or the jagged-edged bottle. He was watching their eyes. Their eyes were dull, showing no emotion, only purpose, and he knew they were moving in to kill him.

H
E TOLD
himself he wasn’t quite ready to be killed. His brain snatched at ideas and found one that seemed plausible. The lazy smile came onto his lips and he said, “Got a cigarette?”

It stopped them for just a moment. They looked at each other. The one with the knife was medium-sized and in his early twenties. He wore a bandage around his forehead and it was bloodstained and there was a wide gash of dried blood under his nose, slanting down past the corner of his mouth. The other Puerto Rican was about five-three and very skinny. He looked to be in his middle thirties and there were ribbons of baldness showing through his slicked-down jet-black hair. His left eye was puffed and almost closed and under it the cheekbone was swollen and shiny purple.

“Please,” Whitey said. “I need a cigarette.”

Again it stopped them. They didn’t know what to make of it. The taller one came in very close to Whitey and held the knife up in front of his eyes and said, “You see thees? You know what thees is for?”

Whitey went on smiling past the blade. “You ain’t even got a cigarette?”

“You keed me? You make fun?”

“I’m dying for a smoke,” Whitey said.

“You dying, period,” the little one said. He spoke with a less pronounced accent than the other Puerto Rican. “You gonna die right now, you know that?”

“Die?” Whitey told himself to blink a few times. “What for?”

“For damn good reason,” the little one said. “You hate Puerto Ricans, we hate you. You want us dead, we want you dead.”

“Me?” Whitey pointed to himself. “You mean me?”

“Yes, you,” the little one said. “You’re one of them.”

“One of what? Whatcha talking about?”

“Hoodlum gang,” the taller one said. “
Americano
sonsabeeches. Make trouble for us. Start riots. So what eet is, we fight you. We fight you to the end. You hear?”

Whitey shrugged. “I ain’t fighting nobody. Crissake, I’m in trouble enough as it is.”

“Trouble?” The little one moved in closer. His eyes narrowed. “What you mean? What trouble?”

“Police,” Whitey said. “They’re looking for me.” He shrugged again. “They claim I killed a policeman.”

“Yes?” The little one looked Whitey up and down. “You did that, eh? That makes me interested, you know? I think I know you from someplace.” He nudged the broken bottle against Whitey’s chest. “Keep talking.”

“They took me to the station house,” Whitey said. “I—”

“Wait,” the little one interrupted. “What station house?”

“Thirty-seventh District.”

“On Clayton Street? Captain Kinnard?”

“Yes,” Whitey said.

The little one turned to the other Puerto Rican and said something in Spanish. Then he faced Whitey and his eyes were very narrow. “Tell me. When this happen?”

“Tonight,” Whitey said.

Again the little one looked at his partner and spoke in Spanish. He spoke rapidly and somewhat excitedly and then he turned back to Whitey and said, “All right, we check this. We check it real careful. What happens at the station house?”

“It was jammed,” Whitey said. “They’d brought in a flock of prisoners and everything was all bolixed up. I saw the Captain giving them the treatment and it was bad, it was plenty bad. What I mean, he was really doing damage, he was like a wild man. So I figured it was no place for anyone charged with killing a cop. I took a long chance and busted loose. The idea caught on and there was one hell of a commotion. Everyone was running for the doors and windows and—”

“All right,” the little one said. He was smiling thinly. “It checks O.K. I wanted to be sure it was you.”

“You were there?” Whitey asked.

“Yes,” the little one said. “And him too.” He pointed to the other Puerto Rican, who nodded, grinning. “We get nice greetings from the Captain. Very nice greetings.” He indicated his puffed-up eye and bruised cheek. The taller Puerto Rican fingered the bloody gash running from nose to chin. They both grinned
widely as they stood there displaying their injuries, and the little one said, “This Captain Kinnard, he hits very hard.”

Whitey nodded. “I saw the way he hits.”

“And that’s why you run, eh? You don’t want him to hit you?”

“That’s it,” Whitey said. “That’s the general idea.”

The little one laughed. “You do smart thing to run. Is no make sense to stay there and get hit. You don’t run, you get hurt. So you run. You run away from station house.” He laughed louder; it really tickled him. “Very smart,” he said. “Much brains.”

“It didn’t take much thinking,” Whitey said. “It was all down here,” and he pointed to his legs.

“Yes,” the little one said. “You tell them to move, they move.” He laughed again. “I remember you now. Little white-haired bum who stands with detective on other side of room. Then the Captain, he comes walking slow, and you see him coming closer and you say to your feet, Come on, boys, move. So then you take off, you start to walk, and then you walk faster, and then you run. So we get same idea. We run too. We go out the door and down the street and the cops make chase but we get away.”

“We damn sure get away,” the taller Puerto Rican said, and he laughed loudly. “The cops, they look so funny. They jump up and down, they don’t know what to do.”

The little one was suddenly serious. He gave Whitey a sideward look and said, “You know something, man? I think you did us a good favor. If not for you, we no get away.”

“Well,” Whitey said, “I’m glad you made it, anyway.”

“You mean this? You are really glad?”

“Sure,” Whitey said, “It ain’t a healthy place, that station house. I like to see people staying healthy.”

“What people?” The little one’s eyes were narrow again.

“All people,” Whitey said.

“Even the Puerto Ricans?”

“Of course,” Whitey said. “Why not?”

“You don’t hate Puerto Ricans?”

“I don’t hate anybody.”

“
You sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” Whitey said. “Why should I hate the Puerto Ricans?”

“Listen to me, mister. Listen careful, now. There is many Americans no like Puerto Ricans. Why they not like us? They say we dirty, we rotten. They say we steal and make trouble and jump on their women. They call us rats and snakes and all names like that. And then they come in gangs, they use clubs and split our heads wide open, we get our teeth knocked out, we get broken arms and legs, and some of us get killed. You think we gonna take that? You think we are damn fools?”

“I don’t think anything,” Whitey said. “It ain’t for me to say who’s right and who’s wrong.”

“You mean you are not interested? You don’t care?”

Whitey smiled dimly. “You want the truth, don’t you?”

“It better be the truth.”

“
All right,” Whitey said. “Here’s the way it is. If I said I cared, I’d be a goddamn liar. I don’t give a damn what goes on here in the Hellhole. What happens in this neighborhood ain’t none of my business.”

“You don’t live here?”

“No.”

“Then where? Where you from?”

“Tenderloin.”

“That is what I thought,” the little one said. “You look like Tenderloin bum. In the eyes it shows, that look, that don’t-give-a-damn look. But something else I see. Something under that look. It is what?”

Whitey didn’t say anything.

“It is what?” the little one repeated. “You give it to me straight, mister. What you doing here?”

“Like I told you,” Whitey said, “I’m running from the heat. I’m looking for a place to hide.”

The little one was quiet for some moments. Then he turned to the other Puerto Rican and said something in Spanish. They commenced a rapid conversation in Spanish and it went on like that for the better part of a minute. Finally the little one looked at Whitey and said, “You sure you tell the truth?”

Whitey nodded.

“I don’t know,” the little one said. He looked down at the broken
bottle in his hand, his eyes centered on the jagged edge. “I am not so sure.”

“Add it up,” Whitey said. “You saw it with your own eyes. You saw me running out of the station house. So it figures I’m hot and I’m looking for a hideout.”

There was another flow of quiet. The light pouring from the kitchen window came slanting down across the back yard to make a pool of vague yellow glow in the narrow alley. It showed the thoughtful, doubtful frown on the face of the little Puerto Rican. The taller Puerto Rican was not frowning, not appearing thoughtful or dubious or in any way affected by the issue. His face was blank and his eyes were focused on Whitey’s belly, the knife in his hand pointed at the same spot. His attitude was purely functional, like a poultry-market laborer getting set to kill a chicken.

Then the taller Puerto Rican said something in Spanish and took a slow step forward. The little one blocked him with an outswept arm and said, “No.”

“
Sí
,” the taller one said. He was very anxious to start using the knife.

“No,” the little one said. He pushed his partner backward. He looked at Whitey and spoke quietly and slowly. “I tell you something, man. You lucky for now. But maybe only for now. We take you to boss and hear what he says.”

“Boss?” Whitey asked.

“Sure, we got boss.” The little one smiled thinly. “This riot thing is big fight, man. Is like real war. You know how is with soldiers? The soldiers, they need leader. We got leader.”

The little one made a gesture telling Whitey to turn and start walking. Whitey turned, and in doing so he caught a glimpse of the kitchen window. It was dark now and it had no importance, no meaning at all. It was just like all the other dark windows, and he thought: Well, anyway, it was interesting while it lasted.

Then he was walking slowly, with the Puerto Ricans walking behind him. The alley was very narrow and they had to move along in single file. For a moment he played with the idea of running. But he knew they could run just as fast, or faster. He felt sort of sorry for them, not pity really, just sorry they were having such a rough time.