James Ellroy - The Best American Noir of the Century

“Forever After” was published in the May i960 issue of Shock magazine.

It was a few minutes before five o’clock when Ardis Clinton unlocked the rear door of her apartment and admitted her lover. He was a cow-eyed young man with a wild mass of curly black hair. He worked as a dishwasher at Joe’s Diner, which was directly across the alley.

They embraced passionately. Her body pressed against the meat cleaver concealed inside his shirt, and Ardis shivered with delicious anticipation. Very soon now, it would all be over. That stupid ox, her husband, would be dead. He and his stupid cracks —- all the dullness and boredom — would be gone forever. And with the twenty thousand insurance money, ten thousand dollars double-indemnity…

“We’re going to be so happy, Tony,” she whispered. “You’ll have your own place, a real swank little restaurant with what they call one of those intimate bars. And you’ll just manage it, just kind of saunter around in a dress suit, and —”

“And we’ll live happily ever after,” Tony said. “Just me and you, baby, walking down life’s highway together.”

Ardis let out a gasp. She shoved him away from her, glaring up into his handsome empty face. “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t say things like that! I’ve told you and told you not to do it, and if I have to tell you again, I’ll —!”

“But what’d I say?” he protested. “I didn’t say nothin’.”

“Well …” She got control of herself, forcing a smile. “Never mind, darling. You haven’t had any opportunities and we’ve never really had a chance to know each other, so — so never mind. Things will be different after we’re married.” She patted his cheek, kissed him again. “You got away from the diner all right? No one saw you leave?”

“Huh-uh. I already took the stuff up to the steam-table for Joe, and the waitress was up front too, y’know, filling the sugar bowls and the salt and pepper shakers like she always does just before dinner. And—”

“Good. Now, suppose someone comes back to the kitchen and finds out you’re not there. What’s your story going to be?”

“Well…I was out in the alley dumping some garbage. I mean —” He corrected himself hastily, “maybe I was. Or maybe I was down in the basement, getting some supplies. Or maybe I was in the john — the lavatory, I mean — or —”

“Fine,” Ardis said approvingly. “You don’t say where you were, so they can’t prove you weren’t there. You just don’t remember where you were, understand, darling? You might have been any number of places.”

Tony nodded. Looking over her shoulder into the bedroom, he frowned worriedly. “Why’d you do that now, honey? I know this has got to look like a robbery. But tearin’ up the room now, before he gets here —”

“There won’t be time afterwards. Don’t worry, Tony. I’ll keep the door closed.”

“But he might open it and look in. And if he sees all them dresser drawers dumped around, and—”

“He won’t. He won’t look into the bedroom. I know exactly what he’ll do, exactly what he’ll say, the same things that he’s always done and said ever since we’ve been married. All the stupid, maddening, dull, tiresome—!” She broke off abruptly, conscious that her voice was rising. “Well, forget it,” she said, forcing another smile. “He won’t give us any trouble.”

“Whatever you say.” Tony nodded docilely. “If you say so, that’s the way it is, Ardis.”

“But there’ll be trouble —from the cops. I know I’ve already warned you about it, darling. But it’ll be pretty bad, worse than anything you’ve ever gone through. They won’t have any proof, but they’re bound to be suspicious, and if you ever start talking, admitting anything —”

“I won’t. They won’t get anything out of me.”

“You’re sure? They’ll try to trick you. They’ll probably tell you that I’ve confessed. They may even slap you around. So if you’re not absolutely sure…”

“They won’t get anything out of me,” he repeated stolidly. “I won’t talk.”

And studying him, Ardis knew that he wouldn’t.

She led the way down the hall to the bathroom. He parted the shower curtains and stepped into the tub. Drawing a pair of gloves from his pocket, he pulled them onto his hands. Awkwardly, he fumbled the meat cleaver from beneath his shirt.

“Ardis. Uh — look, honey.”

“Yes?”

“Do I have to hit you? Couldn’t I just maybe give you a little shove, or —“

“No, darling,” she said gently “You have to hit me. This is supposed to be a robbery. If you killed my husband without doing anything to me, well, you know how it would look.”

“But I never hit no woman —any woman — before. I might hit you too hard, and —”

“Tony!”

“Well, all right,” he said sullenly. “I don’t like it, but all right.”

Ardis murmured soothing endearments. Then, brushing his lips quickly with her own, she returned to the living room. It was a quarter after five, exactly five minutes—but exactly —until her husband, Bill, would come home. Closing the bedroom door, she lay down on the lounge. Her negligee fell open, and she left it that way, grinning meanly as she studied the curving length of her thighs.

Give the dope a treat for a change, she thought. Let him get one last good look before he gets his.

Her expression changed. Wearily, resentfully, she pulled the material of the negligee over her legs. Because, of course, Bill would never notice. She could wear a ring in her nose, paint a bull’s-eye around her navel, and he’d never notice.

If he had ever noticed, just once paid her a pretty compliment…

If he had ever done anything different, ever said or done anything different at all — even the teensiest little bit…

But he hadn’t. Maybe he couldn’t. So what else could she do but what she was doing? She could get a divorce, sure, but that was all she’d get. No money; nothing with which to build a new life. Nothing to make up for those fifteen years of slowly being driven mad.

It’s his own fault, she thought bitterly. I can’t take any more. If I had to put up with him for just one more night, even one more hour…!

She heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. Then a key turned in the door latch, and Bill came in. He was a master machinist, a solidly built man of about forty-five. The old-fashioned gold-rimmed glasses on his pudgy nose gave him a look of owlish solemnity.

“Well,” he said, setting down his lunch bucket. “Another day, another dollar.”

Ardis grimaced. He plodded across to the lounge, stooped, and gave her a halfhearted peck on the cheek.

“Long time no see,” he said. “What we havin’ for supper?”

Ardis gritted her teeth. It shouldn’t matter now; in a few minutes it would all be over. Yet somehow it did matter. He was as maddening to her as he had ever been.

“Bill…” She managed a seductive smile, slowly drawing the negligee apart. “How do I look, Bill?”

“OK,” he yawned. “Got a little hole in your drawers, though. What’d you say we was havin’ for supper?”

“Slop,” she said. “Garbage. Trash salad with dirt dressing.”

“Sounds good. We got any hot water?”

Ardis sucked in her breath. She let it out again in a kind of infuriated moan. “Of course we’ve got hot water! Don’t we always have? Well, don’t we? Why do you have to ask every night?”

“So what’s to get excited about?” He shrugged. “Well, guess I’ll go splash the chassis.”

He plodded off down the hall. Ardis heard the bathroom door open and close. She got up, stood waiting by the telephone. The door banged open again, and Tony came racing up the hall.