Дэшил Хэммет - The Collected Dashiell Hammett

Five minutes later Bob Kirby’s brother Pudge ran in and yelled, “Jees, they shot Loney!”

I shot Loney. If I was not so dumb he would still be alive any way you figure it. For a long time I blamed it on Mrs. Schiff, but I guess that was just to keep from admitting that it was my own fault. I mean I never thought she actually did the shooting, like the people who said that when he missed the train that they were supposed to go away on together she came back and waited outside the armory and when he came out he told her he had changed his mind and she shot him. I mean I blamed her for lying to him, because it came out that nobody had tipped Big Jake off about her and Loney. Loney had put the idea in her head, telling her about what Pete had said, and she had made up the lie so Loney would go away with her. But if I was not so dumb Loney would have caught that train.

Then a lot of people said Big Jake killed Loney. They said that was why the police never got very far, on account of Big Jake’s pull down at the City Hall. It was a fact that he had come home earlier than Mrs. Schiff had expected and she had left a note for him saying that she was running away with Loney, and he could have made it down to the street near the armory where Loney was shot in time to do it, but he could not have got to the railroad station in time to catch their train, and if I was not so dumb Loney would have caught that train.

And the same way if that Sailor Perelman crowd did it, which is what most people including the police thought even if they did have to let him go because they could not find enough evidence against him. If I was not so dumb Loney could have said to me right out, “Listen, Kid, I’ve got to go away and I’ve got to have all the money I can scrape up and the best way to do it is to make a deal with Perelman for you to go in the tank and then bet all we got against you.” Why, I would have thrown a million fights for Loney, but how could he know he could trust me, with me this dumb?

Or I could have guessed what he wanted and I could have gone down when Perelman copped me with that uppercut in the fifth. That would have been easy. Or if I was not so dumb I would have learned to box better and, even losing to Perelman like I would have anyway, I could have kept him from chopping me to pieces so bad that Loney could not stand it any more and had to throw away everything by telling me to stop boxing and go in and fight.

Or even if everything had happened like it did up to then he could still have ducked out at the last minute if I was not so dumb that he had to stick around to look out for me by telling those Providence guys that I had nothing to do with double-crossing them.

I wish I was dead instead of Loney.

Collier’s, March 24, 1934

Max Rhinewien’s telegram brought me back from Santa Barbara. He glared at me over his bicarbonate of soda and demanded, “And where’ve you been?”

“Where’d you wire me? I’ve been trying to finish a play.”

“Is there a picture in it?”

“Why not? You bought Soviet Law, didn’t you? And that’s a bibliography.”

“Never mind,” he said, “it’s a good title anyway. Listen, Bugs, I want you to hop over to Serrita and—”

“Nothing doing. I’ve still got nine days coining to me and I want to get the play finished.”

“As a favor to me, Bugs. It won’t take over a week, I promise you. Is a week going to hurt? You can take your nine days afterwards — take ten days — take two weeks if you want. I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t in a hole. My God, I’d be the last person in the world to interfere with your play. But maybe it’ll be better for you this way. Maybe you’ll come back to your play with a clear mind — you know — better perspective. You got some problems, haven’t you, that you ain’t been able to clear up yet? Well, you get away from it for a little while and give your self-conscious mind a chance to work and—”

I never had much luck arguing with Max. I said, “All right, I’ll go.”

“Thanks. That’s fine. I knew I could count on you. Did you see the Go West! script?”

“No.”

“Well, I said all along it needed something, but it wasn’t till last night I could put my finger on it. It ain’t a bad story at all — this Blaine’s got something — but it needs just that one thing; and you know what it is? Sexing up.”

“You mean you’re going to put sex in a Western picture?” I asked.

“Yep!”

I shook my head.

He beamed on me. “Can’t see it, huh? I guess a lot of people can’t, but stick around and you will. And you’ll see Westerns grossing in the first-run houses instead of just in the neighbs and the sticks. Listen, Bugs, is Sol Feldman a dope?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Exactly. Not that anybody knows of. Well, I happened to hear only last night that they’re sexing up this The Dogie Trail plenty.”

“Why don’t you let him? Why don’t you wait and see how—”

He slapped a hand down flat on his desk. “You know that ain’t my way,” he said. “I got to be always first in the field. You know that. And we can beat ’em to release by a week or two easy.”

“It’s all right with me. It’s not my baby. What do I do?”

“I want you to sex up Go West! Keep it clean, see, but cram it with that stuff. You’re the boy to do it. You’ll have to get over there right away — take a plane — and you’ll have to work your stuff up as they go along, because they already been shooting a couple days, but you can do that all right. This fellow Lawrence Blaine that wrote the script is out with them and you can either make him help you or send him back, whichever you want. And you won’t have any trouble with Fred.”

“That part’s O. K.,” I said, “but tell me one thing: how are you going to sex up Betty Lee Fenton?”

“Why not — so you keep it clean? She ain’t crippled. She can throw herself around if somebody shows her how, can’t she? Anyhow, you don’t have to depend on her. There’s other girls over there — Ann Meadows and Gracie King and — and if you want to take anybody else, go ahead. I’m sending Danny Finn along with you. I was thinking you might work him in something along the line that he’s a drunk piano player that Gracie — say — is taking along to open a dance-hall in this mining town, and she’s got some girls with her and — you know — you can work it up.”

“Didn’t Paramount try something like that with Gene Pallette in Fighting Caravans three or four years ago? I didn’t see the picture, but I heard—”

“What of it?” Max asked. “Is the stuff you write going to be like anybody else’s? That’s what I’m counting on — the Parish touch — the angle you got that nobody else can come anywheres near.”

“Go on,” I said, “I bet you tell that to all the writers. Have you got a copy of the script?”

“Miss Shepherd’ll give you one. I appreciate this a lot, Bugs.” He shook a fist at me. “Like that, see, but clean.”

I said, “Absolutely,” and — with Danny Finn — flew over the mountains to Serrita.

I found Fred LePage in his tent — besides housing the company, the tents served as a U. S. cavalry encampment in the picture — rehearsing a small dark girl in a one-eyed fade-away. (A one-eyed fade-away is where a character that has been rebuffed glances sidewise — fearfully or reproachfully as a rule — into the camera or at whoever did the rebuffing, and slinks off.) Fred greeted me with open arms. “Hello! What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t Max wire you?”

His grin went away. “Maybe. I stopped reading his wires. He’s driving me nuts.”