Denise Hamilton - Los Angeles Noir 2

Max Gandara caught Channing. “You crazy—”

Channing hit him, hard and square. His face didn’t change expression. “I owe you that one, Max. And before you start preaching the sanctity of womanhood, you better pry out a couple of those slugs that just missed me. You’ll find they came from Miss Krist’s pretty little popgun—the same one that killed her boyfriend, Jack Flavin.” He went over and tilted Marge Krist’s face to his, quite gently. “You came out of your faint in a hurry, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

She brought up her good hand and tried to claw his eye out.

Channing laughed. He pushed her into the arms of a policeman. “It’ll all come out in the wash. Meantime, there are the bullets from Marge’s gun. The fact that she had a gun at all proves she was in on the gang. They’d have searched her, if all that pious stuff about poor Rudy’s evil ways had been on the level. She was a little surprised about Padway and sore because Flavin had kept it from her. But she knew which was the better man, all right. She was going along with Padway, and she shot Flavin to keep his mouth shut about Hank, and to make sure he didn’t get Padway by accident. Flavin was a gutty little guy, and he came close to doing just that. Marge untied me because she hoped I’d get shot in the confusion, or start trouble on my own account. If you hadn’t come in, Max, she’d probably have shot me herself. She didn’t want any more fussing about Hank Channing, and with me and Flavin dead she was in the clear.”

Gandara said with ugly stubbornness, “Sounded to me like Flavin made a pretty good case against Rudy.”

“Sure, sure. He was down on the ground with half his teeth out and three guys holding guns on him.”

Marge Krist was sitting now on the cot, while somebody worked over her with a first aid kit. Channing stood in front of her.

“You’ve done a good night’s work, Marge. You killed Rudy just as much as you did Flavin, or Hank. Rudy had decent stuff in him. You forced him into the game, but Hank was turning him soft. You killed Hank.”

Channing moved closer to her. She looked up at him, her green eyes meeting his dark ones, both of them passionate and cruel.

“You’re a smart girl, Marge. You and your mealy-mouthed hypocrisy. I know now what you meant when you accused Rudy of being afraid to be questioned. Flavin couldn’t kill Hank by himself. He wasn’t big enough, and Hank wasn’t that dumb. He didn’t trust Flavin. But you, Marge, sure, he trusted you. He’d stand on a dark pier at midnight and talk to you, and never notice who was sneaking up behind with a blackjack.” He bent over her. “A smart girl, Marge, and a pretty one. I don’t think I’ll want to stand outside the window while you die.”

“I wish I’d killed you too,” she whispered. “By God, I wish I’d killed you too!”

Channing nodded. He went over and sat down wearily. He looked exhausted and weak, but his eyes were alive.

“Somebody give me a cigarette,” he said. He struck the match himself. The smoke tasted good.

It was his first smoke in ten years.

DEAD MAN

BY JAMES M. CAIN

San Fernando

(Originally published in 1936)

1

He felt the train check, knew what it meant. In a moment, from up toward the engine, came the chant of the railroad detective: “Rise and shine, boys, rise and shine.” The hoboes began dropping off. He could hear them out there in the dark, cursing as the train went by. That was what they always did on these freights: let the hoboes climb on in the yards, making no effort to dislodge them there; for that would have meant a foolish game of hide-and-seek between two or three detectives and two or three hundred hoboes, with the hoboes swarming on as fast as the detectives put them off. What they did was let the hoboes alone until the train was several miles under way; then they pulled down to a speed slow enough for men to drop off, but too fast for them to climb back on. Then the detective went down the line, brushing them off, like caterpillars from a twig. In two minutes they would all be ditched, a crowd of bitter men in a lonely spot, but they always cursed, always seemed surprised.

He crouched in the coal gondola and waited. He hadn’t boarded a flat or a refrigerator with the others, back in the Los Angeles yards, tempting though this comfort was. He wasn’t long on the road, and he still didn’t like to mix with the other hoboes, admit he was one of them. Also, he couldn’t shake off a notion that he was sharper than they were, that playing a lone hand he might think of some magnificent trick that would defeat the detective, and thus, even at this ignoble trade, give him a sense of accomplishment, of being good at it. He had slipped into the gond not in spite of its harshness, but because of it; it was black, and would give him a chance to hide, and the detective, not expecting him there, might pass him by. He was nineteen years old, and was proud of the nickname they had given him in the poolroom back home. They called him Lucky.

“Rise and shine, boys, rise and shine.”

Three dropped off the tank car ahead, and the detective climbed into the gond. The flashlight shot around, and Lucky held his breath. He had curled into one of the three chutes for unloading coal. The trick worked. These chutes were dangerous, for if you stepped into one and the bottom dropped, it would dump you under the train. The detective took no chances. He first shot the flash, then held on to the side while he climbed over the chutes. When he came to the last one, where Lucky lay, he shot the flash, but carelessly, and not squarely into the hole, so that he saw nothing. Stepping over, he went on, climbed to the boxcar behind, and resumed his chant: there were more curses, more feet sliding on ballast on the roadbed outside. Soon the train picked up speed. That meant the detective had reached the caboose, that all the hoboes were cleared.

Lucky stood up, looked around. There was nothing to see, except hot-dog stands along the highway, but it was pleasant to poke your head up, let the wind whip your hair, and reflect how you had outwitted the detective. When the click of the rails slowed and station lights showed ahead, he squatted down again, dropped his feet into the chute. As soon as lights flashed alongside, he braced against the opposite side of the chute: that was one thing he had learned, the crazy way they shot the brakes on these freights. When the train jerked to a shrieking stop, he was ready, and didn’t get slammed. The bell tolled, the engine pulled away, there was an interval of silence. That meant they had cut the train, and would be picking up more cars. Soon they would be going on.

“Ah-ha! Hiding out on me, hey?”

The flashlight shot down from the boxcar. Lucky jumped, seized the side of the gond, scrambled up, vaulted. When he hit the roadbed, his ankles stung from the impact, and he staggered for footing. The detective was on him, grappling. He broke away, ran down the track, past the caboose, into the dark. The detective followed, but he was a big man and began to lose ground. Lucky was clear, when all of a sudden his foot drove against a switch bar and he went flat on his face, panting from the hysteria of shock.

The detective didn’t grapple this time. He let go with a barrage of kicks.

“Hide out on me, will you? Treat you right, give you a break, and you hide out on me. I’ll learn you to hide out on me.”

Lucky tried to get up, couldn’t. He was jerked to his feet, rushed up the track on the run. He pulled back, but couldn’t get set. He sat down, dug in with his sliding heels. The detective kicked and jerked, in fury. Lucky clawed for something to hold on to, his hand caught the rail. The detective stamped on it. He pulled it back in pain, clawed again. This time his fingers closed on a spike, sticking an inch or two out of the tie. The detective jerked, the spike pulled out of the hole, and Lucky resumed his unwilling run.