The Best American Noir of the Century

It was a dark night, a small-wind night, the night on which evil things could happen, might happen. He didn’t feel uneasy walking the two dark blocks from the streetcar to her house. The reason he kept peering over his shoulder was because he heard things behind him, things like the rustle of an ancient bombazine skirt, like footsteps trying to walk without sound, things like crawling and scuttling and pawing. The things you’d hear in a too-old forest place, not on the concrete pavement of a city street. He had to look behind him to know that the sounds were the ordinary sounds of a city street in the autumn. Browned leaves shriveled and fallen, blown in small whirlpools by the small wind. Warped elm boughs scraping together in lonely nakedness. The sounds you’d expect on a night in autumn when the grotesquerie of shadows was commonplace. Elm fingers beckoning, leaves drifting to earth, shadows on an empty street. The little moans of the wind quivering his own flung shadow, and his own steps solid in the night, moving to her house.

He’d be there. The hero. Korea Jim. He’d be there a long time, since supper. She’d have asked him to supper because this was her folks’ night out. Her folks always went out Thursday nights, ladies’ night at the club. Cards and bingo and dancing and eats and they wouldn’t get home till after one o’clock at least.

She’d say it cute, “Come over for supper Thursday. I’m a terrible cook. All I can fix is pancakes.” And you’d know there was nothing you’d rather eat Thursday night than her pancakes. Better than thick steak, better than chicken and dumplings, better than turkey and all the fixings would be pancakes on Thursday night. She’d say it coaxing, “If you don’t come I’ll be here all by myself. The family always goes out on Thursday night.” And even if there weren’t going to be pancakes with sorghum or real maple syrup, your choice, your chest would swell until it was tight enough to bust, wanting to protect her from a lonely night at home with the folks out.

She was such a little thing. Not tall enough to reach the second shelf in the kitchen without standing on tiptoes. Not even in her pencil-point heels was she high enough to reach his chin. She was little and soft as fur and her hair was like yellow silk. She was always fooling you with her hair. You’d get used to the memory of her looking like a kid sister with her hair down her back, maybe curled a little, and the next time she’d have it pinned on top of her head like she was playing grownup. Or she’d have it curled up short or once or twice in two stiff pigtails with ribbon bows like a real kid. Wondering about her hair he forgot for a moment the dark and the wind and the things crawling in his mind and heart; he quickened his steps to cover the blocks to her house.

Then he remembered. It wasn’t he who had been invited to pancakes for supper; it was the boy with the medals, the hero, Korea Jim. By now she and Jim would be sitting on the couch, sitting close together so they’d both avoid the place where the couch sagged. Her brother, the one in the Navy, had busted it when he was a kid.

She and Jim would be sitting there close and only the one lamp on. Too much light hurt her eyes. Her eyes were big as cartwheels, blue sometimes, a smoky blue, and sometimes sort of purple-gray. You didn’t know what color her eyes were until you looked into them. It was like her hair only she did it to her hair and her eyes did themselves. Her nose didn’t change, it was little and cute like she was. Just turned up the least bit, enough to make her cuter when she put her eyelashes up at you and said, “Aw, Benny!” Her mouth changed colors, red like a Jonathan sometimes, sometimes like holly, sometimes like mulberries. Her father didn’t like that purple color. He’d say, “Take it off, Nan. You look like a stuck pig.” Red like blood. But the colors didn’t change her mouth really, red like fire, red like soft warm wool. Her mouth …

He picked up his steps and shadows flickered as he moved. This time he didn’t look over his shoulder. Nothing was back there. And beyond, a block beyond her house, he could see the blur of green light, the precinct police station house. It was somehow reassuring. There couldn’t be anything behind you with the police station ahead of you. Besides he had the gun.

It was heavy in his overcoat pocket. On the streetcar riding out to her neighborhood he’d felt everyone’s eyes looking through the pocket and wondering why a nice young fellow was carrying a gun. He could have told them he was going to Nan’s house though she wasn’t expecting him. Though she’d told him for the twelfth night in a row, “I’m so sorry, Benny, but I’m busy tonight.” Except the one night he hadn’t phoned, the night he’d walked the streets in the chill autumn rain until his shoes were soggy and his mind a tight red knot.