The Best American Noir of the Century

A taxi pulled up and a blonde stepped out. She paid the driver and walked toward Freddy and he said, “Hello, Pearl.”

Pearl smiled at him. “Kiss me hello.”

“Not here,” he said.

“Later?”

He nodded. He looked her up and down. She was five-five and weighed 110 and nature had given her a body that caused men’s eyes to bulge. Freddy’s eyes didn’t bulge, although he told himself she was something to see. He always enjoyed looking at her. He wondered if he still enjoyed the nights with her. He’d been sharing the nights with her for the past several months and it had reached the point where he wasn’t seeing any other women and maybe he was missing out on something. For just a moment he gazed past Pearl, telling himself that she needed him more than he needed her, and knowing it wouldn’t be easy to get off the hook.

Well, there wasn’t any hurry. He hadn’t seen anything else around that interested him. But he wished Pearl would let up on the clinging routine. Maybe he’d really go for her if she wasn’t so hungry for him all the time.

Pearl stepped closer to him. The hunger showed in her eyes. She said, “Know what I did today? I took a walk in the park.”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I went to Fairmount Park and took a long walk. All by myself.”

“That’s nice,” he said. He wondered what she was getting at.

She said, “Let’s do it together sometimes. Let’s go for a walk in the park. It’s something we ain’t never done. All we do is drink and listen to jazz and find all sorts of ways to knock ourselves out.”

He gave her a closer look. This was a former call girl who’d done a stretch for prostitution, a longer stretch for selling cocaine, and had finally decided she’d done enough time and she might as well go legitimate. She’d learned the art of stripping off her clothes before an audience, and now at twenty-six she was earning a hundred-and-a-half a week. It was clean money, as far as the law was concerned, but maybe in her mind it wasn’t clean enough. Maybe she was getting funny ideas, like this walk-in-the-park routine. Maybe she’d soon be thinking in terms of a cottage for two and a little lawn in the front and shopping for a baby carriage.

He wondered what she’d look like, wearing an apron and standing at a sink and washing dishes.

For some reason the thought disturbed him. He couldn’t understand why it should disturb him. He heard her saying, “Can we do it, Freddy? Let’s do it on Sunday. We’ll go to Fairmount Park.”

“We’ll talk about it,” he cut in quickly. He glanced at his wristwatch. “See you after the show.”

He hurried through the club entrance, went past the hatcheck counter, past the tables and across the dance floor and toward a door marked private. There was a button adjoining the door and he pressed the button: one short, two longs, another short, and then there was a buzzing sound. He opened the door and walked into the office. It was a large room and the color motif was yellow and gray. The walls and ceiling were gray and the thick carpet was pale yellow. The furniture was bright yellow. There was a short skinny man standing near the desk and his face was gray. Seated at the desk was a large man whose face was a mixture of yellow and gray.

Freddy closed the door behind him. He walked toward the desk. He nodded to the short, skinny man and then he looked at the large man and said, “Hello, Herman.”

Herman glanced at a clock on the desk. He said, “You’re right on time.”

“He’s always on time,” said the short, skinny man.

Herman looked at Freddy Lamb and said, “You do it?”

Before Freddy could answer, the short, skinny man said, “Sure he did it.”

“Shut up, Ziggy,” Herman said. He had a soft, sort of gooey voice, as though he spoke with a lot of marshmallow in his mouth. He wore a suit of very soft fabric, thin and fleecy, and his thick hands were pressed softly on the desktop. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a large star emerald that radiated a soft green light. Everything about him was soft, except for his eyes. His eyes were iron.

“You do it?” he repeated softly.

Freddy nodded.

“Any trouble?” Herman asked.

“He never has trouble,” Ziggy said.

Herman looked at Ziggy. “I told you to shut up.” Then, very softly, “Come here, Ziggy.”

Ziggy hesitated. He had a ferret face that always looked sort of worried and now it looked very worried.

“Come here,” Herman purred.

Ziggy approached the large man. Ziggy was blinking and swallowing hard. Herman reached out and slowly took hold of Ziggy’s hand. Herman’s thick fingers closed tightly on Ziggy’s bony fingers and gave a yank. Ziggy moaned.

“When I tell you to shut up,” Herman said, “you’ll shut up.” He smiled softly and paternally at Ziggy. “Right?”

“Right,” Ziggy said. Then he moaned again. His fingers were free now and he looked down at them as an animal gazes sadly at its own crushed paws. He said, “They’re all busted.”