The Best American Noir of the Century

He moved closer to her. A mixture of moonlight and streetlamp glow came pouring into the back seat of the taxi and illuminated her face. He saw something in her eyes that caused him to blink several times.

She noticed the way he was blinking and said, “What’s the matter?”

He didn’t answer. He tried to stop blinking and he couldn’t stop.

“Hangover?” Pearl asked.

“No,” he said. “I feel all right now, I feel fine.”

For some moments she didn’t say anything. She was rubbing her sore arm. She tried to stretch it, winced and gasped with pain, and said, “Oh Jesus, it hurts. It really hurts. Maybe it’s broken.”

“Let me feel it,” he said. He put his hand on her arm. He ran his fingers down from above her elbow to her wrist. “It isn’t broken,” he murmured. “Just a little swollen, that’s all. Sprained some ligaments.”

She smiled at him. “The hurt goes away when you touch it.”

He tried not to look at her, but something fastened his eyes to her face. He kept his hand on her arm. He heard himself saying, “I feel sorry for Herman. If he could see you now, I mean if you’d look at him like you’re looking at me —”

“Freddy,” she said. “Freddy.” Then she leaned toward him. She rested her head on his shoulder.

Then somehow everything was quiet and still and he didn’t hear the noise of the taxi’s engine, he didn’t feel the bumps as the wheels hit the ruts in the cobblestone surface of Sixteenth Street. But suddenly there was a deep rut and the taxi gave a lurch. He looked up and heard the driver cursing the city engineers. “Goddamn it,” the driver said. “They got a deal with the tire companies.”

Freddy stared past the driver’s head, his eyes aimed through the windshield to see the wide intersection where Sixteenth Street met the Parkway. The Parkway was a six-laned drive slanting to the left of the downtown area, going away from the concrete of Philadelphia skyscrapers and pointing toward the green of Fairmount Park.

“Turn left,” Freddy said.

They were approaching the intersection, and the driver gave a backward glance. “Left?” the driver asked. “That takes us outta the way. You gave me an address on Seventeenth near Lehigh. We gotta hit it from Sixteenth —”

“I know,” Freddy said quietly. “But turn left anyway.”

The driver shrugged. “You’re the captain.” He beat the yellow of a traffic light and the taxi made a left turn onto the Parkway.

Pearl said, “What’s this, Freddy? Where’re we going?”

“In the park.” He wasn’t looking at her. “We’re gonna do what you said we should do. We’re gonna take a walk in the park.”

“For real?” Her eyes were lit up. She shook her head as though she could scarcely believe what he’d just said.

“We’ll take a nice walk,” he murmured. “Just the two of us. The way you wanted it.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, Freddy—”

The driver shrugged again. The taxi went past the big monuments and fountains of Logan Circle, past the Rodin Museum and the Art Museum and onto River Drive. For a mile or so they stayed on the highway, bordering the moonlit water of the river and then, without being told, the driver made a turn off the highway, made a series of turns that took them deep into the park. They came to a section where there were no lights, no movement, no sound except the autumn wind drifting through the trees and bushes and tall grass and flowers.

“Stop here,” Freddy said.

The taxi came to a stop. They got out and he paid the driver. The driver gave him a queer look and said, “You sure picked a lonely spot.”

Freddy looked at the cabman. He didn’t say anything.

The driver said, “You’re at least three miles off the highway. It’s gonna be a problem getting a ride home.”

“Is it your problem?” Freddy asked gently.

“Well, no—”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Freddy said. He smiled amiably. The driver threw a glance at the blonde, smiled, and told himself that the man might have the right idea, after all. With an item like that, any man would want complete privacy. He thought of the bony, bucktoothed woman who waited for him at home, crinkled his face in a distasteful grimace, put the car in gear, and drove away.

“Ain’t it nice?” Pearl said. “Ain’t it wonderful?”

They were walking through a glade where the moonlight showed the autumn colors of fallen leaves. The night air was fragrant with the blended aromas of wildflowers. He had his arm around her shoulder and was leading her toward a narrow lane sloping downward through the trees.

She laughed lightly, happily. “It’s like as if you know the place. As if you’ve been here before.”

“No,” he said. “I’ve never been here before.”

There was the tinkling sound of a nearby brook. A bird chirped in the bushes. Another bird sang a tender reply. “Listen,” Pearl murmured. “Listen to them.”

He listened to the singing of the birds. Now he was guiding Pearl down along the slope and seeing the way it leveled at the bottom and then went up again on all sides. It was a tiny valley down there with the brook running along the edge. He told himself it would happen when they reached the bottom.