Free Street of No Return by David Goodis, Robert Polito

man said. He moved quickly to the table, pulled the cap off the bottle, and brought the bottle to Whitey. "I want you to taste this goathead."
"No," Whitey said. He was looking past the old man, at the door. "I'm going back to the station house."
The old man stood there between Whitey and the door. For some moments he looked at Whitey's face. Then he looked down at the bottle of goathead. He lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a quick swallow. As it went down and burned and hit like a blockbuster hitting the target, his body vibrated and his old man's head snapped forward and back and forward again. "Goddamn," he said, speaking to the bottle. "You're bad, man. You're a bad sonofabitch."
Whitey reached past the old man and put his hand on the doorknob.
"Don't," the old man said. His hand came down very gently on Whitey's arm. "Please, Gene. Please don't."
"Why not?" He kept his hand closed on the doorknob. He was looking at the door and saying, "What else is there to do?"
"Stay here."
"And wait for them to find me?" He smiled sadly, resignedly. "They're gonna find me sooner or later.''
"Not if you hide. Not if you wait for a chance to run."
"They'd get me anyway," he said. "They're bound to get me, no matter what I do. When they're looking for a copkiller, they never stop looking."
"But you're not a cop-killer," Jones said. His hand tightened on Whitey's arm. "Use your brains, man. Don't let yourself go haywire. You know you didn't do it. You gotta remember you didn't do it. If you go back to that station house, it's just like signing a confession. Like walking into the butcher shop and putting yourself on the meat block."
The sadness went out of the smile and it became a dry grin. Whitey was thinking of the Captain. In his mind he saw the Captain attired in a bloodstained butcher's apron. He saw the cleaver raised and coming down, but somehow he didn't care, maybe it was all for the best. What the hell, he should have been out of it a long time ago. No use continuing the masquerade. He said to himself: The truth is, buddy, you really don't give a damn, you'd just as soon be out of it.
He heard Jones Jarvis saying, "Or maybe you just don't care."
Whitey winced. He looked at the old man's topaz eyes, peering inside his brain.
Jones said, "You gotta care. You gotta drill it into yourself you got something to live for."
"Like what?" he asked in the cracked whisper that always reminded him it was a matter of no hope, no soap, nothing at all.
But the old man was still in there trying. And saying, "Like looking for an answer. No matter what the question is, there's always an answer."
"Sure," he agreed, grinning again. "In this case, it's strictly zero."
"It's never zero," the old man said. "Not while you're able to breathe."
"I'm tired of breathing." As he said it, it sounded funny to him, and he widened the grin.
"It's a goddamn shame," the old man said. He loosened his grip on Whitey's arm. He looked down at the bottle in his hand, then gazed down past the bottle to focus on the splintered shabby boards of the floor. He spoke to the floor, saying, "My fault. It's all my fault. I couldn't keep my big mouth shut. I couldn't leave it where it was, with him sitting there on the cot, man named Whitey just sitting there cooling himself and getting comfortable. I hadda open up my goddamn mouth and talk about Gene Lindell, the singer'
Whitey held onto the grin. "Don't let it bother you, Jones."
Jones went on talking to the floor. It was as though Whitey had already walked out of the shack. "Now he's going back to that station house and the Captain '11 tear him to shreds. Really go to work on him, that's for sure. And it's my fault. It's all my fault."
"It ain't no such thing," Whitey said. He put his hand on the old man's shoulder. "It's just the way things are stacked up, that's all. You mustn't feel bad about it. Maybe all they'll do is throw me in a cell."
"I wouldn't bet on that," the old man said. He lifted his gaze from the floor