Free David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) by David Goodis Page A

alley on the left side of the building. There’s a back door and he’ll have it open for you. He works fast and you’ll be out of there before it gets light.”
    “What do I do after I get out? I can’t walk the streets all bandaged up.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” the driver said. “I’ll be there. I know the section and I got the whole thing mapped out already. The alley cuts through to a second alley. I’ll have the taxi parked there at the end of the second alley.”
    “Suppose he can’t make it tonight.”
    “We’ll take the chance. I think we better shove now. I don’t want any cops to see me parked here. Where do we go?”
    “Make a right hand turn at the end of the block,” Parry said.
    The taxi went down the street, made a right turn, made another right turn, then a third, then down four blocks and a left-hand turn.
    “Stop alongside that apartment house,” Parry said.
    The taxi went halfway down the street and came to a stop.
    “What’ll it be?” Parry said.
    “An even two bucks.”
    Parry handed the driver a five-dollar bill. He said, “Keep it.”
    The driver handed Parry a dollar bill and a dollar in silver. “You need some silver,” he said. “Besides, you don’t want to go throwing your money around like that. Now what’s it going to be?”
    “Three on the dot.”
    “All right. I’ll call him. And you be there. And listen, keep telling yourself it’ll work out okay. Keep telling yourself you don’t have a thing to lose.”
    “But you,” Parry said. “You’ve got plenty to lose. You and your friend.”
    “Don’t worry about me and my friend,” the driver said. “You just be there at three. That’s all you got to worry about.”
    Parry opened the door and stepped out of the taxi. He walked toward the entrance of a third-rate apartment house. Heheard the taxi going away and he turned and saw the tail light getting smaller in the blackness down the street.
    The lobby of the apartment house was dreary. People who stayed in this place were in the forty-a-week bracket. The carpet was ready to give up and the wallpaper should have given up long ago. There were three plain chairs and a sofa sinking in the middle. There was a small table, too small for the big antique lamp that was probably taken at auction without too much bidding. Parry had been here before and every time he came here he wondered why George Fellsinger put up with it. He looked at it through the window of the door that kept him in the vestibule. He sighed and wanted to go away. There was no other place to go. He gazed down the list of tenants, came to Fellsinger and pressed the button. There wasn’t any voice arrangement. There wasn’t any response to the first press. Parry pressed again. There wasn’t any response. Maybe the Bridge was better after all. It didn’t pay to keep up with this, all this vacuum in the stomach, going around, going up to his brain and going back to his stomach and coming up again and eating away at his heart. He pressed the button again, and this time he got a buzz and he opened the door, quickly crossed the lobby, saw that the elevator was right there waiting for him. Maybe the police were waiting upstairs. Maybe they weren’t.
    The elevator took him to the fourth floor. He hurried down the corridor, knocked on the door of Fellsinger’s apartment.
    The door opened. Parry stepped into the apartment. The door closed. George Fellsinger folded his arms and leaned against the door and said, “Jesus Christ.”
    George Fellsinger was thirty-six and losing his blonde hair. He was five nine and he had the kind of build they show in the muscle development ads, the kind of build a man has before he sends the coupon away and gets the miracle machine. Fellsinger had blue eyes that were more water than blue and the frayed collar of his starched white shirt was open at the throat.
    The apartment was just like Fellsinger. It consisted of a room and a bath and a kitchenette. The davenport