Dark Passage by David Goodis Read Free Book Online

used as a cape.
    The skin cream mixed well with the soap,
resulting in a decent lather that gave the razor a smooth ride. He
shaved in three minutes and then he went into the parlor and lit a
cigarette. He had the yellow towel wrapped around his middle and
tucked in. He looked over the Basie records and decided to play
Shorty George.
    He let the needle go down and just as it
touched the black he felt something coming into the apartment. It
was only a noise but to him it had form and the ability to clutch
and rip at his insides.
    It was the buzzer.
    Parry lifted the needle and stopped the
phonograph. He waited.
    The buzzer sounded again. Parry slowly
lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a long haul. He sat down
on the edge of the davenport and waited. He gazed at the phone
attachment beside the door and as the buzzer hit him again he
decided to lift the phone and tell the person down there to go away
and leave him alone. He let his head go into cupped
hands.
    Then the buzzing stopped.
    The tears started again, coming into his
eyes, collecting there, ready to gush. He told himself that he had
to stop that sort of thing. It was bad because it was soft and if
there was anything he couldn’t afford now it was softness. The
lukewarm and weak brand of softness. Everything had to be ice, and
just as hard, and just as fast as a whippet and just as smooth. And
just as accurate as a calculating machine, giving the buzzer a
certain denomination. Now that the buzzer had stopped a key was
clicking into position and crossing off the denomination. The
buzzer had stopped and it was all over. The person down there had
gone away. Check that off. Then check off all the other things that
needed checking off. Get another key in position and check off San
Quentin. Go back further than that and check off the trial. Come
back to San Quentin, go ahead of San Quentin and check off the
barrel and the truck, the pale-green meadow, the hills and the
dark-green woods. Check off the Studebaker, the man in the
Studebaker, the ride to San Francisco and the motorcycle
cops.
    Check off Studebaker’s clothes. Get
started with now and keep going from now. Check off the buzzer.
Start Shorty George again.
    He turned the lever that started the
phonograph running.
    The black record began to spin. He put the
needle down and Shorty George was on its way. Parry stood a few
feet away from the phonograph, watching the record go round and
listening to the Basie band riding into the fourth dimension. He
recognized the Buck Clayton trumpet and he smiled. The smile was
wet clay and it became cement when he heard knuckles rapping
against the apartment door.
    All of him was cement.
    The rapping was in series, going against
Shorty George. The first series stopped and Parry tried to get to
the phonograph so he could cut off the music that wasn’t music
anymore, only a lot of noise telling the person out there that
someone was in the apartment. He couldn't get to the phonograph
because he couldn't budge. The second series of raps came to him,
stopped for a few moments and then the third series was on and he
counted three insistent raps.
    Then he knew it was impossible to check
off all those things. They were things to be remembered and
considered. This thing now rapping at the door was the police. It
was logical that they should be here. It wasn’t logical for them to
have slipped up on that blanket episode. Then again it was logical
for them to have taken the Pontiac's license number as the car went
away from them. It was easy to sketch—them talking it over, telling
each other they should have looked further under the blanket to see
what was in those old clothes for China, then congratulating each
other on their brains in taking the license number, and now coming
here to have a talk with Irene Janney.
    He turned and looked around the room and
tried to see something. The window was the only thing he saw.
Shorty George was rounding the far turn and coming toward