Nightfall by David Goodis Read Free Book Online

blindfold was removed. Vanning blinked a few times and then he looked at John. It was the same John. The same hunched shoulders, rather wide, the same creased leathery face and large, flat nose and thick lips that didn't have very much blood in them. The same stringy necktie. Everything the same, even the way John wore his hair, a salt-and-pepper brush that covered his head like a mat of steel wool.
      John put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He seated himself on the edge of a studio couch. Sam and Pete were up against the wall, standing there like statues. That left Vanning in the center of the room, with light from the ceiling doing a slow fall onto the top of his head. There was some pain in his face from the brass knuckles, and there was a quantity of dizziness, but not so much that he couldn't stand there balancing himself on two feet. He turned his back on the two men who stood against the wall. He looked at John.
      “Well?” John said.
      “Your move,” Vanning said.
      They were gazing at each other as if they were alone in the room. John leaned back on an elbow, crossed one leg over the other and took a long, contemplative haul at the cigarette. He blew out the smoke in a single quick exhalation and said, “All I want is the cash.”
      “I don't know where it is.”
      “Now say that again,” John said. “Just say it to yourself and hear how foolish it sounds.”
      “I know it sounds foolish, but that's the way it is and I can't help it.”
      John looked at the black-and-white shoes, the suit and shirt and blue-and-black tie and he said, “Nice clothes you have on.”
      “I like them.”
      “They cost money.”
      “They're not bad clothes,” Vanning admitted. “But they're not the real high quality. Not the kind of quality I'd be wearing if I had that cash you're talking about.”
      “It's a point,” John said. “But not much of a point. What are you doing these days?”
      Vanning liked that question. It was more of an answer than a question. It told him something he was hungry to know, and it offered a foundation for some strategy.
      He said, “Nothing much.” He tossed a few ideas around in his head, selected one of them and added, “I have a photo studio uptown, West Side, I manage to make a living, and there's a studio couch and a bathroom, and that way I save on rent.”
      John looked at the floor and blew some smoke toward a faded violet rug. Vanning studied John's face and told himself it had been a clever play. At least he understood now they didn't know where he was living. He put it together rapidly. They had spotted him in the Village. Followed him. Made a fast contact with the girl and told her to work on him, to get him out of the bar and out of that street and into the restaurant on the dark and empty street. It was reasonable. It checked. It was a typical John manipulation. Because John had just so much brains and no more. John wasn't exactly a fool, but he was harder than he was clever, and probably he knew that about himself, because he had a habit of laboring to be clever.
      “Look,” John said. “You've got a fair amount of intelligence. You're on one side and I'm on the other. That's clear enough. So we'll take it from there. It's got to be managed along those lines. In order for you to stay alive and have a happy life ahead of you, what you have to do is tell me where you put that cash, then we keep you here until I have the cash, and then we let you go. Does that make sense?”
      “It would make wonderful sense,” Vanning said, “except that I don't know where that cash is located and that's why I can't tell you. Now does that make sense?”
      “No, it doesn't. I can see a man misplacing a ten-dollar bill. Maybe even a hundred-dollar bill. But it doesn't figure that a man will let three hundred thousand