Nightfall by David Goodis Read Free Book Online Page B

the falling rocks that crushed and clanged and beyond the black flood shot with more red, with some livid purple in there beyond all that, there was a stillness and it was the stillness of memory, and he groped his way toward it. And he came out in the bright gold of a springtime afternoon in Colorado, and on the pale blue convertible coupe he had bought in Los Angeles after receiving his discharge, he was driving toward Denver with the idea that he would stay in Denver for a while and then take his time going up to Chicago.
      The convertible purred its way along the mountain road, and the radio purred along with it, Noro Morales handing out a suave rhumba. The top was down and the sky was very clear and it was good to know that the war was over and that agency in Chicago was the kind that kept its promises, a big firm with stability and energy, and they had liked his work and in reply to his letter they had told him to come on back and go to work. They asked him if seventy-five hundred a year was all right. He was thinking, before the war they had paid him five thousand a year. That was the kind of outfit it was. He felt good about going back. He felt good about everything. Chicago was an alright place, and someday in the not too far distant future he ought to be meeting a nice girl and getting married and starting a home. It was a fine thing to be thirty-two and alive and healthy. It was a marvelous thing to be starting fresh.
      He whistled along with Noro Morales and the convertible floated along the road.
      Suddenly, away up there ahead of him, where the road went curving its way up along the mountain, there was a violent noise, and it sounded as if an automobile had crashed into something. Vanning pressed hard on the accelerator and the convertible leaped, and it took a few turns, made a whizzing straightaway run as the road sliced into a tunnel, came out to make another turn, then he saw a branching road, very narrow, almost at right angles to this road, and saw a wreckage.
      It was a station wagon and it was turned over on its side against a rock. Two men were stretched out on a patch of bright green near the rock, and a third man in his shirt sleeves was leaning against the rock.
      Vanning turned the convertible onto the narrow road and raced it toward the scene of the accident. As he brought the convertible to a stop, the man who was still upright came walking toward him. The man had a leathery face and hair that looked like a mat of steel wool. There was a leather contrivance under the man's left shoulder and it was held there by straps, and now the man reached toward it, took something out of it, came up to Vanning and pointed the revolver in Vanning's face.
      “Get out of the car,” the man said. “Give me a hand.”
      “Why the gun?”
      “I said get out of the car.”
      Vanning climbed out of the convertible and the man walked along with him. The two men on the ground were moving about and groaning. One of them, a big man with glasses hanging from one of his ears, was slowly forcing himself to a sitting position, adjusting the glasses and staring around stupidly. The other man, small and wiry and getting bald, was out cold.
      The man with the gun was saying, “How is it, Pete?”
      “I think I'm all right,” the big man said. “Had the wind knocked out of me.” He looked at Vanning. “Where did you pick this up?”
      “He just came along.”
      The big man inclined his head to get a look at Vanning's automobile.
      “It's a lucky break,” the big man said.
      “Yeah, we're overloaded with luck today,” said the man with the gun. He looked at the smashed station wagon. “Overloaded. Take the gun and keep it on this guy. I'll have a look at Sam.”
      “Maybe we ought to hurry,” Pete said.
      “That's why we smashed up. We were in too much of a