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

the hills, give himself a few days here while the search radiated. But if the police couldn’t get any leads elsewhere, they’d come back to the road and chances were they’d sift the hills. The more he thought about it the more he understood the necessity for keeping on the move. And moving fast. That was it. Fast. Everything fast.
    He got up and started moving in the direction he had first taken. The hills seemed to move along with him. After a while he was tired again but he was thinking in terms of speed and he refused to take another rest. The weariness went away for a time but after some minutes it came back and it was accompanied by thirst and a desire for a cigarette. He couldn’t do anything about the thirst but there was an almost empty pack of cigarettes in his trousers pocket. He put a cigarette between his lips and then he searched for a match. He didn’t have a match. He looked around, as if he thought there might be a place where he could buy a book of matches. He puffed at the cigarette, trying to imagine that it was lit and he was drawing smoke. He didn’t have any matches. He began to think of the things he didn’t have.
    He didn’t have clothes. He didn’t have money. He didn’t have friends. No, he was wrong there. He had a few friends and one friend in particular. And it was a cinch that Fellsinger would go to bat for him. But Fellsinger was in Frisco and Frisco was going to be a very hot place aside from the heat of August. Nevertheless it was practical for him to see Fellsinger. The next move was Frisco. The police wouldn’t watch Fellsinger. Or maybe they would. Or wouldn’t.
    As an hour passed the hills gave way to another stretch of pale green. There were no roads, there were no houses, nothing. Parry negotiated the pale green, moved toward dark green. It was heavily wooded area and he tried to guess what was on the other side. He looked back, knowing that the divisionof terrain would be a decent sort of guide, preventing him from traveling in a circle. He entered the woods.
    He was in the woods for more than an hour. He was moving fast. Then he could see a lot of bright yellow breaking through the dark green. It meant that he was about to come out on the other side of the woods. Already he could see a band of white-yellow out there and he knew it was a road.
    At the side of the road he leaned against a tree, waiting. He wanted to see a truck or an automobile and at the same time he was afraid to see anything of that sort. He kept sucking at the unlighted cigarette. He looked at the other side of the road and saw a continuation of the woods. All right, let an automobile come by. Let something happen.
    Nothing happened for about forty minutes. Then Parry heard a sound coming down the road and it belonged to an automobile. There was an instant of animal fright and he was turning to dart back into the woods. A spurt of gambling spirit pushed aside the fright and Parry ran out to the center of the road. He saw the automobile coming toward him. It was a Nash, a 36 or 37, he wasn’t sure but he didn’t particularly care either. It was something that might take him to Frisco, if it was going to Frisco. He was out there in the center of the road, waving his arms beseechingly. The Nash was going rather fast and it didn’t look as if it was going to stop. It increased speed as it closed in on Parry. There was only one person in the car and it was a man. It was a very pleasant man who was using this method to tell Parry that he would either get out of the way or get hit.
    Parry got out of the way and the Nash went ripping down the road. Another fifteen minutes came in and went out again. Parry was leaning against the same tree. He wanted a match badly. He wanted water badly. He wanted a lift badly. He wished it wasn’t August. He wished he had been born somewhere up in the Arctic Circle where these things didn’t happen to a man. He heard another automobile.
    This was a Studebaker. It was from