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

that any more. We don’t take it any more. We’re through taking it. If my boy in the South Pacific was here now he’d tear you apart with his bare hands. You got to realize you can’t talk like that any more. Let go of me, officer. I won’t let him get away with that. I won’t let any of them get away with that. I don’t care if they’re eight feet tall——”
    “All right, Max,” the policeman said soothingly. “Take it easy.”
    “We don’t take it easy any more,” the little man said. “We don’t let them talk like that any more.”
    The crowd was looking at the other man. The other man was backing away. The policeman looked at the other man and said, “That’s right, take a walk, because I got a good mind to let Max loose, and once he gets loose you’re gonna regret the whole thing. It happens I also had a boy in the South Pacific.”
    The man who had lived in San Francisco for thirty-seven years was backing away, gradually turning, so that at last he had his back to the crowd and was walking quickly down the street.
    “Now I don’t care what happens,” the little man said. His whole body was shaking. “You can call the ambulance, you can call the wagon. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care.”
    Someone said, “Why don’t we just break it up already?”
    The policeman pushed the cap farther back on his head, turned to Parry and said, “Look, Studebaker, are you sure you’re all right?”
    “I’m absolutely sure, officer,” Parry said. “You’d be doing me a favor if you let it ride.”
    The policeman pushed the cap farther back on his head, stood there with uncertainty all over his face, rubbed a big hand across his big chin. Then he pushed the cap forward on his head, glared at the crowd and said, “All right, let’s break it up.”
    The crowd moved back as the policeman walked forward. The crowd radiated.
    Parry told himself to wait, to hold it until the policeman crossed the street. The little man came over to Parry and said, “Thanks, mister. You could have said it was my fault.”
    “It’s all right,” Parry said. He was watching the policeman.
    “Maybe you ought to see a doctor after all,” the little man said. “Can I take you any place?”
    “No,” Parry said. “Thanks anyway. Wait. You going toward Post?”
    “Sure,” the little man said. “I’m not going there but I’ll go there anyway. Any place you want to go.”
    They stepped into the car. Both doors closed. The little man wasstill shaking and he stalled the car twice before he really got it going. The car made a turn. Parry took out a pack of cigarettes.
    “Smoke?”
    “Thanks,” the little man said. “I need it.”
    Parry gave him a light, lit his own, leaned back and watched the street lamps parading quickly toward the car.
    “Sometimes I just get burned up,” the little man said.
    “I know.”
    “I get so burned up I don’t know what I’m doing,” the little man said. “And it’s not good for me. I got high blood pressure. I’ve had it for years.”
    Parry was watching the rear-view mirror.
    The little man was taking something from his pocket.
    Parry tugged hard at the cigarette and wondered if the single light he saw back there was the headlamp of a motorcycle.
    “Here, take this,” the little man said, handing Parry a card. “I’m nobody important, but any time I can do you a favor——”
    Parry looked at the card. Glow from the street lamps showed him
Max Weinstock, Upholsterer
.
    “Sure you feel all right?” the little man said.
    “I’m fine,” Parry said. “I wasn’t hurt at all.”
    “But maybe you should see a doctor just to make sure.”
    “No, I’m all right,” Parry said.
    The little man looked at him.
    Parry looked at the rear-view mirror.
    The car made another turn, stopped for a light, went down three blocks, stopped for another light, made another turn and the little man said, “Whereabouts on Post?”
    Parry took the folded slip of paper from his