The Best American Noir of the Century

Even if Jim had come back a big-shot hero. Jim who’d always had everything and now had this. And Nan, too. He wasn’t going to get away with it this time. He wasn’t going to have Nan. Nan was Benny’s girl. She’d been his girl for almost two years. Jim hadn’t meant anything to her those years. Just one of the gang in Korea. She didn’t talk about him any more than she did about any of the other kids, wondering what they were doing on certain nights while she and Benny were out jumping and jiving at the USO.

Jim wasn’t going to come back and bust up Benny and Nan. He wasn’t going to be let do it. He could get him plenty of other girls; there were always plenty of girls for a good-looking guy like Jim. All he had to do was whistle. Just because he’d been Nan’s fellow in high school before the war started didn’t mean he could walk back in and take over. Not after leaving her for four years. Jim had left her. He hadn’t even waited for the draft. He’d quit high school and signed up right away.

It wasn’t Benny’s fault he’d had to wait to be drafted. Jim’s folks had given him permission to sign up. Benny’s mom had just cried and cried and wouldn’t talk about it. So he’d had to wait for the draft. Besides he wasn’t as strong as Jim. He always had colds in the winter just like Mom said. Besides none of that made any difference. He’d been a soldier just like Jim. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t got to be a hero. None of that mattered at all. There was only one thing counting. Nan. His girl. Benny’s girl. Jim was going to find that out. Tonight.

He was there at the white cement steps, the familiar steps, gray in the night. He didn’t walk on by like he had the night he walked in the soggy rain, his stomach curdled and his thoughts tied in wet red knots. Tonight he climbed the steps without breaking the firmness of his stride. Without trying to be quiet. He wasn’t afraid of Jim. He had as much right here as Jim had. He continued up the short cement walk to the gray stoop, climbed the gray steps and was on the porch.

The drapes were drawn across the front parlor windows. Only the little light was on inside. He knew from the dim red glow against the drapes, almost purple-red. He pushed the bell once, hard and firm and not afraid. Like he had a right. Like he’d been pushing it for the two years since he ran into Nan at a USO party.

It happened the way he knew it was going to happen. A wait. Waiting while she and Jim jumped apart and she smoothed her hair while she was wondering who it could possibly be. The wait and then the footsteps of a man coming to the door. Of Jim. Benny’s hand gripped tight on the gun in his pocket. Holding tight that way kept his stomach from jumping around. He had to keep tight so he wouldn’t let Jim have it the way he ought to when Jim opened the door. The dirty, double-crossing, lying…

The door opened sudden. Before he was quite ready for it to open. Jim was standing there, tall and lanky in the dim hallway, peering out to see who was standing outside. Not expecting Benny. Not expecting him at all. Because his face came over with a real surprised look when he figured out who it was. Jim said, “For gos’ sake! It’s Benny.” He said it more to her, back there in the parlor, than to himself.

Benny didn’t say anything. He stepped in and Jim had to stand aside and let him pass. She was just starting over to the archway from the couch when Benny walked into the parlor. He didn’t say anything to her either; he simply stood with his hands in his overcoat pockets looking at her. He didn’t even take off his hat. He couldn’t, not without letting her see how his hands were shaking. Keeping his hand gripped on the gun kept it steady, and the other hand a tight fist in his pocket. There wasn’t any reason for them to be shaking; he wasn’t afraid of anything. It wasn’t because he was afraid his voice would shake that he didn’t speak; it wasn’t that at all. It was that he didn’t have anything to say to them. Keeping his mouth shut was easy. Nan started talking the minute he came in.

She was mad. Her eyes were like sparklers and her words came out of her mouth like little spits of lead. He’d seen her mad before but just a little bit, kind of cute. This was different. If he hadn’t been bigger than she, she’d have used her fists on him. If he hadn’t had a gun …She didn’t know about the gun. But he could hardly hear what she was saying from looking at her. Because she was so pretty she was like a lump in his heart, so little and soft and her cheeks bright and her mouth …His hand was so tight on the gun that his fingers ached like his heart. He set his teeth together tight as his knuckles so that his head hurt too, so that all the hurts could fuse and he could keep from thinking about the bad one, the inside one. So he wouldn’t cry. He wanted to cry, to bawl like a kid. But he wouldn’t, not with Jim standing there like he owned the parlor, like he was the head of the house waiting to see what this peddler wanted.