Read Online Nightfall by David Goodis - Free Book Online Page A

minute?”
      “That's too long.”
      “Half a minute.”
      “All right.”
      “How about a break?”
      “Don't waste time asking for a break. If you want to talk about the weather, we'll talk about the weather, but if you keep asking for a break I'll only get annoyed.”
      “Working for John?”
      “That's right.”
      “Why does John use you?”
      “He always uses me for this sort of thing. He doesn't like to do it himself.”
      “Then why didn't he use Pete?”
      “Because Pete don't have a head on his shoulders. Pete has a habit of making mistakes.”
      “I see.”
      “I'm glad you see. I'm glad everything is clear.”
      “Except for one thing.”
      “Ask me, and if I can answer you I'll give you an answer.”
      “Why did they give me this?” Vanning said, sincere as he said it, completely naive as he took the revolver out of his pocket and showed it to the man. And the man looked at the revolver and then Vanning looked down at it and realized that it was actually a revolver and that he had it in his hand. And he looked up at the man's face and saw the dismay. And just as the dismay gave way to rage, Vanning pulled the trigger, pulled it again, then again, the shots bouncing back and forth, up and down, as the man was lowered on an invisible elevator. Vanning stepped back. Now the man was on the ground, squirming, his arms stretched out, his revolver resting near a wrist, his fingers twitching. Then his whole body twitched, gave a convulsive movement that took him over on his back, he twitched once more, his eyes opened wide, his mouth came halfway open, and he was dead.
      Vanning ran. He ran as fast as he could go. There was a hill. He ran up the hill. There was a field. He ran across the field. There was a narrow stream. He went into the stream, and the water came up to his knees, then his waist, then his chest, and he lifted one arm high, wondered why he was doing that, looked at the arm, the thing that dangled from his hand, and it was the satchel. He tried to remember picking up the satchel. He couldn't remember. But he must have picked it up. It hadn't walked into his hand. It wasn't alive. Or maybe it was. The water came up to his chin. He told himself to drop the satchel, let it sink in the stream. He told himself the bullets had hit the man, the man had fallen and dropped the satchel. And he had stood there looking at the dead man. And then he had picked up the satchel and started to run away with it.
      That part of it was too much for him. He didn't have the gun. He had the satchel. He had left the gun there and had picked up the satchel. He wondered what he wanted with the satchel. He wondered why he had taken it in the first place. For that one he had an answer. He had intended to give the satchel to the police. So that was all right. But he couldn't figure out why he had taken the satchel from the dead man. Perhaps the answer was identical with the first answer. Perhaps he had still intended to visit the police. And yet that was sort of weak, because now he couldn't remember holding that idea in his mind. The only thing he now completely realized was that he had killed a man and now in his possession he had a satchel containing three hundred thousand dollars and he was running away. And he was very much afraid of the satchel.
      Gradually, as his physical endurance lessened, the mental side became clearer, and he was putting pieces together and drawing conclusions. The thing that made it very bad was the way John had held the gun so close to him that people couldn't notice the gun. Even the doctor in Leadville had not seen the gun. And the hotel clerk in Denver. And the people in the lobby. Nobody had seen the gun. All they had seen was John and Pete and himself, together in the blue convertible, together in the hotel, and that