Cassidy's Girl by David Goodis (Blackmask 1951)

Cassidy turned. He looked at Shealy. He said quietly, “What's wrong with you?”

Shealy did not reply. He was sending his eyes through Cassidy's eyes and trying to see the core of Cassidy's mind.

“All right,” Cassidy said. “Let's hear the sad music.”

The white-haired man folded his arms and gazed past Cassidy's shoulder and said, “Leave her alone, Jim.”

“For what good reason?”

“She's helpless. She's a sick girl.”

“I know that,” Cassidy said. “That's why I won't leave her alone. That's why I'm staying with her.” He hadn't meant to state his complete plans, but now, as though Shealy was challenging him, he met the challenge and said bluntly, “I won't be going back to Mildred. I'll never be with Mildred again. From now on you'll find me living with Doris.”

Shealy moved toward the ladder and gazed up at the top shelf where the sweaters and working pants were stacked. His eyes were appraising and finally he seemed to be satisfied with the arrangement. But he went on looking up there at the merchandise as he said, “Why not take it further than that? If you're out to help all the poor creatures of the world, why don't you found a mission?”

“You go to hell,” Cassidy said. He started toward the door.

“Wait, Jim.”

“Wait nothing. I come in to say good morning and you give me the needles.”

“You didn't come in to say good morning.” Shealy was with him at the door and not allowing him to open it. “You come in because you want assurance. You want me to tell you that you're doing right.”

“You? I need you to tell me?” Cassidy tried a sarcastic smile. All that showed was a scowl as he said, “What makes you so important?”

“The fact that I'm out of it,” Shealy replied. “Entirely out of the show. Just a one-man audience, sitting in the balcony. That gives me a full view. I can see it from every angle.”

Cassidy grimaced impatiently. “Quit the syrup, will you? Talk plain.”

“All right, Jim. I'll make it as plain as I can. I'm just a worn-out rumhead, slowly rotting away. But there's one thing left alive in me, one thing working and holding me in line. That's my brains. It's my brains and only my brains telling you to keep away from Doris.”

Here we go, Cassidy said to the wall. “Now it starts with the preaching.”

“Me preach?” And Shealy laughed. “Not me, Jim. Anyone but me. I lost my sense of moral values a long time ago. The credo I hold today is based on simple arithmetic, nothing more. We can all survive and get along if we can just add one and one and get two.”

“What's that got to do with me and Doris?”

“If you don't leave her alone,” Shealy said, “she won't survive.”

Shoot The Piano Player by David Goodis (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard 1956)

What I mean is, the way Eddie talks. Eddie spills words like "ain't" and says "them there" and "this here" and so forth. You know Edward never talked that way. Edward was educated, and an artist, and had a cultured manner of speaking. I guess it all depends where you're at and what you're doing and the people you hang around with. The Hut is a long way off from Carnegie Hall. Yes. And it's a definite fact that Eddie has no connection with Edward. You cut all them wires a long time ago. It was a clean split.

Then why are you drifting back? Why pick it up again? Well, just to look at it. Won't hurt to have a look. Won't hurt? You kidding? You can feel the hurt already, as though it's happening again. The way it happened.

It was deep in the woods of South Jersey, in the wooden house that overlooked the watermelon patch. His early childhood was mostly on the passive side. As the youngest of three brothers he was more or less a small, puzzled spectator, unable to understand Clifton's knavery or Turley's rowdyism. They were always at it, and when they weren't pulling capers in the house they were out roaming the countryside. Their special meat was chickens. They were experts at stealing chickens. Or sometimes they'd try for a shoat. They were seldom caught. They'd slide out of trouble or fight their way out of it and, on a few occasions, in their middle teens, they shot their way out of it.

The mother called them bad boys, then shrugged and let it go at that. The mother was an habitual shrugger who'd run out of gas in her early twenties, surrendering to farmhouse drudgery, to the weeds and beetles and fungus that lessened the melon crop each year. The father never worried about anything. The father was a slothful, languid, easy-smiling drinker. He had remarkable capacity for alcohol.

There was another gift the father had. The father could play the piano. He claimed he'd been a child prodigy. Of course, no one believed him. But at times, sitting at the ancient upright in the shabby, carpetless parlor, he did some startling things with the keyboard.

At other times, when he felt in the mood, he'd give music lessons to five-year-old Edward. It seemed there was nothing else to do with Edward, who was on the quiet side, who stayed away from his villainous brothers as though his very life depended on it. Actually, this was far from the case. They never bullied him. They'd tease him now and then, but they left him alone. They didn't even know he was around. The father felt a little sorry for Edward, who wandered through the house like some lost creature from the woods that had gotten in by mistake.

The music lessons increased from once a week to twice a week and finally to every day. The father became aware that something was happening here, something really unusual. When Edward was nine he performed for a gathering of teachers at the schoolhouse six miles away. When he was fourteen, some people came from Philadelphia to hear him play. They took him back to Philadelphia, to a scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music.