Nightcrawlers

4

Russ Dancer, dying. Cirrhosis and emphysema. Refused to quit drinking or smoking, refused hospitalization or treatment beyond painkillers and an oxygen bottle that he carried around with him. He’d finally collapsed five days ago in the hallway of his rooming house. Bitched and moaned about going to the hospital, wanted to die in his room, but he was too sick and too weak and the croakers wouldn’t let him stay there alone. All of this courtesy of Buck Trail. And all of it typical Russ Dancer.

I felt bad about it, in a detached sort of way. The detachment-a reflection on me and on the sad, bitter life of Russell Dancer-made me feel bad, too. So did my having assumed he was already dead, that he must have drunk and smoked himself into his grave years ago. So did the fact that he still considered me enough of a friend, even though I’d made no effort to get in touch with him in more than a decade, to ask for me on his deathbed.

I confessed this to Kerry when I called her with the news. She said, “You have no reason to feel guilty. He really didn’t want you in his life, you know that. Particularly after you and I got together. Too much of a reminder of Cybil.”

“I know it. Still…”

“Why do you suppose he wants to see you?”

“No clue. But I have to find out.”

“Of course you do.”

“And I wish I didn’t.”

“Do you want me to call Cybil? She’ll want to know.”

“Not yet. Better wait until after I see him.”

I took 101 south to Redwood City. The 280 freeway would have been faster, even with the rush-hour clog getting across to the west side, but on this errand of mercy-if that was what it was-I was willing to put up with the commuter-crawl delay. Or so I thought when I started out. The trouble was, Dancer rode with me all the way down.

He was a writer, a damn good one back in the postwar forties when pulp magazines were still a viable form of popular entertainment. Creator of private eye Rex Hannigan, whose hard-boiled exploits had run in Midnight Detective until the magazine’s demise in the early fifties, then been chronicled in a series of softcover mystery novels during that decade’s paperback boom. The Hannigan stories, particularly those in the pulps, had had energy, flair, innovative plotting-the work of a raw talent that might have been developed through care and diligence into a voice to be reckoned with in the crime-fiction field. But Dancer had wasted his gift. Taken the easy road into fast-money hackwork to support a hard-living, hard-boozing lifestyle. As of ten years ago, he’d published upward of two hundred novels-mysteries, Gothics, bodice-ripper historicals, movie tie-ins, traditional westerns, adult westerns, softcore porn, hardcore porn, just about anything somebody would pay him to write.

Our paths had first crossed down the coast in Cypress Bay, where he’d been living at the time, on a case involving one of his paperback mysteries. The second time was at a pulp magazine convention in San Francisco where I’d met Kerry; he’d been one of the guests-along with Kerry’s mother and father, Cybil and Ivan Wade, who’d also been pulp writers-and had managed to get himself arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. He liked me because I got him off the hook: they don’t let you have booze or a typewriter in jail. The third and last time I’d seen him had been a brief encounter in Redwood City, when I’d looked him up to gather information about the murder of yet another former pulpster, Harmon Crane. All in all, we’d spent an aggregate of less than twenty-four hours in each other’s company. And yet whenever I thought of him he was a vivid presence in my memory.

I knew him and I didn’t know him; he was both an open book and a conundrum. Rowdy, sharp-tongued, bitter, self-mocking, with a penchant for trouble and bad decisions: he could make people dislike, even hate him without half trying. A little of him went a long way. Yet there was something about him, an innate vulnerability, that built a certain amount of pity in me. In a sense he was a tragic figure; he had no luck and had suffered a good deal of adversity, both personal and professional, that wasn’t his fault. He was not easy to deal with because it had never been easy for him to deal with himself. He knew he’d compromised his talent, and hated the fiction whore he’d become, and that was one of two reasons he kept dragging himself down into the depths. The other reason-and the other reason I pitied him-was his fifty-year letch for Kerry’s mother.

I remembered how he’d looked that last day in Redwood City, on a stool in a sleazy neighborhood bar called Mama Luz’s Pink Flamingo Tavern. Sagging jowls, heavy lines and wrinkles on his face and neck, tracery of ruptured blood vessels in his cheeks, rum-blossom nose. Dissipated, rheumy, too thin for his big frame as if the flesh were hanging on his bones like a scarecrow’s tattered clothing. I’d had the thought then that he wasn’t long for this world; maybe that was why I’d assumed he must be dead by now.

I remembered some of what he’d said to me that day, too. He’d just lost an assignment to write a series of adult westerns-screwed it up himself somehow, probably, though he blamed the editor. I’d asked him if he was still writing and he’d said, “Sure, always at the mill. Got a few proposals with my agent, a few irons in the fire. And I’m working up an idea for a big paperback suspense thing that might have a shot.” Face-saving lies. I had stopped by his furnished room before going to Mama Luz’s, had a quick look inside, and there’d been no sign of his typewriter. He must have hocked it to supplement his Social Security, buy more booze and cigarettes.

Russ Dancer, hunched on a bar stool. A little drunk, a little maudlin, a whole lot lonely, wanting me to stay and have a drink with him, begging for a few more minutes of companionship and compassion. And I’d walked out on him and never gone back. Why hadn’t I bothered to look him up again, try to find out how he was doing? Inertia, lack of any real motivation… lousy excuses. He considered me his friend, and for a friendless man like him, that meant something. It should’ve meant a little something to me in return.

Ten long years. And he’d been down there all that time, living on Social Security and dying by centimeters. And now he was finally about to get what he’d been after for Christ knew how long, that kept eluding him because of an iron constitution and a perverse nature and a hair shirt as thick as they come.

I felt lousy by the time I got to Redwood City. I felt, dammit, right or wrong, as though I’d betrayed a trust.

Kaiser Permanente Hospital.

Bed in a ward, surrounded by a curtain on an oblong frame.

Dancer, hooked up to machines.

Not the Dancer I’d known, not even that last time at Mama Luz’s. A shadow, a husk, a stick figure topped by a death’s head coated with gray fuzz and age spots. Lying there motionless, eyes shut, his breathing aided by oxygen tubes but still coming in wheezes and gasps. My mouth dried out, looking down at him. I had to work some spit through it before I could speak.

“Hello, Russ.”

He’d known I was there; a nurse had gone in first to tell him he had a visitor. The shrunken head turned slowly, the eyes flicked open and focused on me. A grimace that tried to be a smile moved the corners of his mouth. Words came in little bursts fragmented by wheezes, so low that I had to lean close to hear him.

“No tengo… for good this time… eh, paisano? Goddamnit.. to hell.”

It took a few seconds for that to signify. The old Spanish cowboy lament he’d been fond of quoting at one time as a metaphor for his life and career. “No tengo tabaco, no tengo papel, no tengo dinero — goddamnit to hell.”

There was a white metal chair at the foot of the bed. I pulled it up alongside, sat down. Better that than standing and looming over him. This was awkward and painful enough as it was.

All I could think of to say was, “I’m sorry.”

“What for? We all… gotta go… sometime.”

Some more easily than others. I nodded.

“You don’t mean it… anyway. Nobody… gives a shit… when a hack writer croaks.”

“I do, or I wouldn’t be here.”

“Pity,” he said. “Pity visit… no different than… pity fuck.”

Even on his deathbed, the Dancer tongue was as crude and acrid as ever.

“Your friend Trail cares,” I said.

“Buck? Hah, that’s a… that’s a laugh.”

“Why would he call me if he didn’t care?”

“Paid him, that’s why. Twenty… twenty bucks. Bet he’s… over at Mama Luz’s… drinking it up right now.”

“One of the doctors or nurses would’ve done it for free.”

“Wouldn’t trust… any of those bastards. Nurses… can’t even empty bedpan…” A cough shook him, made him wheeze harder. “Besides, what do I… care about money… now…” More coughs, a staccato series of them that led to a gasping struggle for breath.

“Russ? Should I call the nurse?”

“… No. Be okay… not time yet…”

The struggle went on for another fifteen or twenty seconds. That could be me, I thought. If I hadn’t quit smoking when I did, if I hadn’t started taking better care of myself. The thought put little ripples of cold on my neck.

“Why did you ask to see me, Russ?” I said when the wheezing and gasping finally eased. “Just to say good-bye?”

“Hell, no. No damn good… at good-byes. Want you… do something for me.”

“All right. If I can.”

“You can. Has to do with… Sweeteyes.”

“Cybil? You want me to bring her to see you?”

“Christ! That’s the… last thing… her see me like this.”

“Give her a message, then?”

“Sweeteyes,” Dancer said again. His pet name for her. “Bet she’s.. still as… beautiful as ever.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Health good?”

“Yes.”

“Still… sharp mentally, still… writing?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her… read her novel. Damn good. She… can still write rings… around most of us. Makes… everything I churned out… look like the shit it is.”

“I’ll tell her. Anything else?”

Faint smile. “Remember D-Day.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “What was that, Russ?”

“Remember D-Day.”

“Just those words?”

“And… one more message. Tell her… amazing grace.”

“You mean like the hymn?”

“Just tell her. Remember D-Day… amazing grace.”

“All right.”

“Rest of what I… have to say to her… in the package.”

“Package?”

“Other thing I want you… do for me. Give Sweeteyes… package.”

“Where is it? Here?”

“No. Storage locker, trunk… my building. Keys… keys in drawer there… next to bed. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Big envelope, her name… on the front. Don’t open… for Sweeteyes only.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t give it… to her until after… you hear I’m gone.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Good. Knew I could… trust you. Only one… I can trust..”

The curtains slid open behind me, the sudden ratcheting of hooks on the frame making me jerk a little. A starchy nurse poked her head inside. “You’ll have to leave now,” she said to me. “It’s time for the patient’s medicine.”

“Fucking cow,” Dancer said when she was gone. “Time for… patient’s medicine. You like that? Not… Mr. Dancer, not even.. old bastard, just patient.” He made a laughing sound. “Dead meat, pretty soon.”

I’d had enough even before the nurse appeared. I stood up.

“Take keys,” he said.

I opened the nightstand drawer. Two keys on a ring; I put them in my pocket.

“No… good-byes. Hate good-byes.”

“So do I.” But I couldn’t just leave it at that. I felt even worse now; I had to put some of the guilt into words-for my sake, if not for his. “I really am sorry, Russ. I should’ve gotten in touch, I should’ve been a better friend.”

No answer. He lay still, his eyes shut now, his breathing a little less raspy in repose. I thought he might have drifted off, hadn’t heard what I’d said. But he was awake and he’d heard. And he answered me as I turned away from the bed and parted the curtains.

“No tengo,” he said. “Goddamnit to hell.”

The rooming house where Dancer had lived the past two decades was an ancient, two-story Victorian on Stambaugh Street, off Broadway and fairly close to the Southern Pacific railroad tracks. Downscale neighborhood that looked about the same as it had on my last, long-ago visit. The block-long thrift store where Dancer had gathered his reading material was still there; so was Mama Luz’s Pink Flamingo Tavern a half block to the west. Not much had changed, in fact, except that there were a couple of empty storefronts and more graffiti on the building walls. The Victorian had had a coat of paint slapped on it in the interim, but it hadn’t done much to dispel the seedy aspect; its turrets and gables were still in need of repair, its brick chimneys still unstable-looking. One of the two scraggly palm trees in the front yard had died and been cut down; the broken picket fence that had enclosed the yard had been replaced by an even uglier Cyclone job. How long before urban renewal caught up with this little patch of decay? A few years at the most. Its days were numbered in any case, and Dancer had been a perfect fit: old and blighted and dying a little more every day.

Even though I had Dancer’s keys, I thought I’d better check with the manager. One of the mailboxes on the creaky porch identified C. Holloway as having that dubious distinction. I rang C. Holloway’s bell. Ten years ago the manager had been a woman with a face like a gargoyle, but she was gone now; the new one was male, forty-five or so, with a milky cataract in one eye and the disposition of a scorpion. He wouldn’t let me come in when I told him who I was and why I was there; I had to bribe him with a brace of dollar bills and show him my ID. He didn’t ask how Dancer was, didn’t seem to care. Inside he pointed me toward the basement stairs and said before he left me, “Don’t touch none of the other lockers down there. I’ll call the cops on you if I find out you did.”

The basement was musty and cold and threaded with spider-webs. The storage lockers were arranged along one wall-narrow cages made out of wood and chicken wire. The padlocks on each door were a joke; you could have torn through that thin wire with your bare hands and a minimum of effort. Room numbers were stenciled on the doors. Number 6, Dancer’s room, had the fewest items of any of the occupied cages: a couple of cheap suitcases, half a dozen open cartons of mint but dust-covered paperback books, and a beat-up paste-board trunk.

The package with Cybil’s name on it was in the trunk, on top of a jumble of old clothing. Nine-by-twelve padded mailing bag, fairly thick and heavy, sealed with filament tape. I tucked it under my arm.

Before I locked up the cage again, I took a quick look through a couple of the boxes of books. Multiple copies of a variety of lurid titles- Raw Day in Hell, Mistress of Bleak House, Gun Fury in Crucifix Canyon, Black Avenger #7: Slaughter Train. Author’s copies of some of Dancer’s pseudonymous novels. On impulse I picked out half a dozen at random, tucked them into my coat pocket. Why not? They represented little pieces of the man’s life, imagination, talent. Somebody ought to care about them, just a little.

Upstairs, there was no sign of C. Holloway in the lobby. So I climbed the rickety staircase to the second floor-impulse again-and used the other key on the ring to let myself into Dancer’s room. It seemed no different than it had a decade ago. Bed, nightstand, dresser, writing table. Empty half-gallon jug of cheap bourbon on the floor next to the bed. Scatter of battered thrift-store paperbacks.

No typewriter or other writing tool, not even a pencil.

No copies of any of the paperbacks boxed up in the basement, nor any other book that might have been written by him.

Dancer’s home for more than fifteen years, but it wasn’t a home at all. Living space. Existing space for a broken, friendless, bitter, lovelorn, alcoholic ex-writer. Lonely space. Wasted-life space. Dying space.

I got out of there, quick. Thank God for Kerry and Emily and the kind of work I had, because without them, given my own loner instincts, I could have ended up occupying a space not much different from Russ Dancer’s.