Street of No Return by David Goodis, Robert Polito Page B

Jones asked.
"Taking a walk."
"Is that all?"
"No," Whitey said. But he couldn't take it past that. He knew he couldn't make mention of the man he'd been following, the man who wore a bright-green cap and a blackand-purple plaid lumber jacket. If he started talking about it he'd be going away from tonight, going in reverse, going back seven years, and it would get very involved. It would be like opening a tomb in his mind and seeing a part of himself that had suffered and died and wanted to stay dead and buried.
Yet somehow he could feel it straining to come alive again, as he'd felt it earlier tonight when he'd seen the very short, very wide man who wore the bright-green cap. He could feel the tugging, the grinding, the burning of a deep pain that tightened his mouth and showed in his eyes.
And the pain was there in his cracked-whisper voice as he said, "I won't say what I was doing on that street. It's got nothing to do with why I'm hiding from the law."
Jones Jarvis was quiet for some moments. He was studying the pain-racked eyes of the small white-haired man. When Jones finally spoke, his voice was very soft and almost tender. Jones said, 'All right, Eugene. We'll let it ride."
"But I want you to believe me. I'm giving it to you straight."
"Yes," Jones said. "That's the impression I get. Even though it's kind of blurry at the edges."
"It'll have to stay that way. I can't trim it down any closer."
"I guess you can't," Jones said. "But all the same, you got me sidetracked. You tell me it was past midnight and you're out for a stroll. In the Hellhole. You're just taking a stroll down here in the Hellhole. Where no man in his right mind walks alone after midnight. Unless he's looking to get hurt. Or do some hurting."
"I said I can't tell you--"
"All right, Eugene, all right." Jones smiled soothingly. "Let's leave it at that. Go on, take it from there."
Whitey took it from there and told the rest of it just as it had happened. He said it matter-of -factly, looking levelly at the old man, who sat there on the three-leg stool looking at him and into him and nodding slowly at intervals. When it was finished, he leaned back on the cot, resting on his elbows, waiting for the old man either to accept the story or to start looking for loopholes in it.
Jones Jarvis did not indicate whether he was buying it or doubting it or wondering how to take it. It seemed that Jones was thinking about something else. Now his eyes were aimed past Whitey, like lenses fixed for a wider-range focus.
Finally Jones shook his head very slowly and said, "I feel sorry for the Captain."
"It he ever gets hold of me," Whitey said, "I'll feel damn sorry for myself."
"He's really got his hands full," Jones said.
Whitey shrugged. "I don't care what he's got in his hands. Just so long as it ain't me."
But Jones was thinking above that and far beyond that. "I've lived in this neighborhood a good many years," he said. "It's always been exactly what they call it, a hellhole. But lately it's been worse than that. Like a furnace that can't hold the fire and all the flames are shooting out. It puts a certain smell in the air. Sometimes I walk outside at night and I can smell it. The smell of men hating each other. The rotten stink of race riot."
Whitey was only half listening. He was concentrating on the necessity of remaining hidden from the law. He wondered whether the old man would allow him to stay here for a day or two.
But the old man was thinking about the race riots and saying, "It's a pity. It's a terrible pity. I wonder what started it."
Whitey looked around at the four walls of the small wooden shack. The boards were loose and splintered and in places the wood was decaying. But somehow the walls seemed very secure and there was the comfortable feeling of safety. It was nice to sit here on the cot with the four walls around him and he hoped he'd be permitted to stay for a while.
Then he heard the old man saying, "What do you think started it?"
He looked at the