Nobody Lives Forever

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  No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced in any form and by any means for any purpose without any prior written consent of anyone.

  Copyright, 1943 by William Riley Burnett

  Collier’s

  October 9-30, 1943

  Vol. 112 Nos. 15 - 18

  The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company

  250 Park Avenue, New York (17), N.Y.

  Custom eBook created by

  Jerry eBooks

  August, 2014

  Nobody Lives Forever

  W.R. Burnett

  (custom book cover)

  Title Page

  Jerry eBooks

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  CONCLUSION

  PART ONE

  The gang gathers—from New York, from California and Florida—and the ace con man of them all sets out to take a lovely lady for a romantic ride.

  So begins this terse and terrifying record of crime and punishment . . .

  DOC GANSON was a slender little man of about forty-five. His hair was Indian-black and his narrow, bony face was pale. Although there was nothing actually wrong with him, he gave at first glance the appearance of deformity; sometimes men referred to him as a hunchback. His mouth was thin-lipped and grim, and his eyes looked startlingly black and bright, owing to his pallor.

  Doc was standing at the window of his shabby Los Angeles hotel room, staring morosely down into the street below. Behind him, Shake Thomas rustled his Racing Form.

  Doc turned in irritation. “Got a good one, I’ll bet,” he sneered.

  “Yeah.” said Shake, pushing back his hat, which he rarely removed. “Got what looks like a good one in the third at Aqueduct. All I need now is a stake.”

  “All any of us needs is a square meal,” said Doc. “Where’s Windy? Where did he say he was going? I don’t like the idea of him wandering around alone. He might stick somebody up. When he gets hungry he’s hard to handle.”

  ‘“If he docs and gets away with it, it’s all right with me,” said Shake. “It’s like them Romans. It ain’t being crooked that counts; it’s getting caught. Like when the boy hid the badger in his shirt and it bit him—”

  “It was a fox,” said Doc, “and the boy was a Spartan, not a Roman. Don’t you ever get anything right?”

  “Five dollars says it was a badger,” said Shake, outraged by Doc’s offhand superiority. Shake had spent twelve of his forty years in various prisons and had read hundreds of books; so he considered himself quite an authority. He was known in the profession as “Shakespeare,” because of his wide reading, and he took the nickname seriously.

  He was a big, placid man with a dewlap and a stomach. Owing to the strain of prison fare and confinement, he was old for his age. He was bald, wore glasses, and all his upper teeth were false. He pulled at the slightest exertion and he slept ever twelve hours a day; when he was awake he was cither studying a Racing Form or reading a book—any book. Print was print to him. He’d pore for hours over an antiquated history of the city of Los Angeles he’d picked up in a secondhand bookstore for ten cents. With him, reading was a substitute for vice.

  At one time, he’d been high up in the ranks of con men. He had a line personality for the trade; he looked good-natured, honest, dependable; and he was very handy at steering a sucker. He’d made quite a few good takes. Hut a combination of heedlessness and apathy led to his downfall; he was arrested again and again; finally, he began to lose cases. A stretch in a tough Southern prison completed his ruin. Now he was not only outmoded, but broke. However, it didn’t worry him much.

  “So you want to bet live dollars!” sneered Doc. “Stop clowning.”

  “I’ll have five bucks. Some day. What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me, Doc?”

  Doc flung himself into a chair and stared sulkily at the floor, ignoring Shake’s remarks. There was a long pause, and the room was so quiet that the night noises from the huge, sprawling city gradually grew more and more audible. Finally Doc observed, as if talking to himself, “If we could only figure an angle on that rich dame!”

  Shake stirred, looked up from the Racing Form, and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, nodding his head slowly, “a dame with over a million dollars. Can you imagine! I get goose flesh just thinking about it.”

  Doc puckered up his face and stared at the dirty, ragged carpet. This rich dame was to Shake and their other pal. Windy, no more than a rosy, impossible dream. But to Doc, she was an actual bright hope. When the world looked blackest, he would sit down and quietly force himself to think about her; he would turn over and over in his mind schemes to relieve her of enough sugar to buy himself security against the dark future which he always felt was menacing him.

  At times he hated her. This fortunate woman who had everything he wanted—money and the respect of her fellows. It seemed unfair to Doc that she should walk about with a tranquil mind, enjoying the present, able to ignore the future, while he could just barely get enough to eat and was headed, unless checked, for the charity ward and, ultimately, the potter’s field.

  He didn’t even know the woman personally; he had only heard about her. In the whole country Doc had only one respectable acquaintance left. This man lived in Los Angeles, was fairly prosperous, and was managing the swankiest apartment hotel in the Wilshire district. Doc ran into him one day on the street; in fact, the man had accosted him. They had gone to college together. He bought Doc a drink and they talked over old times. They had lost track of each other years ago and the man—Charley Evans—knew nothing whatever about Doc’s running fight with the law.

  Doc told him that he had given up his practice, due to ill health and was now dabbling in California real estate; he intimated that business was terrible. In the old days, Evans bad been known as the tightest bird in the school. Doc saw him shying off from a touch and it amused him. However, Doc finally did put the bite on him for a twenty and laughed to himself when he saw how relieved Evans was that the sum wanted had been so modest.

  HE SAW Evans from time to time. It always cost Evans money, but the amounts were so trifling that it made no difference to him. He liked to talk to Doc about the past. One night, after a couple of tall beers, feeling slightly mellow, Evans told Doc about Mrs. Halvorsen, his star boarder. A lonely widow—forty—very nice-looking, and with a million and a half dollars.

  “If I were a handsome man, I’d certainly try to marry her,” he said, laughing. “She’s a real lady—so polite and considerate. Doesn’t know a soul out here. Her husband died in Minneapolis and left her all this money. He was in the flour business—must’ve cornered it, considering what he made out of it. He was a lot older than she was—a kind of invalid; she looked after him, stayed with him; one of those kind of women.”

  Doc grinned cynically. “Yeah,” he said, “I’d look after a man with that kind of money myself—and would I stay with him!”

  Evans laughed appreciatively, but shook his head. “I see what you mean. But I don’t think that was it. She’s just a wonderful woman—and lonesome! Goes to movies by herself, eats by herself. It’s sort of pathetic in a way. I introduced her to a couple of nice men I’ve got staying with me—you know—solid fellows in their fifties. But she didn’t seem to care much about them, I often invite her to my table. Once in a while she eats with me in the evening. She never has much to say. To tell you the truth, I’m afraid I don’t interest her at all.” Evans sighed. “I don’t know,” he added, as if summing the whole thing up.

  Doc grinned. “Maybe you and these other solid men are not what she’s looking for. Why not try me?”

  Eva
ns thought this remark very funny. “I couldn’t do that,” he said. “I’ve got the poor lady’s best interests at heart.”

  Doc laughed it off. Although he spent half his time trying to delude himself, he still had a pretty good idea of his own limitations; he wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s chance with the elegant Mrs. Halvorsen,

  But she was seldom far from his thoughts. He sought Evans out so often that the hotel manager began to shy off. There was something about Doc’s interest in Mrs. Halvorsen that puzzled and worried him, Besides, his friend Doc, who used to be such a card, had changed. The more Evans saw of him, the less he liked and trusted him. He began to avoid Doc—saw him only when he couldn’t decently put him off.

  DOC sat up so suddenly that Shake jumped. Doc was always startling him by abrupt, unexpected movements.

  “Look at my clothes,” said Doc bitterly. “How could I get in with a dame like that?”

  Shake stared—then understood. Funny about Doc—always thinking up schemes to take that luscious million-dollar sucker.

  “It wouldn’t help,” said Shake tactlessly. “She wouldn’t go for you.”

  “Plenty have.”

  “I ain’t seen any flocking around, Doc, Quit kidding me.”

  Doc burned in silence. The ambition of his life was to shine in the eyes of women; in fact, a woman had started him on the road down. He could have killed Shake with pleasure. He threw a look at him which made the big man very uneasy. Shake was a coward and at times very much afraid of Doc.

  “I didn’t mean nothing. Doc,” he said, smiling placatingly. “Just kidding.”

  Doc gritted his teeth but said nothing, and Shake sat shaking his head slowly.

  “No use, Doc. We might as well forget it.”

  There was a long pause Taxis hooted in the stillness. Finally Doc got up, went into the bathroom and locked the door.

  Shake shook his head sadly. “At it again,” he told himself. “If he was wise, he’d leave that stuff alone. It’s a bum idea. You’d think a doctor would know better.”

  Making a clucking noise with his tongue, he picked up the Racing Form and began to study it.

  “He’s running out of stuff, too,” Shake said, half aloud. “When he gets clear out, there’ll be hell to pay. He’ll be out prowling the drugstores.”

  IN a little while, Doc came out of the bathroom and went back to the window. His cheeks were flushed. He looked better. “I’m not going to give this one up,” he said, without turning. “Not if I have to get in touch with a couple of the boys and split with them to strong-arm her for the diamonds and the fur coats.”

  His eyes were glittering. Shake felt very uneasy when Doc was like this; he looked and was dangerous.

  Just as Shake was about to speak soothingly, the door opened, and Windy Mather came in. He was a huge man with powerful shoulders and a look of stupid immovability. Ordinarily he was good-nature enough, but he took careful handling. He was an old strong-arm man and had worked for various mobs in the East. As a young man, he’d wrestled professionally, had his nose broken, acquired a slightly cauliflowered car. Now, in his forties, he was running to fat but he was still strong enough to handle six ordinary men.

  He shut the door behind him, then without a word walked to the middle of the room and stood grinning at them.

  “Well?” said Doc impatiently. When Windy grinned like that he knew something was up. Doc felt vaguely hopeful.

  Still grinning. Windy took a small roll of bills out of his pocket and waved it.

  “See?”

  “How much?” asked Doc.

  “Thirty-three dollars.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  Windy grinned widely. He always had a hard time expressing himself and usually spoke in monosyllables. His bashful silences had earned him his nickname.

  “This dame—I helped her.”

  “What dame?”

  “She wanted to roll this guy, see?”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy with the dame. He put up a howl, see? I saw her come out of the joint with him.”

  “What joint?”

  “Where they was.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Doc, “Give me the money.”

  Windy was going to protest, but Doc pulled the roll away from him and stuffed it into his pocket. Windy frowned, then grinned. Doc studied his face for a moment, then laughed. “You’re going to get yourself in a jam some night.”

  “I’m careful,” said Windy, grinning.

  None of them spoke until they’d finished eating in the hotel restaurant, all the while ignoring one another.

  In the other room, the juke box was playing a sad, soulful tune.

  Doc pushed back his chair and sighed “We better get.”

  “Yeah.” said Shake wiping his mouth elaborately with his napkin and pushing his empty plate away. “I’d say.”

  Windy went on eating in stolid silence.

  Doc took out a couple of cigars, handed Shake one, then lit up and sat smoking in silence.

  Finally, Windy finished eating and sighed loudly, then snapped his fingers. “Doc.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There was a thing I wanted to tell you.”

  “Think hard.”

  “I got it. I run into Gyp Connors. Remember him?”

  “A guy to avoid—a rat.”

  “I don’t know. Well, I run into him. He told me something. That big guy’s in town.”

  “What big guy?”

  “The top guy. The Florida fellow.”

  Doc started. “Who—Jim Farrar?”

  “That’s the one. Gyp says he swears he seen him in a car.”

  Doc and Shake exchanged a glance. They had both worked with Jim Farrar in the old days.

  Shake laughed good-naturedly. “What do you think of that? He’s Doc’s pet hate.”

  “Who?” Windy demanded, looking from one to the other. “The top guy?”

  “Top guy, my foot!” said Doc bitterly. “He’s just had a run of luck, that’s all. He’ll get caught up with.”

  “Never yet,” said Shake. He laughed. “Regular Casanova, Jim is. The babes really go for him—and does he work at it! Murder!”

  “Murder is right. What they see in that big, swell-headed phony!” Doc hesitated and sat thinking.

  “Remember the little blond singer, Doc?” asked Shake, “The one who was going to marry that New York millionaire till she met Jim Farrar?”

  Doc flushed slightly. The prettiest girl he’d ever seen in his life and she wouldn’t so much as look at him; and he’d been in the money at the time; white tie and tails, the works! He nodded without looking at Shake, lost in bitter reflections.

  “What happened?” Windy demanded, staring.

  Shake laughed. “Well, Jim not only copped the guy’s girl, he beat the guy for fifty grand and made him like it.”

  Windy guffawed.

  “Yeah,” said Doc, “but the girl tried to turn Jim in later.”

  “That was after he gave her the brush-off.”

  “Big stiff!”

  DOC sat suffering. Imagine a guy so lucky or so well-endowed or so something that he actually brushes off a gorgeous babe like Rita, that singer! At the time Doc would have given his right arm for her. Even now, ten years later, he could see her plain as day—so pretty and desirable.

  “What do you suppose he’s doing out here?” Shake demanded. “He was killing ‘em in Florida. The fix must be in here. Jim wouldn’t work without a fix. It’s like Napoleon said—”

  “Phooey to Napoleon,” Doc broke out, “Whatever it was he said, you wouldn’t get it right. Maybe Jim’s on the lam.”

  “From what?”

  “You never know.” Doc hesitated, sat lost in thought, then he gave a start. His eyes flashed so wildly that for a moment Shake imagined that Doc had gone berserk at last, as he had always feared he would. “He’s our man,” cried Doc.

  “What are you talking about?” Shake demanded.

  Do
c snorted impatiently. “Don’t you see? Jim’s the very guy to beat this rich widow. It’s his kind of stuff.”

  Shake blinked, then a smile spread over his slack face. “What do you know—”

  “I’m not so sold on Jim as some people,” said Doc. “But this is his meat. He’s got a way with women; no doubt about it,” Doc rubbed his hands together and smiled grimly. don’t like the big guy; but we need him on this one and I’d split with Hitler if I couldn’t work in any other way.”

  “What’s going on here?” asked Windy, looking from one to the other.

  They ignored him. Doc, preoccupied, was already working on the idea. Shake sat staring. At last, his smile faded; he shook his head, “No, Doc. You’re just kidding yourself like you been all along on this deal. Jim wouldn’t work with us. He’d have us kicked out if we located him.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s the matter with us?”

  “Use your eyes. We look like bums.

  We haven’t got any dough. What’s your proposition? Jim furnishes the front money, makes the take and splits with us. It ain’t reasonable.”

  “How many million-dollar suckers do you find? A dame at that. AH we’ve got to do is locate Jim. I’ll sell him.”

  “I’m not even going to think about it. With the kind of luck I been having, it just couldn’t happen.”

  “Let’s go hunt Pop Gruber. If anybody knows where Jim is, he will.” Doc jumped up, his eyes glittering with excitement.

  “You birds going to try to work with the top guy?” Windy demanded, staring. “Sure.”

  Windy guffawed, “That’s just plain nuts—us tramps!”

  “We’ll see,” said Doc.

  POP GRUBER was what is known as a “character,” He was a thin, wiry little man in his late sixties; his color was good, his eyes sparkled, and he looked as if he’d last forever. You would take him for a small-town bookkeeper, and yet, aside from the strong-arm rackets, he had run the gamut of crime.

  As a newsboy in Indianapolis, he’d learned to pick pockets. Then, always rising in his profession, he’d turned sneak thief, shoplifter, small-time grifter, and at last he’d got in with a big con mob and prospered to such an extent that for two years he retired from the rackets. But he came to grief when Denver was cleaned up by Van Cise; he was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for a long stretch. When he got out, he was an old man and was smart enough to realize it. The big dough was now out of his reach. He got a little stake together and went to California, where he became a familiar sight on the streets of Los Angeles.