I’VE HAD THREE COLLECTIONS of short stories published, plus a small-press collection of the Ehrengraf stories and Hit Man, an episodic novel comprising the Keller stories. One Night Stands consists of stories deliberately omitted from these collections (or ones I’d lost track of, but if I’d had them handy I’d still have left them out).
What have we got here, then? A box labeled “pieces of string too small to save”? If they weren’t worth collecting, why have I collected them?
I’ve been guided by the same principle (or, some might argue, the same lack thereof) that has led me to republish some early crime novels that I’d be hard put to read without cringing. The fact that I can’t read them with pleasure doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t, or shouldn’t. I’ve decided it’s not my job to judge my early work. Let other people make what they will of it.
Then, too, I’m not unmindful of the interests of collectors and readers with a special interest in an author—in this instance, myself. I don’t collect books, but I have other collecting interests, and I understand the mind set. Of course a collector would want a writer’s early work, to read or simply to have and to hold, and why should I deprive him of the opportunity? And why shouldn’t some scholar with a thesis to write have access to that early work?
At the same time, I don’t think these stories are much good, or representative of my mature work. For God’s sake, when I wrote these my typewriter still had training wheels on it. So I’ve decided One Night Stands should have limited distribution, going not to general readers but to collectors and specialists. Thus it’s being published only in a limited collector edition, and not, as is generally the case with Crippen & Landru publications, in trade paperback as well.
Enough! This introduction has passed the 2500-word mark, which makes it longer than many of the stories it’s introducing. It’s taken most of the morning to write it, too. May you, Dear Reader, like the tomcat who had the affair with the skunk, enjoy these stories as much as you can stand.
Lawrence Block
Greenwich Village
1999
THE BAD NIGHT
THE SHORTER OF THE TWO BOYS had wiry black hair and a twisted smile. He also had a knife, and the tip of the blade was pressed against Dan’s faded gabardine jacket. “Why’d you have to get in the way?” he asked, softly. “Every bull from here to Memphis is after us, and Pops here has to…”
“Shut up.” The older boy was taller, with blond hair that tumbled over his forehead. He, too, had a knife.
“Why? He ain’t going to tell anybody…”
“Shut up, Benny.” He turned to Dan, smiling. “We need money, maybe some food. We better make it over to your shack.”
“No shack,” Dan said. He gestured toward an opening in the wall of rock that edged the valley. “I live in the cave over there.”
Benny started to laugh, and the blade of his knife pierced Dan’s skin and drew blood. “A cave!” he exploded. “Dig, Zeke—he’s a hermit!”
Zeke didn’t laugh. “C’mon,” he said. “To the cave.”
They walked slowly across the field toward the mouth of the cave. Dan felt the sweat forming on his forehead, felt the old familiar sensation that he hadn’t felt since Korea. He was afraid, as afraid as he’d ever been in his life.
“Faster,” Benny said, and again Dan felt the knife prick skin. It didn’t make sense. He’d lived through a world war and a police action, and now two kids from Memphis were going to kill him. Two kids who called him “Pops.”
The veins stood out on his temples, and he could feel the sweat running down his face to the stubble of beard on his chin. “Why did he get in the way?” the kid had asked. Hell, he didn’t mean to get in anyone’s way. Just wanted to go off by himself, fool around with a little prospecting, and relax for a while.
They were almost at the entrance of the cave. Now they would take his money, eat his food, and put a switchblade knife between his ribs. He was finished, unless he managed to get to his gun in time. There was a shiny black .45 waiting on his shelf, if only he could get to it before Benny got to him with the knife.
“Here it is,” he said. He stepped inside the cave, the two boys right behind him. It was a large cave, wide and roomy and branching out much wider in the rear. On one side was his mattress, on the other his trunk and four orange-crate shelves.
“Let’s go,” said Zeke. “Bring out the dough and some food. We ain’t got all night.”
“Yeah,” Benny echoed. “We gotta roll, man. Make it fast or I stick you, dig?” He prodded Dan with a knife for emphasis.
“Wait a minute.” Dan’s eyes darted desperately to the crates and lighted on the kerosene lantern. “Let me light the lamp over there. It’s getting kind of dark in here.”
Benny looked at Zeke, who shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “But don’t try anything.” Dan walked across to the side of the cave, and Benny followed with the knife.
Fumbling in his pocket for a match, Dan glanced down to the middle shelf of the crate where the gun nestled cozily amidst a packet of letters and a pair of socks. If only he could get it, and if only it were loaded. Was it loaded? He couldn’t remember.
“Hurry it up,” Zeke said. It was now or never, Dan thought. He lifted the pack of matches from his pocket, tensed his body, and fell forward.
At the same time he lashed out viciously with his foot and heard a dull grunt of pain as he connected solidly with Benny’s belly. His right hand snaked out for the gun and closed around it, his fingers caressing the smooth metal of the butt. All in one motion he took it and whirled around, his finger tight against the trigger. The boys scampered for the rear of the cave. Then, before he could get a shot off, his right ankle buckled and he fell to the floor. For a moment everything went black as the pain shot up and down his leg. He gritted his teeth until the floor stopped spinning.
Dan glanced around the cave, and the two boys seemed to have disappeared. He tried to stand, but the stab of pain in his ankle told him it was useless. The ankle was broken.
He could hear Zeke, cursing dully from the back of the cave. They hadn’t left, then. He had them trapped.
After a time the cursing stopped. “Hey, Pops!” Zeke called. “That was pretty sharp, you know?”
Dan didn’t answer.
“Sharp,” the boy repeated. “You faked us good, but what’ll it get you? You can’t move, Pops.”
Dan started. He scrutinized the rear walls of the cave but could see nothing.
“Peek-a-boo,” Zeke called. “I can see you real good, Pops. There’s a cool little crack in the rock, you know? I can see you clear as anything. You still got your gun, but you can’t go anywhere.”
“Neither can you,” Dan answered, in spite of himself. “You can’t come out without getting shot. You two little bastards can stay there until I get some help.”
The boy’s laugh rang hollowly in the cave. “Help? You expecting company, Pops? Bet there’s a whole mess of people in a real rush to come here. This cave’s a big attraction, huh?”
Dan ran a hand over his forehead. The boy was right—the world didn’t exactly beat a path to his door. Daley would drop by in the morning with the mail, but he couldn’t figure on anyone showing before then. It was a stalemate; he couldn’t get the boys, and they couldn’t get him.
“I can wait,” he called. “My friend comes up at eleven every morning, and we can just sit it out until then. Have a nice wait, kids. Enjoy yourselves. When the cops get hold of you it won’t be much fun.”
This time they both laughed—high, shrill laughs that chilled Dan to the bone. The laughter echoed and bounced between the walls, and Dan felt his blood come to a boil. “Laugh!” he yelled, savagely. “Laugh your heads off, you little bastards!”
“Pops,” called a voice—Benny’s, this time. “The laugh’s on you, Pops. Know what time it is?”
“It’s nine o’clock, Pops. Nine at night. It’s fourteen hours ’til your friend comes. Think you can stay awake for fourteen hours? That’s a long time, you know.”
Dan drew in a breath sharply. Suddenly, he felt very tired. Very tired and hopelessly old.
“He’s right,” Zeke said. “There’s two of us, Pops, and we still got our blades. You might get real sleepy tonight. Just have to sit there all night with your eyes wide open, while one of us sleeps and the other one watches you. After a while your eyes’ll close up and that’ll be the end. You’ll be too sleepy to feel the knife.”
The boy went on, but Dan didn’t listen to the rest. He let out his breath slowly and stared at the gun in his hand, wondering idly whether or not it was loaded.
He knew what happened when a man had to force himself to stay awake. He’d seen a sentry who fell asleep at his post six miles north of Inchon. He’d looked like a man asleep, until Dan had noticed the slit that ran across his throat from ear to ear. He probably never knew what was happening, never felt the knife slice his life away.
Could he stay awake? He didn’t know. He glanced at his watch, noting that the boy had been right—it was just a few minutes past nine. He’d been on his feet all day since 8:30 in the morning, and it had been a rough day, with plenty of walking and climbing. He felt tired already, and he had fourteen more hours to go. His ankle throbbed dully but steadily, a slow and persistent ache. He knew it was draining him of the energy he would need to remain awake through the night.
“You may not have to wait until you fall asleep,” Zeke called. “It’s getting real dark, man. You won’t be able to see too good. We can sneak up, like.”
Dan looked around for the lantern and was relieved to find it at his side, where it had fallen in the scuffle. He set it upright and made ready to light it, then realized how little kerosene he had in it. Probably not enough to last the night. He’d save it until he couldn’t see without it.
“Okay,” said Zeke. “So you got the lamp. You’ll still fall asleep.”
The minutes crawled by and the shadows grew longer. Dan sat very still on the floor of the cave. The boys talked among themselves, and occasionally he caught snatches of their conversation. They’d started in Memphis, headed west, pulled a series of small holdups, and one of them—Benny, he guessed—had knifed the proprietor of a delicatessen. The man had died.
Killers. A couple of punk kids, but they had killed already and they would kill again. Zeke, he thought, would kill if he had to, but Benny was a different sort. Benny would kill whenever he got the chance.
Dan had met that kind before. There was a guy in his platoon, a tall, lean boy from the hills. And one day the platoon had taken seven young Chinese as prisoners. And the tall, lean boy from the hills had stepped up to each of the POWs in turn, and placed his pistol to the back of each head, quickly and methodically blowing out the brains of each of them. The Americans were too dumbfounded to stop him. Dan had been violently sick, and the memory still churned inside him.