Dark Passage by David Goodis

frame.”
    “I don’t think it was a frame,” Parry
said. “I think Madge was telling the truth.”
    “Maybe she thought she was telling the
truth. Maybe she drilled it into herself that Gert really said
that. People like Madge make a habit of that sort of thing. It
becomes part of their make-up.”
    “Gert hated me.”
    “Gert didn’t hate you. Gert just didn't
care for you. There's a difference. Gert would have walked out on
you only she had no one else to go to. No one.”
    “There were others.”
    “They weren’t permanent. She would have
walked out if she could have found something permanent. And she
wouldn't frame you, Vince. She was no prize package, but she
wouldn't frame you. Madge framed you. Madge wanted to hook you.
When she couldn't hook you one way, she hooked you another way.
Madge is a fine girl.”
    “Maybe one of these days she’ll get run
over by an automobile.”
    “It’s something to pray for,” Fellsinger
said. He took a thick watch from the small top pocket of his
trousers. “What's your schedule?”
    “I want to be there at three.”
    “Plenty of time,” Fellsinger
said.
    “How’s the job going?”
    “The same job,” Fellsinger said. “The same
rotten routine. Sometimes I feel it getting the best of me. Last
week I asked for a raise and Wolcott laughed in my face. I wanted
to spit in his and walk out. One of these days I’m going to do just
that. I can't stand Wolcott. I can't stand anything about that
place. Thirty-five dollars a week.”
    “What are you kicking about? That’s a
marvelous salary.”
    “I talked to my doctor a few months ago. I
asked him if I could stand a manual job. He said the only kind of
job I could stand was a job where I sit in one place all day and
don’t use my muscles. I had no idea I was in such awful shape. He
gave me a list of rules to follow, diet and cigarettes and liquor
and all that. Rather than follow those rules I'd throw myself into
the Bay.”
    “You mean jump off the Bridge?”
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Not nothing. Something. You’ve been
thinking in terms of the Bridge. You got to get rid of that, Vince.
That's no good.”
    “I’m all right. And everything's going to
be all right. With a new face I won't need to worry. At least I
won't need to worry so much. As long as I'm careful, as long as I
keep my wits about me, as long as I have something to hold on to
I'll be all right.”
    They sat there talking about themselves,
the things that had once amounted to something in common.
Fellsinger’s amateur status with the trumpet. Fellsinger's refusal
to go professional. Fellsinger's ideas in regard to sincere jazz.
Fellsinger's interest in higher mathematics, and his lack of real
ability with higher mathematics, and his feeling that if he had
real ability he could make a lot of money in investment securities.
Fellsinger's lack of real ability with anything. Parry's claim that
Fellsinger had real ability with something and as soon as he found
that something he would start getting somewhere. Their vacation at
Lake Tahoe a few years back. Fishing at Tahoe and the two girls
from Nevada who wanted to learn how to fish. Empty bottles of gin
all over the cabin. What a wonderful two weeks it had been, and how
they agreed that next summer they would be there again at Tahoe.
But they weren't there the next summer because Parry was married
that next summer and Gert wanted a honeymoon in Oregon. She wanted
to see Crater Lake National Park. She was interested in mineralogy.
She collected stones. She claimed there was flame opal to be found
in Crater Lake National Park. She liked opal, the flame opal, the
white opal with flames of green and orange writhing under the
glistening white. She was always asking Parry to get her something
in the way of flame opal. He couldn't afford flame opal but he got
her a stone anyway. He went to a credit jewelry store downtown and
said he wanted a flame-opal ring. They said they didn't have any
flame opal in stock but if he came back in a few days they would
have