The Moon in the Gutter

by Goodis David

1

At the edge of the alleyway facing Vernon Street, a gray cat waited for a large rat to emerge from its hiding place. The rat had scurried through a gap in the wall of the wooden shack, and the cat was inspecting all the narrow gaps and wondering how the rat had managed to squeeze itself in. In the sticky darkness of a July midnight the cat waited there for more than a half hour. As it walked away, it left its paw prints in the dried blood of a girl who had died here in the alley some seven months ago.

Some moments passed and it was quiet in the alley. Then there was a sound of a man’s footsteps coming slowly along Vernon Street. And presently the man entered the alley and stood motionless in the moonlight. He was looking down at the dried bloodstains.

The man’s name was William Kerrigan and he was the brother of the girl who had died here in the alley. He never liked to visit this place and it was more on the order of a habit he wished he could break. Lately he’d been coming here night after night. He wondered what made him do it. At times he had the feeling it was vaguely connected with guilt, as though in some indirect way he’d failed to prevent her death. But in more rational moments he knew that his sister had died simply because she wanted to die. The bloodstains were caused by a rusty blade that she’d used on her own throat.

At the time it had happened, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital ward. He was a stevedore, and on the docks a large crate had slipped off its mooring and hit him hard, breaking both his legs. During his third week in the hospital he was told of his sister’s suicide.

It was definitely a case of suicide but the circumstances were rather unusual and the authorities decided on a post-mortem examination. They discovered she’d been raped, and the assault had deprived her of virginity. They concluded that she couldn’t bear the shock, the shame, and in a fit of despair decided to take her own life.

There were no clues to indicate who had assaulted her. It was the kind of neighborhood where the number of suspects would be limitless. A few were hauled in, questioned, and released. And that was as far as it went.

Seven months ago, Kerrigan was thinking. He stood there looking down at the bloodstains. Attempts had been made to wash them away, and summer rains had thinned them a lot, but the dried red blotches were now a part of the alley paving, stains that couldn’t be erased. The moonlight poured on them and made them glisten.

Kerrigan lowered his head. He shut his eyes tightly. His mood was a mixture of sorrow and futile anger. He wondered if the anger would ever find its target. His eyes opened again and he saw the red stains and it was like seeing a permanent question mark.

He sighed heavily. He was a large man, with the accent more on width than on height. He had it mostly in the shoulders, and it amounted to a powerful build composed of hard muscle, two hundred pounds of it, standing five feet ten. His hair was black and thick and combed straight, and he had blue eyes and a nose that had been broken twice but was still in line with the rest of his face. On the left side of his forehead, slanting down toward his cheek, there was a deep jagged scar from an encounter on the docks when someone had used brass knuckles. On the other side, near the corner of his mouth, there was another ridge of healed flesh, from someone’s knife. The scars were not at all unique, just a couple of badges that signified he lived on Vernon Street and worked on the docks. Just a stevedore, thirty-five years old, standing here in the dark alley and thinking of a dead girl named Catherine.