An excerpt from a short story I've been working on called A New Chapter.
A NEW CHAPTER
I love my job for one simple reason. It makes me happy. I’ve had so many disappointments in life – tanking at law school, splitting up with my wife Angela, the woman who was supposed to be my one and only true love, but who let me down in the end, the endless parade of pointless grunt jobs in down scale offices, telemarketing boiler rooms and hamburger joints, each new position more absurd and meaningless than the ones that came before; all of this wormwood of disappointment left me bitter as though I had eaten ashes, which in some ways I guess I had, figuratively anyway.
But three years ago, I could say the misery had ended. After a long stint as a shift manager at a hamburger franchise, and just as my divorce from Angela was finalized, I ended up at the chain’s head office as a human resources manager, recruiting new staff. They downsized the company a year ago and set me free. Now, I am self employed. Now, I no longer suffer disappointments. Now, I offer fresh beginnings, new chapters transforming and renewing thwarted careers and stagnant lives.
My job is to help people begin new careers, to start again after being re-deployed by their employers. I open new chapters for them. That’s why I call my human resources consulting company New Chapters Unlimited. I really do offer people a new beginning, a new way of living life. It’s not a lie. I’ve learned to move beyond cynicism. It’s the most spiritually and psychologically corrosive mindset at large in our society today. I explain to people how cynicism rots and stifles hope and ambition and motivation. And I know the people I collaborate with listen to me and take what I say to heart as they strive to re-map their lives and career paths.
Yes, things are tough out there. Our corporate culture is changing forever as it adjusts to new global economic realities. There is no turning back. People should not fear this, however, but welcome it as an opportunity for growth and achieving one’s full potential.
My last client today understood this. Scott Tyson was his name, I think. Or was it Tyson Scott? No matter. He seemed so interested and curious and nodded while I explained the terms of his separation agreement from Consilium Amalgamated, a once great manufacturing powerhouse that is now being, well, amalgamated with a new tech and financial services based company, thus opening a new chapter for itself and for the people who now are being re-deployed; loyal and dedicated and industrious people like Tyson Scott.
He smiled when I finished my presentation. In the soft light of the hotel conference room – I always meet clients in the innocuous, charming neutrality of a bland hotel conference room – his eyes burned bright with excitement.
“Thank you very much,” he said as he signed the last of the release forms, “you’ve been very kind and helpful and informative.”
Sometimes the opening of a new chapter is rough for people. It means more than leaving a job; it’s leaving a life, a world of habits and routines and not everyone welcomes it. But Scott Tyson seemed genuinely happy as I walked him to the door. He said, “I’ve been stuck in the same groove for too long. I really need something new. This package really will help me open a new chapter, like you say.”
He shook my hand firmly, smiled a serene smile and disappeared down the hall.
I watched him leave then I started to pack up.
It only took me a few minutes to seal all the signed discharge papers from the twenty Consilium people I had met with into two big bubble envelopes. I locked up the conference room, settled out with the hotel manager and returned the room key. Parcel Direct had a big depot only a few minute’s drive from the hotel, so I was able to courier the discharge stuff from there to Consilium and didn’t have to carry it around with me.
At last, the day was over. I was free.
A new chapter had opened for a new evening.
As I drove along Ambassador Road, I pondered what I should do with the free time that now stretched before me in all of its inviting emptiness. My first appointment tomorrow wasn’t until the afternoon, so I could afford to stay out a little later than normal.
Perhaps this would be a good night to make my return to The Caboose. I hadn’t been there in a while and it wasn’t that far away.
I took a turn down Manufacturer’s Crescent, a largely deserted street that serviced a few tiny business malls and factory outlet places. Even on a sunny and warm August evening like this, there wouldn’t be much traffic on it, now that most of the businesses along there had been shuttered by the recession. It would be just a quick hop to drive along there direct to the Caboose which was at the corner of Manufacturer’s and Weatherbee Street.
I wasn’t on the road long when I saw something strange in a vacant parking lot in front of what looked like a boarded up furniture store.
A car had slammed into the front entrance.
I pulled over to take a look, thinking I could be of help. My heart raced as I hurried to the wreckage and I broke into a sweat.
I admit I was afraid of what I would see and my worst fears were realized as I peered inside the shattered driver’s window.
Scott Tyson was slumped over the wheel, his face smashed. Blood was all over what was left of his face, his shirt, the front seat and the dashboard.
That was awful enough, but what was even worse was that a handgun rested on the empty passenger seat.
My stomach churned and I wanted to throw up, but I held it down and forced myself to come around to the passenger side. In spite of the blood everywhere else on the front seat, the gun was clean. Had somebody planted it there? Why?
Sometimes in life, we do things that we can’t explain and perhaps even regret later. For some reason, I was compelled to reach through the shattered glass of the passenger window, and pick up the gun. It was .38 caliber hand gun – I took shooting lessons years ago. I opened the cartridge and it was full and there was a bullet in the chamber.
Why would Tyson crash his car when he had a loaded gun?
I made sure the safety catch was on and then I ran back to my car and hid the gun in the glove compartment. Before I could take off, my nausea got the better of me and I unleashed the remains of the ham sandwich I’d had for lunch on the asphalt.
As I sped away, I tapped my shirt pocket. I had my cell phone with me, as I knew I did.
No, I didn’t call the police.
How could I? I was fleeing the scene of my crime.
I was responsible for Tyson Scott’s death, wasn’t I?
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Dan J. Marlowe: The Vengeance Man
In my review for Marlowe's Strongarm a while back, I mentioned the author's possible Jim Thompson influence due to a certain brief episode involving the disposal of a severed limb.
Well, in Marlowe's 1966 balls to the wall bardboiled smash and grab extravaganza, The Vengeance Man, that influence is on proudly lurid display.
Jim Wilson, the novel's protagonist, like Strongarm's Pete Karma, has an ongoing grudge against the world, or at least that part of the world visible to him from his small South Carolina town of Moline.
Unlike Karma, Wilson doesn't care for aliases. Right up front, you learn his name and the names of the people in his network of old high school friends whose tangled business and personal relationships supply the twisted backbone for this intense novel. Within the first twenty pages, he shoots dead Mona, his cheating wife, gets locked up and then is cleared of any wrong doing by a theatrically imperious lawyer reminiscent of Lou Ford's defence attorney near the conclusion of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside of Me. The lawyer argues at the coroner's inquest into the shooting that Wilson was armed because he had been doing his job collecting rents for a local landlord. The killing was an impulsive crime of passion in no way pre-meditated. Reluctantly, the jury buys this argument and Wilson is set free.
Once out of the slammer, Wilson sets about on his campaign of revenge against Harrington, Mona's father and onetime mayor of the town who still is a key political fixer and purveyor of lucrative town contracts. Wilson is a construction contractor and, in spite of recent events, Harrington resignedly lets Wilson have a coveted road paving contract. Is Harrington acknowledging a slight change in the local balance of power, or is he playing dead for some obscure, strategic reason? Wilson isn't sure. He also does some heavy extortion on Ludmilla, Mona's best friend from high school, threatening to unleash on the conservative small town raunchy pictures of she and Mona making out at a drunken party.
With these two aces in the hole, Wilson thinks he has it made. But does he? Other emerging political cronies in the area, stronger than Harrington, don't like Wilson's maneuverings and his cockiness. They want to bring him to heel. Also, Ludmilla has a few tricks of her own up her sleeveless dress and Wilson is soon under her control. They plot together to take control of their town and surrounding county. And is Wing, Wilson's best friend from high school and his partner in the construction company, really as affable and loyal as he appears to be?
The result is an intensely violent climax to a deeply amoral story with as morally ambiguous and ambivalent a protagonist as any hard boiled fan could want. And along the way, there are some Jim Thompson-esque filigrees, like a flashback to his youth when Wilson recalls the beatings he received at the hands of the uncle who brought him up and the brutal revenge he exacted upon this uncle with a dog whip. Also, Ludmilla has a passion for punching bag sex that would do any number of twisted Jim Thompson heroines proud.
Yet, in the midst of all of this mayhem, I have some misgivings. At least Thompson's books had extra layers of irony or psychological observation that elevated them far beyond their hard boiled genre origins into true classic status. Think of the creepy Oedipal undertones to the relationship between Roy and Lilly Dillon in The Grifters, or the greasy verbal circumlocutions and strategic triangulations which are the manifestations of Lou Ford's murderous evil in The Killer Inside of Me, or the Dantesque hell of the Kingdom of El Rey episode that concludes The Getaway, the only attempt ever in hardboiled to rocket a crime story plot beyond naturalistic action into the shadowy realm of metaphysical speculation.
Marlowe seems only to have picked up the heavy handed violence and kinky sex from Thompson and not these additional plot elements which actually made those horrific novels important. Sure, there are some passing observations in the novel about political corruption and the small mindedness of small towns, but these are commonplace ideas you can find anywhere. Marlowe simply imitated, or paid homage to Thompson. He didn't go beyond him, or perhaps, even didn't really understand his books. I guess in the end, that was why, in spite of its impressive plotting and action elements, I found The Vengeance Man a bit of a letdown, and even a little bit of a paper tiger.
Well, in Marlowe's 1966 balls to the wall bardboiled smash and grab extravaganza, The Vengeance Man, that influence is on proudly lurid display.
Jim Wilson, the novel's protagonist, like Strongarm's Pete Karma, has an ongoing grudge against the world, or at least that part of the world visible to him from his small South Carolina town of Moline.
Unlike Karma, Wilson doesn't care for aliases. Right up front, you learn his name and the names of the people in his network of old high school friends whose tangled business and personal relationships supply the twisted backbone for this intense novel. Within the first twenty pages, he shoots dead Mona, his cheating wife, gets locked up and then is cleared of any wrong doing by a theatrically imperious lawyer reminiscent of Lou Ford's defence attorney near the conclusion of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside of Me. The lawyer argues at the coroner's inquest into the shooting that Wilson was armed because he had been doing his job collecting rents for a local landlord. The killing was an impulsive crime of passion in no way pre-meditated. Reluctantly, the jury buys this argument and Wilson is set free.
Once out of the slammer, Wilson sets about on his campaign of revenge against Harrington, Mona's father and onetime mayor of the town who still is a key political fixer and purveyor of lucrative town contracts. Wilson is a construction contractor and, in spite of recent events, Harrington resignedly lets Wilson have a coveted road paving contract. Is Harrington acknowledging a slight change in the local balance of power, or is he playing dead for some obscure, strategic reason? Wilson isn't sure. He also does some heavy extortion on Ludmilla, Mona's best friend from high school, threatening to unleash on the conservative small town raunchy pictures of she and Mona making out at a drunken party.
With these two aces in the hole, Wilson thinks he has it made. But does he? Other emerging political cronies in the area, stronger than Harrington, don't like Wilson's maneuverings and his cockiness. They want to bring him to heel. Also, Ludmilla has a few tricks of her own up her sleeveless dress and Wilson is soon under her control. They plot together to take control of their town and surrounding county. And is Wing, Wilson's best friend from high school and his partner in the construction company, really as affable and loyal as he appears to be?
The result is an intensely violent climax to a deeply amoral story with as morally ambiguous and ambivalent a protagonist as any hard boiled fan could want. And along the way, there are some Jim Thompson-esque filigrees, like a flashback to his youth when Wilson recalls the beatings he received at the hands of the uncle who brought him up and the brutal revenge he exacted upon this uncle with a dog whip. Also, Ludmilla has a passion for punching bag sex that would do any number of twisted Jim Thompson heroines proud.
Yet, in the midst of all of this mayhem, I have some misgivings. At least Thompson's books had extra layers of irony or psychological observation that elevated them far beyond their hard boiled genre origins into true classic status. Think of the creepy Oedipal undertones to the relationship between Roy and Lilly Dillon in The Grifters, or the greasy verbal circumlocutions and strategic triangulations which are the manifestations of Lou Ford's murderous evil in The Killer Inside of Me, or the Dantesque hell of the Kingdom of El Rey episode that concludes The Getaway, the only attempt ever in hardboiled to rocket a crime story plot beyond naturalistic action into the shadowy realm of metaphysical speculation.
Marlowe seems only to have picked up the heavy handed violence and kinky sex from Thompson and not these additional plot elements which actually made those horrific novels important. Sure, there are some passing observations in the novel about political corruption and the small mindedness of small towns, but these are commonplace ideas you can find anywhere. Marlowe simply imitated, or paid homage to Thompson. He didn't go beyond him, or perhaps, even didn't really understand his books. I guess in the end, that was why, in spite of its impressive plotting and action elements, I found The Vengeance Man a bit of a letdown, and even a little bit of a paper tiger.
Friday, January 13, 2012
The Doomsters by Ross Macdonald
What's in a name? A hell of a lot if you were to ask hard boiled crime writer Ross Macdonald, whose birth name was Kenneth Millar. His wife Margaret Millar was a highly successful mystery writer and to avoid confusion with her, he decided not to use that name for his books. He started writing under the name John Macdonald, but that was to easily confused with another renowned crime writer, John D MacDonald, so he tried John Ross Macdonald and then settled on Ross Macdonald.
Under the Ross Macdonald moniker he wrote dozens of mystery books, many of them featuring his private eye protagonist, Lew Archer, who was a more kind and reflective version of Phillip Marlowe. The last Lew Archer book appeared in 1976.
Macdonald's Lew Archer books were notable for their complex plots and intricate descriptions of the intrigues of dysfunctional families. Macdonald's father abandoned his family when Ross was very young and this was a likely source for his fascination with this theme.
The Doomsters, a Macdonald novel from 1958, is considered a turning point in the Lew Archer series. Here, the corruption and pain of a blighted family are on at once compassionate and voyeuristic display. Lew Archer's sympathetic side is often evident and fans of Macdonald have noted that it was in this novel that Macdonald found his own voice and style and relied less on imitations of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, his two main hardboiled writing influences.
The title comes from a Thomas Hardy poem and refers to demons and unresolved conflicts and pains that haunt and eventually destroy someone.
The novel begins with Lew Archer awakening one morning to find a stranger knocking at his front door. It turns out the stranger is Carl Hallman, the tormented son of a wealthy and powerful political family. Carl is on the run from a mental hospital and a fellow patient, Tom Rica, had given him Archer's name as someone to contact for help.
Carl had been sent to the hospital after a nervous breakdown following his father's death. He had had an argument with his father - who was a Senator and who had made his fortune from orange groves on land he owned - over the treatment of the Japanese laborers who worked in his orange groves. The father died after the argument and Carl assumed he had at least indirectly caused his father's death.
Once in the hospital, Carl became convinced that his despised brother Jerry was scheming to kill him, or at least keep him permanently in the hospital. He shared his fear with Rica and then he staged his escape.
Carl's story moves Archer and hits him in a sore spot: Tom Rica was a drug addicted tough kid that Archer had tried to set straight and failed.
Archer tries to drive Carl back to the hospital, but along the way, they get into an argument. Carl punches Archer in the jaw, knocks him out,leaves him unconscious in the ditch and makes off with his car.
Archer comes to and goes to the hospital to let the doctors there know that Carl is on the loose. A manhunt, led by a hardassed local sheriff in the pay of the Hallman family and who loathes Carl, ensues while Archer makes his way to the Hallman estate and starts to find many family skeletons - literally and figuratively - in dusty closets long locked.
The Doomsters is a powerful and elegantly written book but I find that Macdonald, like his hero Chandler, has a fondness for the overly convoluted plot. No matter. There is some fine noir atmosphere and hardboiled writing that more than make up for that.
What better exposition of the hardboiled view of life could there be than this:
The trouble with you, I said to myself: you're always turning over the postcards and reading the messages on the underside. Written in invisible ink, in blood, in tears, with a black border around them, with postage due, unsigned, or signed with a thumbprint.
Nothing ever is as it appears to be in the world of hardboiled fiction and The Doomsters is a compelling and fascinating example of this. Well worth reading.
Under the Ross Macdonald moniker he wrote dozens of mystery books, many of them featuring his private eye protagonist, Lew Archer, who was a more kind and reflective version of Phillip Marlowe. The last Lew Archer book appeared in 1976.
Macdonald's Lew Archer books were notable for their complex plots and intricate descriptions of the intrigues of dysfunctional families. Macdonald's father abandoned his family when Ross was very young and this was a likely source for his fascination with this theme.
The Doomsters, a Macdonald novel from 1958, is considered a turning point in the Lew Archer series. Here, the corruption and pain of a blighted family are on at once compassionate and voyeuristic display. Lew Archer's sympathetic side is often evident and fans of Macdonald have noted that it was in this novel that Macdonald found his own voice and style and relied less on imitations of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, his two main hardboiled writing influences.
The title comes from a Thomas Hardy poem and refers to demons and unresolved conflicts and pains that haunt and eventually destroy someone.
The novel begins with Lew Archer awakening one morning to find a stranger knocking at his front door. It turns out the stranger is Carl Hallman, the tormented son of a wealthy and powerful political family. Carl is on the run from a mental hospital and a fellow patient, Tom Rica, had given him Archer's name as someone to contact for help.
Carl had been sent to the hospital after a nervous breakdown following his father's death. He had had an argument with his father - who was a Senator and who had made his fortune from orange groves on land he owned - over the treatment of the Japanese laborers who worked in his orange groves. The father died after the argument and Carl assumed he had at least indirectly caused his father's death.
Once in the hospital, Carl became convinced that his despised brother Jerry was scheming to kill him, or at least keep him permanently in the hospital. He shared his fear with Rica and then he staged his escape.
Carl's story moves Archer and hits him in a sore spot: Tom Rica was a drug addicted tough kid that Archer had tried to set straight and failed.
Archer tries to drive Carl back to the hospital, but along the way, they get into an argument. Carl punches Archer in the jaw, knocks him out,leaves him unconscious in the ditch and makes off with his car.
Archer comes to and goes to the hospital to let the doctors there know that Carl is on the loose. A manhunt, led by a hardassed local sheriff in the pay of the Hallman family and who loathes Carl, ensues while Archer makes his way to the Hallman estate and starts to find many family skeletons - literally and figuratively - in dusty closets long locked.
The Doomsters is a powerful and elegantly written book but I find that Macdonald, like his hero Chandler, has a fondness for the overly convoluted plot. No matter. There is some fine noir atmosphere and hardboiled writing that more than make up for that.
What better exposition of the hardboiled view of life could there be than this:
The trouble with you, I said to myself: you're always turning over the postcards and reading the messages on the underside. Written in invisible ink, in blood, in tears, with a black border around them, with postage due, unsigned, or signed with a thumbprint.
Nothing ever is as it appears to be in the world of hardboiled fiction and The Doomsters is a compelling and fascinating example of this. Well worth reading.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Rescue
Here is an excerpt from a short story I'm working on, tentatively entitled "The Rescue."
Noon and the sun's glare burned through me while I walked through the parking lot on my way into Smile's Donuts. Sweat dripped off my head and my t-shirt stuck to my overheated body. I always hated muggy August days like this and I cursed not having the money to get out of town to someplace cooler.
I stumbled as a foot cut in front of me. I crumpled as a knee slammed into my groin and a fist hit my jaw.
I didn't even see the pavement as my vision went supernova with stars and fireworks exploding in my head.
I squeezed my eyes shut and the fireworks just got brighter, so I just lay there face down on the pavement, the kicks and the punches crashing down on me.
This really was it. Nothing to do now.
Sweat poured off me, yet I shivered. Cold numbness spread itself over me like that blanket they threw over Dad after the car had hit him that morning in January years ago when the roads were so icy and nobody could stop...
"What the hell's going on here?"
That old guy who owned the big house out on the lake road was here. I knew his voice. He came around the doughnut shop a lot. But he must've been close to sixty. How the hell could he stand up to creeps like Kevin and his idiot friends?
The cold receded and pinpricks of warmth stuck into my arms and legs. I was coming back. Maybe.
Shouts and screams. Was that a thunderclap? Or a gunshot?
The fireworks went off and the blows and explosions of red spiked agony all over my body stopped.
The cold blanket lifted. Warmth was returning to me. Within minutes, I would be boiling again.
I didn't complain. At least that meant I was still alive.
"What the hell did those guys want with you?" a voice asked.
The old guy was speaking to me.
I couldn't answer. Hands reached under my arms and my feet dragged on the pavement.
He was taking me somewhere.
Blurred shapes spun around. I told myself to focus, try to see what's going on.
My stomach churned. Puke rose up in my throat.
The blurred shapes loomed larger again and I had to close my eyes. My God, my whole body ached now. I just wanted to get out of there.
Then all the pain went away and everything was quiet.
Noon and the sun's glare burned through me while I walked through the parking lot on my way into Smile's Donuts. Sweat dripped off my head and my t-shirt stuck to my overheated body. I always hated muggy August days like this and I cursed not having the money to get out of town to someplace cooler.
I stumbled as a foot cut in front of me. I crumpled as a knee slammed into my groin and a fist hit my jaw.
I didn't even see the pavement as my vision went supernova with stars and fireworks exploding in my head.
I squeezed my eyes shut and the fireworks just got brighter, so I just lay there face down on the pavement, the kicks and the punches crashing down on me.
This really was it. Nothing to do now.
Sweat poured off me, yet I shivered. Cold numbness spread itself over me like that blanket they threw over Dad after the car had hit him that morning in January years ago when the roads were so icy and nobody could stop...
"What the hell's going on here?"
That old guy who owned the big house out on the lake road was here. I knew his voice. He came around the doughnut shop a lot. But he must've been close to sixty. How the hell could he stand up to creeps like Kevin and his idiot friends?
The cold receded and pinpricks of warmth stuck into my arms and legs. I was coming back. Maybe.
Shouts and screams. Was that a thunderclap? Or a gunshot?
The fireworks went off and the blows and explosions of red spiked agony all over my body stopped.
The cold blanket lifted. Warmth was returning to me. Within minutes, I would be boiling again.
I didn't complain. At least that meant I was still alive.
"What the hell did those guys want with you?" a voice asked.
The old guy was speaking to me.
I couldn't answer. Hands reached under my arms and my feet dragged on the pavement.
He was taking me somewhere.
Blurred shapes spun around. I told myself to focus, try to see what's going on.
My stomach churned. Puke rose up in my throat.
The blurred shapes loomed larger again and I had to close my eyes. My God, my whole body ached now. I just wanted to get out of there.
Then all the pain went away and everything was quiet.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Charles Willeford's The Burnt Orange Heresy
Hardboiled legend Charles Willeford was a Miami journalist and author whose 1990 novel, Miami Blues, was a big hit and was made into a movie starring Alec Baldwin.
But long before that, Willeford's career as a painter and an art history teacher, brilliantly positioned him to write his 1970 novel, The Burnt Orange Heresy.
James Figueras is a prominent south Florida art critic. He is brilliant at his work. So brilliant, in fact, that he is one of the few people in the US who makes a living exclusively writing art critiques for academic journals, magazines and encyclopedias.
His renown draws the attention of Cassidy, a high rolling millionaire art collector who lets him in on a secret. Cassidy has assisted the reclusive French surrealist artist Jacques Debierue in settling down in Florida. In fact, he's now living only thirty miles away. Cassidy lets James have the reclusive and secretive artist's address on one condition: he must bring back one of the artist's current art works.
James leaps at the offer. He has to. After all, Debierue was one of the most important of the Surrealists, legendary for his No. One installation, a wooden picture frame placed on a cracked plaster wall. Now, the legend was literally in his backyard. He has to meet him.
With his girlfriend Berenice in tow, James meets the surrealist, who turns out to be a harmless, even charming old man who wants nothing more from life than to sip orange juice and to wander off to a nearby drive-in to watch old Bowery Boys movies. He also wants to be left alone. And he wants no one to see his current work. No one. Not even the great James Figueras, whose criticism Debierue admires very much.
His considerable ego and hubris piqued by the rebuff, James hatches a plot to see the artist's current work. When Debierue leaves his house for the drive-in one night, James goes to the house and is able to get into the artist's workshop. He finds...nothing. Many canvases and frames, many painting supplies and implements, but no art work. Nothing. Debierue has not painted anything since his arrival in Florida. Perhaps, James fears, he hasn't painted anything in many years.
At first horrified, James suddenly realizes that he now has a real opportunity to boost his own career, and, almost as an afterthought, Debierue's. He snaps up the artist's gear, sets fire to the studio and then meets up with Berenice and they get away. All the while, James's mind is convulsed by a scheme to unleash on the art world The Burnt Orange Heresy, Debierue's last major art work. James will make the painting and write an article celebrating it. Then, Cassidy and other collectors can move in and fight over it, driving up its already immense value.
One problem though. Berenice uncovers James's scheme and James goes into murderous overdrive.
The Burnt Orange Heresy is a slim novel, but it is jammed with ideas about art and money, art and the perception of reality, art and the criminal impulse. It is also a meticulous depiction of how one man's arrogance and professional pride turn into murderous psychosis. A chilling and profound and original hard boiled read.
But long before that, Willeford's career as a painter and an art history teacher, brilliantly positioned him to write his 1970 novel, The Burnt Orange Heresy.
James Figueras is a prominent south Florida art critic. He is brilliant at his work. So brilliant, in fact, that he is one of the few people in the US who makes a living exclusively writing art critiques for academic journals, magazines and encyclopedias.
His renown draws the attention of Cassidy, a high rolling millionaire art collector who lets him in on a secret. Cassidy has assisted the reclusive French surrealist artist Jacques Debierue in settling down in Florida. In fact, he's now living only thirty miles away. Cassidy lets James have the reclusive and secretive artist's address on one condition: he must bring back one of the artist's current art works.
James leaps at the offer. He has to. After all, Debierue was one of the most important of the Surrealists, legendary for his No. One installation, a wooden picture frame placed on a cracked plaster wall. Now, the legend was literally in his backyard. He has to meet him.
With his girlfriend Berenice in tow, James meets the surrealist, who turns out to be a harmless, even charming old man who wants nothing more from life than to sip orange juice and to wander off to a nearby drive-in to watch old Bowery Boys movies. He also wants to be left alone. And he wants no one to see his current work. No one. Not even the great James Figueras, whose criticism Debierue admires very much.
His considerable ego and hubris piqued by the rebuff, James hatches a plot to see the artist's current work. When Debierue leaves his house for the drive-in one night, James goes to the house and is able to get into the artist's workshop. He finds...nothing. Many canvases and frames, many painting supplies and implements, but no art work. Nothing. Debierue has not painted anything since his arrival in Florida. Perhaps, James fears, he hasn't painted anything in many years.
At first horrified, James suddenly realizes that he now has a real opportunity to boost his own career, and, almost as an afterthought, Debierue's. He snaps up the artist's gear, sets fire to the studio and then meets up with Berenice and they get away. All the while, James's mind is convulsed by a scheme to unleash on the art world The Burnt Orange Heresy, Debierue's last major art work. James will make the painting and write an article celebrating it. Then, Cassidy and other collectors can move in and fight over it, driving up its already immense value.
One problem though. Berenice uncovers James's scheme and James goes into murderous overdrive.
The Burnt Orange Heresy is a slim novel, but it is jammed with ideas about art and money, art and the perception of reality, art and the criminal impulse. It is also a meticulous depiction of how one man's arrogance and professional pride turn into murderous psychosis. A chilling and profound and original hard boiled read.
Brian Gifford's Port Tropique
Brian Gifford is a US novelist best known for his association with cult film maker David Lynch. His fourth novel, Wild at Heart, was memorably, if repulsively, adapted for the screen by Lynch, from a screenplay co-written by him and Lynch. Gifford also co-scripted the 1997 Lynch cult favorite Lost Highway.
In 1980, long before his collaboration with Lynch, Gifford wrote the distinctive noir thriller, Port Tropique.
Through a series of brief snapshot chapters, most of which are flashbacks ranging through the protagonist's memories with relatively few carrying forward the story, such as it is, we learn about the life of Franz Hull, a writer living in the fictional Latin American nation of Port Tropique. He's there, as he tells a journalist visiting the country to cover an impending Communist revolution, to write a biography of Benjamin Franklin. When the journalist asks why he'd be writing about Franklin in Port Tropique, Frans gives a revealing answer:
"Gore Vidal wrote Burr in Rome. Robert Graves wrote I, Claudius in Majorca. Mary Renault wrote The Persian Boy in Cape Town. Sometimes the proper perspective is more easily attained from a distance."
This answer reveals Franz's major problem. He sees life through the funhouse mirror reflection of fiction. All the writers he mentions are historical fiction writers, using real events to weave compelling narratives that may not entirely be "real" or "true." For instance, I Claudius contains a plot where Livia conspires to poison Augustus, her husband and the first Emperor of Rome. No such plot really existed, in fact, little is known of the historical Livia. Yet, Graves invented the conspiracy to make the novel more compelling and to give the Livia character more of a presence in the story. Graves' storytelling was so believable that many believe the poisoning plot actually happened.
This is the curious half-real, half-imagined world that Franz Hull moves, or is it dreams? through, in Port Tropique. A world convincingly evoked with vivid, concrete descriptions of street life, as well as knowing descriptions of the country's political crisis. Although I'm reading a novel, the tone and feel of it remind me of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuczinski's books about revolutions in the developing world in the way that concrete fact is mixed with strong story telling.
All of this is very clever and witty, of course, but what does it have to do with a hardboiled story? Well, in the midst of all of this post modern game playing with narrative, there is a smuggling plot. Every few nights, Franz ventures to the dangerous Port Tropique water front with a suitcase. Various mysterious and disreputable characters pull into the harbor and fill the suitcase with bundles and bundles of money. Soon, he has more than two hundred thousand dollars in the suitcase. With the revolution waiting to explode, should he sit tight and wait for his criminal contacts to claim the money he's been holding for them, or should he simply run away with it?
A hard and all too real choice is to be made. A choice with deadly consequences. A choice that perhaps shouldn't be left with a person so distracted by narratives,a choice that would be better made by someone with a clear headed view of the crisis exploding around him.
Franz makes his choice and the consequences of this constitute the story that Port Tropique has to tell.
An interesting novel, as well as a puzzle. With many red herrings with the slightest hint of the shaggy dog tale thrown in. If nothing else, Port Tropique is one of the most memorable and radical of the hardboiled books.
In 1980, long before his collaboration with Lynch, Gifford wrote the distinctive noir thriller, Port Tropique.
Through a series of brief snapshot chapters, most of which are flashbacks ranging through the protagonist's memories with relatively few carrying forward the story, such as it is, we learn about the life of Franz Hull, a writer living in the fictional Latin American nation of Port Tropique. He's there, as he tells a journalist visiting the country to cover an impending Communist revolution, to write a biography of Benjamin Franklin. When the journalist asks why he'd be writing about Franklin in Port Tropique, Frans gives a revealing answer:
"Gore Vidal wrote Burr in Rome. Robert Graves wrote I, Claudius in Majorca. Mary Renault wrote The Persian Boy in Cape Town. Sometimes the proper perspective is more easily attained from a distance."
This answer reveals Franz's major problem. He sees life through the funhouse mirror reflection of fiction. All the writers he mentions are historical fiction writers, using real events to weave compelling narratives that may not entirely be "real" or "true." For instance, I Claudius contains a plot where Livia conspires to poison Augustus, her husband and the first Emperor of Rome. No such plot really existed, in fact, little is known of the historical Livia. Yet, Graves invented the conspiracy to make the novel more compelling and to give the Livia character more of a presence in the story. Graves' storytelling was so believable that many believe the poisoning plot actually happened.
This is the curious half-real, half-imagined world that Franz Hull moves, or is it dreams? through, in Port Tropique. A world convincingly evoked with vivid, concrete descriptions of street life, as well as knowing descriptions of the country's political crisis. Although I'm reading a novel, the tone and feel of it remind me of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuczinski's books about revolutions in the developing world in the way that concrete fact is mixed with strong story telling.
All of this is very clever and witty, of course, but what does it have to do with a hardboiled story? Well, in the midst of all of this post modern game playing with narrative, there is a smuggling plot. Every few nights, Franz ventures to the dangerous Port Tropique water front with a suitcase. Various mysterious and disreputable characters pull into the harbor and fill the suitcase with bundles and bundles of money. Soon, he has more than two hundred thousand dollars in the suitcase. With the revolution waiting to explode, should he sit tight and wait for his criminal contacts to claim the money he's been holding for them, or should he simply run away with it?
A hard and all too real choice is to be made. A choice with deadly consequences. A choice that perhaps shouldn't be left with a person so distracted by narratives,a choice that would be better made by someone with a clear headed view of the crisis exploding around him.
Franz makes his choice and the consequences of this constitute the story that Port Tropique has to tell.
An interesting novel, as well as a puzzle. With many red herrings with the slightest hint of the shaggy dog tale thrown in. If nothing else, Port Tropique is one of the most memorable and radical of the hardboiled books.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
A few posts back, I mentioned Raymond Chandler's taste for complex, labyrinthine, and for some people, incoherent plots.
This taste is very much on display in The Little Sister, a novel first published in 1949 and considered by some to be Chandler's finest.
It's a novel starring legendary Chandler gumshoe Phillip Marlowe. At first, the story seems pretty cut and dried. Orfamey Quest, a young lady from Manhattan, Kansas, drops by his dusty and faded hole in the wall office and tells him about the disappearance of her brother Orrin. It seems he has been swallowed up in the big bad maw of Los Angeles. Orfamey is a very prim and proper smalltown girl who at once repels and captivates Marlowe. He teases her and plays games with her, but in the end, he accepts the case.
All Marlowe has to go on is the address given him by Orfamey of the boarding house Orrin was last known to be staying at. When he gets there, he finds the place to be rundown and stuffy and choked with the stink of cigarette smoke and marijuana. He also finds the landlord, a hard and suspicious man, counting rent money. Thinking Marlowe is a robber, he lets him have the run of the place. Marlowe pokes around in Orrin's old room and finds nothing. When he returns to the front room, he finds the landlord has been stabbed with an ice pick.
After this, things get complicated. Very complicated.
Many factors come into play. It seems Orrin had stumbled onto extortion photographs of a rising young Hollywood starlet having lunch with a known gangster who was up on murder charges. The pictures themselves are harmless, just a couple having lunch, but it's the company the starlet is keeping that could cause problems for her. Where did he get the pictures from? Did he stab the landlord, or was it someone else? Who exactly is involved in this conspiracy to extort this young starlet?
Of course, extortion pictures are a well-traveled plot line in hardboiled. In Chandler's own The Big Sleep, extortion pictures of the amorous exploits of a general's daughter and a lending library for pornographic pictures are the hinges of the plot. What makes this novel interesting isn't so much the plot as Chandler's telling of it; Marlowe's persistent, hunch and happenstance unraveling of the conspiracy, the peeling away of false exteriors to reveal an ever widening circle of human duplicity, lust and greed.
And along the way, we are treated to some find noir atmosphere and Chandler's often caustic and pungent observations of human nature as presented through Phillip Marlowe.
Some examples:
I left him to his thoughts, which were probably as small, ugly and frightened as the man himself.
I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and old like a living room that's been closed too long. But the colored lights fooled you. The lights were wonderful.
On the terrace of The Dancers, a few early birds were getting ready to drink their lunch.
It's specimens of acerbic writing like this that make Chandler worth reading, regardless of how convoluted or implausible some of his plots may be. The man had a real flair for the telling detail, the apt observation made with sharp, economical and witty language. If nothing else, Chandler should be turned to as a guide of how to knowingly and keenly describe your surroundings.
I highly recommend The Little Sister. If you've never read it, you should maybe read it before The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Yes, the plot does get complicated, but there are so many facets of brilliance in this novel that they more than overcome any frustration you may have in trying to figure out who is stabbing whom in the back and why.
This taste is very much on display in The Little Sister, a novel first published in 1949 and considered by some to be Chandler's finest.
It's a novel starring legendary Chandler gumshoe Phillip Marlowe. At first, the story seems pretty cut and dried. Orfamey Quest, a young lady from Manhattan, Kansas, drops by his dusty and faded hole in the wall office and tells him about the disappearance of her brother Orrin. It seems he has been swallowed up in the big bad maw of Los Angeles. Orfamey is a very prim and proper smalltown girl who at once repels and captivates Marlowe. He teases her and plays games with her, but in the end, he accepts the case.
All Marlowe has to go on is the address given him by Orfamey of the boarding house Orrin was last known to be staying at. When he gets there, he finds the place to be rundown and stuffy and choked with the stink of cigarette smoke and marijuana. He also finds the landlord, a hard and suspicious man, counting rent money. Thinking Marlowe is a robber, he lets him have the run of the place. Marlowe pokes around in Orrin's old room and finds nothing. When he returns to the front room, he finds the landlord has been stabbed with an ice pick.
After this, things get complicated. Very complicated.
Many factors come into play. It seems Orrin had stumbled onto extortion photographs of a rising young Hollywood starlet having lunch with a known gangster who was up on murder charges. The pictures themselves are harmless, just a couple having lunch, but it's the company the starlet is keeping that could cause problems for her. Where did he get the pictures from? Did he stab the landlord, or was it someone else? Who exactly is involved in this conspiracy to extort this young starlet?
Of course, extortion pictures are a well-traveled plot line in hardboiled. In Chandler's own The Big Sleep, extortion pictures of the amorous exploits of a general's daughter and a lending library for pornographic pictures are the hinges of the plot. What makes this novel interesting isn't so much the plot as Chandler's telling of it; Marlowe's persistent, hunch and happenstance unraveling of the conspiracy, the peeling away of false exteriors to reveal an ever widening circle of human duplicity, lust and greed.
And along the way, we are treated to some find noir atmosphere and Chandler's often caustic and pungent observations of human nature as presented through Phillip Marlowe.
Some examples:
I left him to his thoughts, which were probably as small, ugly and frightened as the man himself.
I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and old like a living room that's been closed too long. But the colored lights fooled you. The lights were wonderful.
On the terrace of The Dancers, a few early birds were getting ready to drink their lunch.
It's specimens of acerbic writing like this that make Chandler worth reading, regardless of how convoluted or implausible some of his plots may be. The man had a real flair for the telling detail, the apt observation made with sharp, economical and witty language. If nothing else, Chandler should be turned to as a guide of how to knowingly and keenly describe your surroundings.
I highly recommend The Little Sister. If you've never read it, you should maybe read it before The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Yes, the plot does get complicated, but there are so many facets of brilliance in this novel that they more than overcome any frustration you may have in trying to figure out who is stabbing whom in the back and why.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Upcoming Reviews on Hard Boiled Reads II
Yesterday, I ordered a Black Lizard paperback edition of Dan J. Marlowe's Vengeance Man, as well as a Vintage Black Lizard paperback edition of Charles Willeford Burnt Orange Heresy from Abebooks.com. Hopefully, these books should reach me before the holidays and I will review them once I receive them. I'm curious about Vengeance Man, to see how it stacks up next to Strongarm and I've long been interested in the Willeford book, with its captivating title and its unusual plot about a murderous art collector.
I also visited a used book store yesterday and picked up two Ross MacDonald Lew Archer mysteries, The Doomsters and Marked for Death aka Ivory Grin.
Also on tap for future review will be Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister and Brian Gifford's experimental noir book, Port Tropique.
I'll also be posting more samples of my writing, so keep coming back. There will be lots to see here in the coming weeks.
I also visited a used book store yesterday and picked up two Ross MacDonald Lew Archer mysteries, The Doomsters and Marked for Death aka Ivory Grin.
Also on tap for future review will be Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister and Brian Gifford's experimental noir book, Port Tropique.
I'll also be posting more samples of my writing, so keep coming back. There will be lots to see here in the coming weeks.
Quarry's Ex by Max Allan Collins
First off, this Hard Case Crime title from legendary hard boiled scribe Collins, released in September, is a great book.
Next off, this is a great book.
Did I say this was a great book?
This is far and away the best book in Collin's Hard Case-exclusive series of thrillers about Quarry, the badass and wiseass contract killer. I admit that I haven't read Quarry in the Middle, in spite of its salacious and tantalizing retro-toned cover promising three-way, guy/girl/girl action, but I have read The First Quarry and The Last Quarry and Quarry's Ex is far more entertaining than either of them.
In a previous post where I reviewed Collins' re-build of the unfinished Mickey Spillane book The Comsummata, I mentioned that Collins had an annoying and distracting habit of throwing anachronisms into his books. In Quarry's Ex, that stylistic tic is thankfully absent and the book is all the better for it. The book is set in 1980, with a second chapter which contains a flashback extending from the mid-Sixties through the Seventies that tells you all Quarry is willing to say about his early history. All the period references are dead on and you get a good feeling for time and place in the novel.
And a hell of a fine novel it is. We learn how Quarry ended up in the nasty business of killing people for a living. He was a Vietnam vet who came home to find his wife Joni screwing another man. He kills the interloper, and because he was a vet of an unpopular war, the local DA's office looks the other way and decides not to bother with a trial, speculating that the other man died in an "accident."
Quarry goes into hiding in a crappy apartment somewhere in the bowels of LA, where he is found by The Broker, a contractor with heavy underworld connections who talks him into going into business with him for some "jobs".
Quarry ends up killing The Broker for "betraying" him. He doesn't explain why, in much the same way he doesn't give his or the Broker's real names - much like Dan J. Marlowe's Pete Karma in Strongarm who deals exclusively in pseudonyms. Quarry gets a list of all the people who work for The Broker and goes into business airing them out for a steep price, as a special fee for hire service for the people the Broker's killers have targeted.
At the start of the book, Quarry is in some miserable, sun baked hell hole of a Nevada casino town, keeping an eye on one of the Broker's paid killers, a loser named Jerry who is gathering surveillance information on Stockwell, a bottom drawer B-movie director whose checkered career is on the fadeout and who is shooting a cheap action movie just outside of town. Quarry figures out that Jerry is the passive half, the information gatherer and fact checker side of a two-member hit squad. Who is the active half, the killer who will put the all time fade out and final credits on Stockwell's life?
Quarry needs to find this out and fast. He meets up with Stockwell to offer his services and along the way learns that Stockwell is married to...Joni!
Lots of fun and plot complications ensue, involving Joni of course, and a mob-connected executive producer. There's also a malodorous climax at a movie set diner with more bathroom humor than can be found in all the other Hard Case books combined. All in all, a funny and fun read with lots of action, intrigue and some fine erotic writing involving the beautiful but treacherous Joni.
Check out Quarry's Ex. It's worth it.
Next off, this is a great book.
Did I say this was a great book?
This is far and away the best book in Collin's Hard Case-exclusive series of thrillers about Quarry, the badass and wiseass contract killer. I admit that I haven't read Quarry in the Middle, in spite of its salacious and tantalizing retro-toned cover promising three-way, guy/girl/girl action, but I have read The First Quarry and The Last Quarry and Quarry's Ex is far more entertaining than either of them.
In a previous post where I reviewed Collins' re-build of the unfinished Mickey Spillane book The Comsummata, I mentioned that Collins had an annoying and distracting habit of throwing anachronisms into his books. In Quarry's Ex, that stylistic tic is thankfully absent and the book is all the better for it. The book is set in 1980, with a second chapter which contains a flashback extending from the mid-Sixties through the Seventies that tells you all Quarry is willing to say about his early history. All the period references are dead on and you get a good feeling for time and place in the novel.
And a hell of a fine novel it is. We learn how Quarry ended up in the nasty business of killing people for a living. He was a Vietnam vet who came home to find his wife Joni screwing another man. He kills the interloper, and because he was a vet of an unpopular war, the local DA's office looks the other way and decides not to bother with a trial, speculating that the other man died in an "accident."
Quarry goes into hiding in a crappy apartment somewhere in the bowels of LA, where he is found by The Broker, a contractor with heavy underworld connections who talks him into going into business with him for some "jobs".
Quarry ends up killing The Broker for "betraying" him. He doesn't explain why, in much the same way he doesn't give his or the Broker's real names - much like Dan J. Marlowe's Pete Karma in Strongarm who deals exclusively in pseudonyms. Quarry gets a list of all the people who work for The Broker and goes into business airing them out for a steep price, as a special fee for hire service for the people the Broker's killers have targeted.
At the start of the book, Quarry is in some miserable, sun baked hell hole of a Nevada casino town, keeping an eye on one of the Broker's paid killers, a loser named Jerry who is gathering surveillance information on Stockwell, a bottom drawer B-movie director whose checkered career is on the fadeout and who is shooting a cheap action movie just outside of town. Quarry figures out that Jerry is the passive half, the information gatherer and fact checker side of a two-member hit squad. Who is the active half, the killer who will put the all time fade out and final credits on Stockwell's life?
Quarry needs to find this out and fast. He meets up with Stockwell to offer his services and along the way learns that Stockwell is married to...Joni!
Lots of fun and plot complications ensue, involving Joni of course, and a mob-connected executive producer. There's also a malodorous climax at a movie set diner with more bathroom humor than can be found in all the other Hard Case books combined. All in all, a funny and fun read with lots of action, intrigue and some fine erotic writing involving the beautiful but treacherous Joni.
Check out Quarry's Ex. It's worth it.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Dan J. Marlowe: Strongarm
Dan. J Marlowe was a prolific author of hardboiled and noir fiction throughout the late 1950s until the 1970s. Like Raymond Chandler, he got into the writing game relatively late in life, publishing his first novel at age 45. He wrote tough, hard prose and packed a lot of intense action into his relatively brief novels.
His most famous novels were Strongarm, Vengeance Man and The Name of the Game is Death, all paperback originals written for Fawcett's Gold Medal series in the early Sixties.
I recently read Marlowe's 1963 novel Strongarm in a Black Lizard paperback edition from 1988 and it's pretty powerful stuff. It's also densely packed stuff, a novel about ready to explode with its multiple plot twists and frenetic energy. Yet the book is compelling reading and entertaining, even though in the end all the plot tangles sort themselves out in a denouement just a little too pat for my taste.
Strongarm is the tale of Pete Karma, which isn't really the protagonist's name. This narrator, in a prodigious showcase of unreliability, uses two pseudonyms that are known to the reader and many more that aren't revealed and never does give out his "real name" - a storytelling conceit from Marlowe that sounds great in theory but in reality only adds an extra layer of complexity to an already dangerously overloaded fuse box of a book.
Karma is a hard man, already bitter from harsh war service in Korea and even more bitter from being double crossed by a sleazebag lawyer working for Steve Risko, a heavy weight political fixer and all time classic SOB who hijacked a state politics machine once ran by Karma's father. Risko, through the scuzzy lawyer, sees that Karma takes a fall for a murder he didn't commit.
Karma is thrown into prison, and with the aid of some fellow inmates involved with the syndicate that he meets while inside, breaks out.
He goes into hiding and takes a job as a bartender at a Mob-operated night club in Detroit. Here, he works under the name Pete Karma and falls in lust with the beautiful and curvaceous Lynn, a hostess at the club.
At the outset of the book, Karma finds out that one of Risko's men will be passing through town with a big stash of money and he decides to take some payback for the trouble Risko has caused him. He drives out on the turnpike, tailing the car driven by the money courier. Suddenly, the car collides with another car that has gone out of control. A fiery crash ensues, yet Karma is able to extricate a briefcase from the wreckage, albeit with a severed arm handcuffed to it - a brilliantly macabre touch that at least puts the opening of the novel well into the disturbing gray zone territory only mapped by that most hardboiled of the hardboiled writers: Jim Thompson.
Unfortunately for Karma, there were witnesses to the crash and when a fuzzy yet all too easily identifiable picture of him turns up in the papers, he has to take the briefcase full of money and run. Lynn, who only knows the tiniest fragment of Karma's complicated history, insists on joining him. In a strange and redundant plot twist, Karma is also later joined by Gussie, Lynn's cousin. But in the strangest and most redundant of all plot twists in this novel of filigreed and serpentine convolutions and involutions, Karma learns the briefcase also contains oilskin envelopes containing "plans" for some kind of atomic device. It turns out the briefcase wasn't from Risko's man at all, but was from the car that had gone out of control and collided with him. The car had been driven by a Soviet agent who had been on a run delivering the money and plans to his fellow travelers.
I've tried to lay out the plot in a straight line, as the opening chapters unfold in a series of flashbacks that bit by bit reveal the past of this mystery man who will only call himself Pete Karma. These early chapters, especially the ones dealing with the car crash, Karma's retrieving of the brief case crammed with money and atomic secrets and his disposal of the severed arm - one of the many strong arms alluded to in the book's title - are brilliant and contain many passages of great hardboiled writing. But then, the book goes off the rails when the Cold War plot is ramped up - a completely needless distraction when Marlowe's thirst for revenge against Risko would have been enough to carry a whole series of novels, never mind just one. I also found Karma's relationship with Lynn tedious and I'm never entirely sure why cousin Gussie had to be involved at all.
Yet, as I said, there are brilliant passages of writing here all the same and more than enough action scenes and convincing hardboiled dialogue to make Strongarm a powerful novel and well worth reading if you are a student of hardboiled crime fiction. I'm curious about Marlowe's other books and hope that some day I'll be able to track a few of them down.
His most famous novels were Strongarm, Vengeance Man and The Name of the Game is Death, all paperback originals written for Fawcett's Gold Medal series in the early Sixties.
I recently read Marlowe's 1963 novel Strongarm in a Black Lizard paperback edition from 1988 and it's pretty powerful stuff. It's also densely packed stuff, a novel about ready to explode with its multiple plot twists and frenetic energy. Yet the book is compelling reading and entertaining, even though in the end all the plot tangles sort themselves out in a denouement just a little too pat for my taste.
Strongarm is the tale of Pete Karma, which isn't really the protagonist's name. This narrator, in a prodigious showcase of unreliability, uses two pseudonyms that are known to the reader and many more that aren't revealed and never does give out his "real name" - a storytelling conceit from Marlowe that sounds great in theory but in reality only adds an extra layer of complexity to an already dangerously overloaded fuse box of a book.
Karma is a hard man, already bitter from harsh war service in Korea and even more bitter from being double crossed by a sleazebag lawyer working for Steve Risko, a heavy weight political fixer and all time classic SOB who hijacked a state politics machine once ran by Karma's father. Risko, through the scuzzy lawyer, sees that Karma takes a fall for a murder he didn't commit.
Karma is thrown into prison, and with the aid of some fellow inmates involved with the syndicate that he meets while inside, breaks out.
He goes into hiding and takes a job as a bartender at a Mob-operated night club in Detroit. Here, he works under the name Pete Karma and falls in lust with the beautiful and curvaceous Lynn, a hostess at the club.
At the outset of the book, Karma finds out that one of Risko's men will be passing through town with a big stash of money and he decides to take some payback for the trouble Risko has caused him. He drives out on the turnpike, tailing the car driven by the money courier. Suddenly, the car collides with another car that has gone out of control. A fiery crash ensues, yet Karma is able to extricate a briefcase from the wreckage, albeit with a severed arm handcuffed to it - a brilliantly macabre touch that at least puts the opening of the novel well into the disturbing gray zone territory only mapped by that most hardboiled of the hardboiled writers: Jim Thompson.
Unfortunately for Karma, there were witnesses to the crash and when a fuzzy yet all too easily identifiable picture of him turns up in the papers, he has to take the briefcase full of money and run. Lynn, who only knows the tiniest fragment of Karma's complicated history, insists on joining him. In a strange and redundant plot twist, Karma is also later joined by Gussie, Lynn's cousin. But in the strangest and most redundant of all plot twists in this novel of filigreed and serpentine convolutions and involutions, Karma learns the briefcase also contains oilskin envelopes containing "plans" for some kind of atomic device. It turns out the briefcase wasn't from Risko's man at all, but was from the car that had gone out of control and collided with him. The car had been driven by a Soviet agent who had been on a run delivering the money and plans to his fellow travelers.
I've tried to lay out the plot in a straight line, as the opening chapters unfold in a series of flashbacks that bit by bit reveal the past of this mystery man who will only call himself Pete Karma. These early chapters, especially the ones dealing with the car crash, Karma's retrieving of the brief case crammed with money and atomic secrets and his disposal of the severed arm - one of the many strong arms alluded to in the book's title - are brilliant and contain many passages of great hardboiled writing. But then, the book goes off the rails when the Cold War plot is ramped up - a completely needless distraction when Marlowe's thirst for revenge against Risko would have been enough to carry a whole series of novels, never mind just one. I also found Karma's relationship with Lynn tedious and I'm never entirely sure why cousin Gussie had to be involved at all.
Yet, as I said, there are brilliant passages of writing here all the same and more than enough action scenes and convincing hardboiled dialogue to make Strongarm a powerful novel and well worth reading if you are a student of hardboiled crime fiction. I'm curious about Marlowe's other books and hope that some day I'll be able to track a few of them down.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Raymond Chandler: The Simple Art of Murder and Pickup on Noon Street
Raymond Chandler's 1944 essay, The Simple Art of Murder is pretty much the only statement of the credo of hardoiled, noir fiction. The only other one that comes to mind is perhaps George Orwell's Raffles and Miss Blandish, but that was written as a condemnation of hard boiled story telling which Orwell loathed for what he considered to be its trivialization of violence.
Chandler doesn't have much use for violence as fantasy either. In the essay, he vents his spleen at the cozily genteel and thoroughly unreal world conjured up in the early detective yarns of Agatha Christie, A.A. Milne. and even Arthur Conan Doyle - he is especially harsh on Doyle saying that many of his plots were rendered pointless by their errors in logic, or scientific or legal fact. He only lets Doyle off by saying that he at least was an originator of the genre and had to find his way around and couldn't always be successful.
Chandler is frustrated and disgusted by fake mystery tales in which murder was committed to provide a corpse for the detective to find and the murder itself was achieved, not with plausible weapons, but with such clever plot contrivances as "hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish."
Chandler praises Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon for bringing realism to mystery fiction and for writing about people with "a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there." He then writes memorably and eloquently of the true role of the mystery writer, "The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities...It is not a fragrant world, but it is the world you live in."
Chandler certainly lived by this credo and this was amply demonstrated in one of his most effective works of fiction, "Pickup On Noon Street." Frankly, I've always found Chandler to be an acquired taste. Although I enjoyed The Long Goodbye, his classic novel starring his famous private eye creation Philip Marlowe, I've always been baffled by the appeal of Chandler's best known Marlowe tale, "The Big Sleep" with its almost incoherent multiple plots and numerous red herrings.
This is certainly not the case with Pickup on Noon Street, a novella Chandler wrote for the pulp detective magazines of the 1930s. The limited word count he would have been allowed as well as the story requirements of the various magazine editors he would have been dealing with forced Chandler to rein in his weakness for rambling and concentrate on telling a tightly constructed tale. Yet this is no piece of mechanical hack work but a carefully contrived tale of extortion, murder and corruption that takes place in an all too believable America of mean streets, fist fights and people who see no problem in settling quarrels with a gun.
Pete Anglich is a small time private eye, a seedy man who lives in cheap motels, sleeping most of his days away in a drunken stupor. At the outset of the story, he is approached in his motel room by a man who tries to hit him up for some money. Anglich shoots and kills him. Afterward, he pays a bribe to the motel's front desk clerk to keep him quiet, saying, "I'm a man who likes to pay my way."
The sordidness continues as Anglich walks down Noon Street and picks up for a young woman standing on the sidewalk a package that has been tossed out on to the road for her from a passing car. It turns out the package is extortion money being paid out from a Hollywood actor eager to keep a lid on some not so publicity-friendly goings on (Remember, this was before the present era of Charlie Sheen and Paris Hilton!). Anglich quite literally gets caught like a deer in the headlights as the police pounce on him, thinking he is the extortionist:
He stiffened, whirled and the light caught him between the eyes. It came from the dark window across the street, a blinding white shaft that impaled him against the billboard.
His face leered into it, his eyes blinked. He didn't move any more.
The story is filled with brilliantly described sequences such as this which put you right into the scene and that even after almost eighty years, still ring horrifically true.
If you would like a small slice of Chandler's writing that gives you a good taste of his outlook, and his style, but without the complex plot excesses of some of his novels, Pickup on Noon Street is a good story to try out.
Chandler doesn't have much use for violence as fantasy either. In the essay, he vents his spleen at the cozily genteel and thoroughly unreal world conjured up in the early detective yarns of Agatha Christie, A.A. Milne. and even Arthur Conan Doyle - he is especially harsh on Doyle saying that many of his plots were rendered pointless by their errors in logic, or scientific or legal fact. He only lets Doyle off by saying that he at least was an originator of the genre and had to find his way around and couldn't always be successful.
Chandler is frustrated and disgusted by fake mystery tales in which murder was committed to provide a corpse for the detective to find and the murder itself was achieved, not with plausible weapons, but with such clever plot contrivances as "hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish."
Chandler praises Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon for bringing realism to mystery fiction and for writing about people with "a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there." He then writes memorably and eloquently of the true role of the mystery writer, "The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities...It is not a fragrant world, but it is the world you live in."
Chandler certainly lived by this credo and this was amply demonstrated in one of his most effective works of fiction, "Pickup On Noon Street." Frankly, I've always found Chandler to be an acquired taste. Although I enjoyed The Long Goodbye, his classic novel starring his famous private eye creation Philip Marlowe, I've always been baffled by the appeal of Chandler's best known Marlowe tale, "The Big Sleep" with its almost incoherent multiple plots and numerous red herrings.
This is certainly not the case with Pickup on Noon Street, a novella Chandler wrote for the pulp detective magazines of the 1930s. The limited word count he would have been allowed as well as the story requirements of the various magazine editors he would have been dealing with forced Chandler to rein in his weakness for rambling and concentrate on telling a tightly constructed tale. Yet this is no piece of mechanical hack work but a carefully contrived tale of extortion, murder and corruption that takes place in an all too believable America of mean streets, fist fights and people who see no problem in settling quarrels with a gun.
Pete Anglich is a small time private eye, a seedy man who lives in cheap motels, sleeping most of his days away in a drunken stupor. At the outset of the story, he is approached in his motel room by a man who tries to hit him up for some money. Anglich shoots and kills him. Afterward, he pays a bribe to the motel's front desk clerk to keep him quiet, saying, "I'm a man who likes to pay my way."
The sordidness continues as Anglich walks down Noon Street and picks up for a young woman standing on the sidewalk a package that has been tossed out on to the road for her from a passing car. It turns out the package is extortion money being paid out from a Hollywood actor eager to keep a lid on some not so publicity-friendly goings on (Remember, this was before the present era of Charlie Sheen and Paris Hilton!). Anglich quite literally gets caught like a deer in the headlights as the police pounce on him, thinking he is the extortionist:
He stiffened, whirled and the light caught him between the eyes. It came from the dark window across the street, a blinding white shaft that impaled him against the billboard.
His face leered into it, his eyes blinked. He didn't move any more.
The story is filled with brilliantly described sequences such as this which put you right into the scene and that even after almost eighty years, still ring horrifically true.
If you would like a small slice of Chandler's writing that gives you a good taste of his outlook, and his style, but without the complex plot excesses of some of his novels, Pickup on Noon Street is a good story to try out.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Mickey Spillane's The Consummata as Completed by Max Allan Collins
One of the first releases from the newly revived Hard Case Crime series was The Consummata, a novel first started by hard boiled originator Mickey Spillane in the Sixties and finished in the twenty-first century by fellow noir scribe and close friend Max Allan Collins.
Spillane was the legendary author of numerous best selling hard boiled detective and action novels from the 1940s through to the 1970s. His most infamous creation was the tough talking, pistol packing and pugilistic private eye, Mike Hammer, immortalized in the classic 1947 novel, I, The Jury, memorable for its brilliant finale with its unforgettable blending of Eros and Thanatos:
Her thumbs hooked the fragile silk of the panties and pulled them down. She stepped out of them as delicately as one coming from a bathtub. She was completely naked now. A suntanned goddess giving herself to her lover. With arms outstretched, she walked toward me...She leaned forward to kiss me, her arms going out to encircle my neck...
The roar of the .45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step...
"How c-could you?" she gasped.
I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in.
"It was easy," I said.
Spillane was both admired and reviled for his tough, unflinching prose, his tight plotting and the graphic sex and violence of his novels. Film director Stanley Kubrick, whose movie classic The Killing, adapted from the novel Clean Break by noted hardboiled scribe Lionel White and co-scripted by Kubrick and Jim Thompson of The Killer Inside Me infamy, is a masterpiece of noir in itself, once said, "Spillane knows all there is to know about reaching audiences."
There is no doubt that vintage Spillane novels, whatever their faults, are classic page turners that grip your attention.
The Comsummata, however, is an awkward final contribution to the Spillane canon. It is the unfinished and thus previously unpublished sequel to the 1967 Spillane offering, The Delta Factor, which was to kick off a series featuring a new Spillane hero, Morgan the Raider. The series fizzled out, however, after a botched attempt to turn The Delta Factor into a movie embittered Spillane. In frustration, he gave the unfinished novel to Collins, telling him that some day they would finish it. Collins eventually finished the novel and the end result is in stores now.
Ostensibly, the novel is set in 1967 Miami, where Morgan is being pursued by the Feds. He is the lead suspect in a $40 million armored car heist and very much a wanted man. He is given refuge by a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and they offer him the job of finding seventy-five thousand dollars that has been stolen from their war chest. Grateful to his hosts and moved by their sincerity and sympathetic to their cause, Morgan takes the job.
He soon learns the man most likely responsible for the theft is Halaquez, a member of the group since exposed as a double dealer who collaborated with Castro. He was a regular customer at the Mandor Club, an extremely secret brothel for politicians, businessmen and other notable VIPs - a regular, but extremely unwelcome customer, due to his rarefied tastes in sadomasochism. Morgan is granted entree to the club and meets Gaita, a courtesan of the establishment who gives him some leads on Halaquez.
Morgan learns that Halaquez stole the seventy-five thousand to fund a crackpot scheme by a fellow Mandor Club customer, an inventor developing a device for detecting atomic weaponry. The dots soon connect and an elaborate tower of cards collapses all around Morgan, leaving behind a tattered network of duplicity implicating just about all of the novel's characters, a pile of corpses worthy of an Elizabethan revenge tragedy, and the surprise - or maybe not so surprising for more astute readers - identity of The Consummata, a half legendary dominatrix whose mysterious presence hangs tantalizingly over the novel and lends the story its name.
I said earlier that the novel was ostensibly set in 1967 Miami. What I mean is that the novel never really feels like anything from the 1960s. "Chippy" a long and deservedly lost slang word for prostitute is uttered by the characters at one point and just a few paragraphs later, those same characters use the present-day euphemism, "sex worker." Early in the novel, Morgan describes the armored car heist he was involved in as a "template" for such robberies - a term that would never have been used in the 1960s. Yet, at around the same point, Morgan talks about "the threads" worn by the federal agents pursuing him, very much a specimen of 1960s slang. Yet there are no references to movies or music from the time, nothing that really places the story in 1967. Even with its creaky Cold War-era nuclear conspiracy plot, the novel seems to exist in its own time continuum, in its own space of meta-narrative.
This seems to be a strange quirk of Collins, whose The First Quarry, a novel featuring the first adventure of the contract killer Quarry - Collins's version of Morgan the Raider - was supposedly set in 1970, yet featured such bizarre anachronisms as karaoke bars. The untimely intrusions into an otherwise naturalistic story are never explained and in the end, they bothered me and turned me off the novel. This is definitely a distracting aesthetic conceit that he should have left out of Spillane's The Comsummata. Collins did a much better job with Dead Street, the final Mickey Spillane novel published by Hard Case Crime in 2008, for which he wrote the concluding chapters. Collins' contributions fit seamlessly into the novel, his vocabulary and style totally blended with Spillane's and resulted in a very strong and entertaining book.
Now, I'm not saying The Consummata is a total write off, pardon the pun. There are some skillfully described action sequences and some beautiful erotic writing involving Gaita that are highly entertaining. If you are a fan of either Spillane or Collins, the book is a must-read.
It's just too bad that the book leaves you with a strong feeling of reverse deja vu, a feeling of loss at what might have been made at one time out of a brilliant idea for a great story.
Spillane was the legendary author of numerous best selling hard boiled detective and action novels from the 1940s through to the 1970s. His most infamous creation was the tough talking, pistol packing and pugilistic private eye, Mike Hammer, immortalized in the classic 1947 novel, I, The Jury, memorable for its brilliant finale with its unforgettable blending of Eros and Thanatos:
Her thumbs hooked the fragile silk of the panties and pulled them down. She stepped out of them as delicately as one coming from a bathtub. She was completely naked now. A suntanned goddess giving herself to her lover. With arms outstretched, she walked toward me...She leaned forward to kiss me, her arms going out to encircle my neck...
The roar of the .45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step...
"How c-could you?" she gasped.
I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in.
"It was easy," I said.
Spillane was both admired and reviled for his tough, unflinching prose, his tight plotting and the graphic sex and violence of his novels. Film director Stanley Kubrick, whose movie classic The Killing, adapted from the novel Clean Break by noted hardboiled scribe Lionel White and co-scripted by Kubrick and Jim Thompson of The Killer Inside Me infamy, is a masterpiece of noir in itself, once said, "Spillane knows all there is to know about reaching audiences."
There is no doubt that vintage Spillane novels, whatever their faults, are classic page turners that grip your attention.
The Comsummata, however, is an awkward final contribution to the Spillane canon. It is the unfinished and thus previously unpublished sequel to the 1967 Spillane offering, The Delta Factor, which was to kick off a series featuring a new Spillane hero, Morgan the Raider. The series fizzled out, however, after a botched attempt to turn The Delta Factor into a movie embittered Spillane. In frustration, he gave the unfinished novel to Collins, telling him that some day they would finish it. Collins eventually finished the novel and the end result is in stores now.
Ostensibly, the novel is set in 1967 Miami, where Morgan is being pursued by the Feds. He is the lead suspect in a $40 million armored car heist and very much a wanted man. He is given refuge by a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and they offer him the job of finding seventy-five thousand dollars that has been stolen from their war chest. Grateful to his hosts and moved by their sincerity and sympathetic to their cause, Morgan takes the job.
He soon learns the man most likely responsible for the theft is Halaquez, a member of the group since exposed as a double dealer who collaborated with Castro. He was a regular customer at the Mandor Club, an extremely secret brothel for politicians, businessmen and other notable VIPs - a regular, but extremely unwelcome customer, due to his rarefied tastes in sadomasochism. Morgan is granted entree to the club and meets Gaita, a courtesan of the establishment who gives him some leads on Halaquez.
Morgan learns that Halaquez stole the seventy-five thousand to fund a crackpot scheme by a fellow Mandor Club customer, an inventor developing a device for detecting atomic weaponry. The dots soon connect and an elaborate tower of cards collapses all around Morgan, leaving behind a tattered network of duplicity implicating just about all of the novel's characters, a pile of corpses worthy of an Elizabethan revenge tragedy, and the surprise - or maybe not so surprising for more astute readers - identity of The Consummata, a half legendary dominatrix whose mysterious presence hangs tantalizingly over the novel and lends the story its name.
I said earlier that the novel was ostensibly set in 1967 Miami. What I mean is that the novel never really feels like anything from the 1960s. "Chippy" a long and deservedly lost slang word for prostitute is uttered by the characters at one point and just a few paragraphs later, those same characters use the present-day euphemism, "sex worker." Early in the novel, Morgan describes the armored car heist he was involved in as a "template" for such robberies - a term that would never have been used in the 1960s. Yet, at around the same point, Morgan talks about "the threads" worn by the federal agents pursuing him, very much a specimen of 1960s slang. Yet there are no references to movies or music from the time, nothing that really places the story in 1967. Even with its creaky Cold War-era nuclear conspiracy plot, the novel seems to exist in its own time continuum, in its own space of meta-narrative.
This seems to be a strange quirk of Collins, whose The First Quarry, a novel featuring the first adventure of the contract killer Quarry - Collins's version of Morgan the Raider - was supposedly set in 1970, yet featured such bizarre anachronisms as karaoke bars. The untimely intrusions into an otherwise naturalistic story are never explained and in the end, they bothered me and turned me off the novel. This is definitely a distracting aesthetic conceit that he should have left out of Spillane's The Comsummata. Collins did a much better job with Dead Street, the final Mickey Spillane novel published by Hard Case Crime in 2008, for which he wrote the concluding chapters. Collins' contributions fit seamlessly into the novel, his vocabulary and style totally blended with Spillane's and resulted in a very strong and entertaining book.
Now, I'm not saying The Consummata is a total write off, pardon the pun. There are some skillfully described action sequences and some beautiful erotic writing involving Gaita that are highly entertaining. If you are a fan of either Spillane or Collins, the book is a must-read.
It's just too bad that the book leaves you with a strong feeling of reverse deja vu, a feeling of loss at what might have been made at one time out of a brilliant idea for a great story.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Georges Simenon's Madman of Bergerac
Recently I finished The Madman of Bergerac, an Inspector Maigret murder mystery novel by the legendary Georges Simenon.
A few posts back, I praised the Maigret novels on the basis of two that I had read: Maigret at the Coroner's (which I have reviewed) and Maigret and the Loner (which I haven't.) Both of these books date from later in Simenon's career, the former from 1952 and the latter from 1972. Both are highly realistic in their details about police work and investigative techniques and yet at the same time, are impressive in their social and psychological observation.
However, this cannot be said of the Madman of Bergerac, a much earlier Maigret mystery dating from 1933. Presumably in his later years, Simenon was likely influenced by the murder mysteries of Raymond Chandler and the police procedurals of Hilary Waugh and Ed McBain, which are meticulously accurate and authentic. Also, between 1945 and 1955, Simenon lived in the US and Canada and would presumably have come into contact with noir pulp novels and stories and would have learned something of hardboiled suspense writing which would have informed his later work.
None of that is evident in the Madman of Bergerac. The novel begins with Maigret taking a train trip to the provincial town of Bergerac to visit an old friend from the Paris police department and to do a little salmon fishing. He shares his train compartment with an eccentric man who lies in the upper bunk. He mutters to himself and fidgets and seems to be upset about something. Abruptly, as the train slows in its approach to the Bergerac station, the man leaps from the bunk and flees the compartment. Alarmed by the man's odd behavior, Maigret gives chase. The man jumps from the train and Maigret impulsively jumps with him. The man sees Maigret pursuing him and he shoots Maigret in the shoulder.
Maigret later regains consciousness in the hospital. Leduc, his old friend from the Paris police, is called to the hospital to confirm Maigret's identity. Leduc explains to Maigret that the hospital authorities are suspicious of Maigret because of his jump from the train. They think that he is the Madman of Bergerac, a sociopath who has so far killed two local women by stabbing them through the heart with a needle. The townspeople are in a panic and wary of any strangers in their midst.
In spite of his injuries, and in spite of being completely outside of his Paris police jurisdiction, Maigret starts an investigation of the case first from his hospital bed and then later from a room in a local hotel where he has himself billeted once his condition improves. He is aided and abetted by Madame Maigret, who comes from Paris to join him. Much to his wife's dismay, Maigret makes a nuisance of himself with his constant invasive questioning of everyone around him from his doctor to hotel staff to the local prosecutor and police chief. He even puts up a reward to call in people to speak with him at the hotel about any information they have about the killings.
He learns that the man who jumped from the train was a human smuggler who supplied local brothels with women. He is a suspect until his dead body is found by police near the train tracks and soon after, a woman reports being accosted by a man who tried to strangle her. Obviously, the Madman of Bergerac is still on the loose.
He then looks into the history of a local man of business with a fondness for pornographic art books - "books for conoissieurs" who may also be a suspect.
Of course, Maigret ultimately cracks the case and along the way unravels a tangle of small town bourgeois intrigue and duplicity. I suppose the book is entertaining in its way, but the implausibility of its story - Maigret jumping from the train with the man when he could've flashed his police badge at the train operators and had them stop the train so he could go look for the man; an out of town and out of jurisdiction police detective running an investigation from a hospital room and then a hotel - really put me off.
I doubt that I will read another early (1930s) Maigret novel. However, I am still curious about the later novels from the 1950s on. These seem to be better constructed, more plausible and ultimately, more entertaining.
A few posts back, I praised the Maigret novels on the basis of two that I had read: Maigret at the Coroner's (which I have reviewed) and Maigret and the Loner (which I haven't.) Both of these books date from later in Simenon's career, the former from 1952 and the latter from 1972. Both are highly realistic in their details about police work and investigative techniques and yet at the same time, are impressive in their social and psychological observation.
However, this cannot be said of the Madman of Bergerac, a much earlier Maigret mystery dating from 1933. Presumably in his later years, Simenon was likely influenced by the murder mysteries of Raymond Chandler and the police procedurals of Hilary Waugh and Ed McBain, which are meticulously accurate and authentic. Also, between 1945 and 1955, Simenon lived in the US and Canada and would presumably have come into contact with noir pulp novels and stories and would have learned something of hardboiled suspense writing which would have informed his later work.
None of that is evident in the Madman of Bergerac. The novel begins with Maigret taking a train trip to the provincial town of Bergerac to visit an old friend from the Paris police department and to do a little salmon fishing. He shares his train compartment with an eccentric man who lies in the upper bunk. He mutters to himself and fidgets and seems to be upset about something. Abruptly, as the train slows in its approach to the Bergerac station, the man leaps from the bunk and flees the compartment. Alarmed by the man's odd behavior, Maigret gives chase. The man jumps from the train and Maigret impulsively jumps with him. The man sees Maigret pursuing him and he shoots Maigret in the shoulder.
Maigret later regains consciousness in the hospital. Leduc, his old friend from the Paris police, is called to the hospital to confirm Maigret's identity. Leduc explains to Maigret that the hospital authorities are suspicious of Maigret because of his jump from the train. They think that he is the Madman of Bergerac, a sociopath who has so far killed two local women by stabbing them through the heart with a needle. The townspeople are in a panic and wary of any strangers in their midst.
In spite of his injuries, and in spite of being completely outside of his Paris police jurisdiction, Maigret starts an investigation of the case first from his hospital bed and then later from a room in a local hotel where he has himself billeted once his condition improves. He is aided and abetted by Madame Maigret, who comes from Paris to join him. Much to his wife's dismay, Maigret makes a nuisance of himself with his constant invasive questioning of everyone around him from his doctor to hotel staff to the local prosecutor and police chief. He even puts up a reward to call in people to speak with him at the hotel about any information they have about the killings.
He learns that the man who jumped from the train was a human smuggler who supplied local brothels with women. He is a suspect until his dead body is found by police near the train tracks and soon after, a woman reports being accosted by a man who tried to strangle her. Obviously, the Madman of Bergerac is still on the loose.
He then looks into the history of a local man of business with a fondness for pornographic art books - "books for conoissieurs" who may also be a suspect.
Of course, Maigret ultimately cracks the case and along the way unravels a tangle of small town bourgeois intrigue and duplicity. I suppose the book is entertaining in its way, but the implausibility of its story - Maigret jumping from the train with the man when he could've flashed his police badge at the train operators and had them stop the train so he could go look for the man; an out of town and out of jurisdiction police detective running an investigation from a hospital room and then a hotel - really put me off.
I doubt that I will read another early (1930s) Maigret novel. However, I am still curious about the later novels from the 1950s on. These seem to be better constructed, more plausible and ultimately, more entertaining.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Henning Mankell's The Fifth Woman
Recently, I finished The Fifth Woman, a Kurt Wallander thriller by Swedish mystery writer Henning Mankell.
I have the book in its mass market paperback edition, which was just released this past summer. Even in this portable format, it still runs to 654 pages - about twice the length of the other Wallander books I've read. It's far and away the longest - and the most ambitious - of the Wallander books I've read so far.
In the book, Wallander must investigate the mysterious and grotesquely violent deaths of some men in the environs of Ystad, his home town. A retired car dealer with a fondness for writing poems about birds is found impaled on wooden stakes in a pit that he has fallen into. Another man who runs a flower shop is found strangled in a forest.
Wallander and his team of investigators are baffled and horrified by the crimes. As the story twists and turns, it becomes evident to them that the killer may be a woman bent on revenge for violence she has suffered at the hands of men. The men who were killed - in spite of the placid appearance they presented to the world - all had a history of violent relationships with women.
The story is a bleak one, with grim depictions of the grisly crimes. Wallander must also confront the more troubling aspects of his own past relationship with Mona, his ex-wife.
In style, the novel departs from previous Wallander tales in that the story isn't entirely seen from Wallander's viewpoint. Chapters with Wallander are intercut with chapters seen from the woman murderer's viewpoint, so we sometimes find out things that Wallander hasn't yet learned. In these chapters, we learn that the killer's mother was murdered on a trip to Africa while staying with a group of four nuns. She was the unidentified fifth woman of the group.
The killer learns of her mother's death from a remorseful woman police investigator in the African country who had sent her a letter explaining that her death had been covered up by local authorities. Knowledge of her mother's death breaks the woman and she embarks on her murders, methodically killing one by one local men she knows to have had been in brutally violent relationships with women.
The novel is complex and harrowing. My only real objection to it is that perhaps Mankell lays on the adversity a bit too heavily. Wallander's father dies during the novel, adding a somber note to an already serious theme. There is also a pointless subplot about a vigilante militia being formed in Ystad to fight back against the murders that could just as easily have been left out. In spite of that, the novel is still effective, chilling and provocative. Well worth a read.
I have the book in its mass market paperback edition, which was just released this past summer. Even in this portable format, it still runs to 654 pages - about twice the length of the other Wallander books I've read. It's far and away the longest - and the most ambitious - of the Wallander books I've read so far.
In the book, Wallander must investigate the mysterious and grotesquely violent deaths of some men in the environs of Ystad, his home town. A retired car dealer with a fondness for writing poems about birds is found impaled on wooden stakes in a pit that he has fallen into. Another man who runs a flower shop is found strangled in a forest.
Wallander and his team of investigators are baffled and horrified by the crimes. As the story twists and turns, it becomes evident to them that the killer may be a woman bent on revenge for violence she has suffered at the hands of men. The men who were killed - in spite of the placid appearance they presented to the world - all had a history of violent relationships with women.
The story is a bleak one, with grim depictions of the grisly crimes. Wallander must also confront the more troubling aspects of his own past relationship with Mona, his ex-wife.
In style, the novel departs from previous Wallander tales in that the story isn't entirely seen from Wallander's viewpoint. Chapters with Wallander are intercut with chapters seen from the woman murderer's viewpoint, so we sometimes find out things that Wallander hasn't yet learned. In these chapters, we learn that the killer's mother was murdered on a trip to Africa while staying with a group of four nuns. She was the unidentified fifth woman of the group.
The killer learns of her mother's death from a remorseful woman police investigator in the African country who had sent her a letter explaining that her death had been covered up by local authorities. Knowledge of her mother's death breaks the woman and she embarks on her murders, methodically killing one by one local men she knows to have had been in brutally violent relationships with women.
The novel is complex and harrowing. My only real objection to it is that perhaps Mankell lays on the adversity a bit too heavily. Wallander's father dies during the novel, adding a somber note to an already serious theme. There is also a pointless subplot about a vigilante militia being formed in Ystad to fight back against the murders that could just as easily have been left out. In spite of that, the novel is still effective, chilling and provocative. Well worth a read.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Excerpt From Watching and Listening
Here is a selection from Watching and Listening, a noir short story I recently completed about a lonely, socially awkward man who becomes obsessed with a coffee shop waitress.
WATCHING AND LISTENING
The night embraced Johnny, gathering him into its unseen arms, not letting him go.
He was a willing captive. He wanted to lose himself in the night and never return to his lonely house that stood by itself at the end of the street, right at the edge of the woods and not far from the ravine, its nearest neighbor many blocks away.
The night entranced him, comforted him. In the night, his solitude melted into the anonymous glow of street lights, into the vacant gloom of shadowy laneways and back alleys.
He slowed in his flight, drawing to a halt beside a utility pole. He flattened his palm against it, catching his breath, regaining his balance. That wine he had bought for tonight, which was to be the night of nights but which had been an empty disappointment – what else could it have been, really? - had unbalanced him. His mind reeled with images and ideas that surged through him like electricity.
He looked about the deserted street. He was only a few blocks from that yawning pit of loneliness that was his house, lonely and desolate at the best of times – he had known no other home; he had inherited it from Mother when she had passed away four years ago – but even more so now thanks to Mina’s absence. He had wanted to invite her over to visit him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it somehow. He was so shy with her, so shy with women, all he could ever do was watch her and watch them. He could never get more personal with them than a passing glance on the street or from across a coffee shop.
So, tonight, he’d pretended that he had had the guts to ask Mina to come over, had decided to throw a little party for himself with Mina as the imaginary guest of honor. He had sat at the dining room table that had been laid with Mother’s best china and cutlery, methodically drinking one glass after another of the expensive wine he had bought at the liquor store just for this wonderful occasion.
His throat tightened and he blinked to hold the tears back. He was turning thirty next week, far too old to be choked up like this.
He hadn’t even wept like this when Mother died.
At the end of the street stood a set of traffic lights; Smile’s coffee shop was right there. A sprint of a minute or two and he would be walking in the door. There was hope; she might still be there. He checked his watch. It was only ten-thirty. Her shift didn’t end for another hour at least. He would go there and see her and talk to her, convince her that she should date him.
But, he had to steady himself first. He braced himself against the utility pole. His breath came in short gasps. His heart raced. His white dress shirt, hours ago so crisp and tidily pressed - he’d actually laid out a few bucks to get it dry cleaned for tonight - now dripped with sweat and clung to him in the clammy, humid air of the August night like a sodden rag. He caught his breath and held it. He had no choice. He had to get to Smile’s and see Mina. He had to.
He lunged forward and made himself run the final blocks. Soon, he was across from the strip mall which housed the coffee shop. He stood behind a tree, away from the glow of the street lights.
He could see Mina in the window, mopping the floor by the entrance. She was in her tight-fitting orange and white uniform that clung to her curvy figure so enticingly, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was a year younger than he, she’d mentioned her age in passing one night, but the pony tail and her warm smile dissolved the years and made her seem like a fresh-faced college girl, identical to the ones he admired from afar when he was a janitor at Dorchester College, before Mother had died and he didn’t need to work anymore, because he had her inheritance…
Don’t let the memories run away with you, he thought. Look at what’s in front of you. Look at how beautiful she is and how she could be yours, if only you spoke to her the right way and stopped being such a nervous ass.
He took courage from the night that surrounded him, and crossed the street, looking directly at Mina through the window. She couldn’t see him, not yet, but that was all the better.
He pushed open the door and he was inside.
Mina saw him and smiled. “Good evening, Johnny. You look kind of warm.”
Tom smiled back as he sidled up to the counter, hoping he wasn’t staggering. Mina set aside her mop and followed him. “Yeah, been walking too fast. It’s real muggy out. You been busy tonight, Mina?”
“We had a bit of a crowd in here about an hour ago, bunch of kids heading out to the clubs, I guess. No one since, though. Pretty quiet.”
Johnny was glad his voice sounded clear. He didn’t seem to be slurring his words. “Gives you time to yourself to look after the place”
“Yeah,” she said shyly, her voice trailing off as she walked behind the counter.
He looked at the faded lit-up picture on the wall behind the counter of a china mug almost spilling over with steaming coffee. He remembered coming in here as a child with Mother years ago when the picture was bright and new. Now Mother was gone and the picture was fading away. He cursed himself. Don’t get all morbid. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just ask Mina out? She’d been here a year, she knew who he was. He wasn’t a stranger to her.
He watched Mina slide gracefully behind the counter, her bare, well-toned legs exposed from just above the knee by her orange skirt that fit just right, not too sexy, but not too plain either.
Johnny licked his lips appreciatively. He coughed and raised his hand to cover his mouth, hoping she hadn’t seen him. “Got a bit of a cold?” she asked.
“Think so.”
“That sucks. Not surprising though, with so much rain lately. Oh well, what can you do? You want your usual?”
“Large coffee with two creams.”
“You got it.”
He paid for his coffee and while he took it in his hand that trembled maybe a little too much, he glimpsed at Mina’s dark brown, almond-shaped eyes. She smiled warmly and for a moment, his eyes lingered over the glimpse of cleavage her blouse revealed.
Had she noticed him looking? Maybe that was why she was still smiling as he sat down at his usual table. He glanced back one more time at her. She was still looking, but her forehead creased with what looked like a frown. Was she angry with him? Best not to look her way again for a while.
He sipped his coffee. He looked at the cup in his hand. Rock steady. His tremor wasn’t so bad. Maybe he wasn’t as visibly drunk as he had feared.
Someone had left a newspaper on the table and he looked through it, occasionally sneaking peeks at Mina. She was no longer at the counter; she had returned to mopping the floor.
The front door opened and a young woman with long blonde hair swept in, a duffel bag in her hand.
“Hey, Erica! How you doing!” Mina shouted as the blonde woman smiled and waved a greeting as she hurried to the back of the store.
Erica worked the counter overnight. Johnny cursed to himself. Her arrival meant Mina’s shift was ending. Soon she would be going home. He would not talk with her again that night.
He would have no choice but to go out for one of his walks. He never used to take late night walks, but in the last month or so, they had become a real habit for him. He found they relaxed him and helped him sleep. They also helped him keep an eye on Mina. Now, that wasn’t the only reason he did them. He needed the exercise and the time to think, but it never hurt to make sure Mina got home okay and no one had disturbed her. He didn’t want to see any harm come to her and none had.
So far.
WATCHING AND LISTENING
The night embraced Johnny, gathering him into its unseen arms, not letting him go.
He was a willing captive. He wanted to lose himself in the night and never return to his lonely house that stood by itself at the end of the street, right at the edge of the woods and not far from the ravine, its nearest neighbor many blocks away.
The night entranced him, comforted him. In the night, his solitude melted into the anonymous glow of street lights, into the vacant gloom of shadowy laneways and back alleys.
He slowed in his flight, drawing to a halt beside a utility pole. He flattened his palm against it, catching his breath, regaining his balance. That wine he had bought for tonight, which was to be the night of nights but which had been an empty disappointment – what else could it have been, really? - had unbalanced him. His mind reeled with images and ideas that surged through him like electricity.
He looked about the deserted street. He was only a few blocks from that yawning pit of loneliness that was his house, lonely and desolate at the best of times – he had known no other home; he had inherited it from Mother when she had passed away four years ago – but even more so now thanks to Mina’s absence. He had wanted to invite her over to visit him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it somehow. He was so shy with her, so shy with women, all he could ever do was watch her and watch them. He could never get more personal with them than a passing glance on the street or from across a coffee shop.
So, tonight, he’d pretended that he had had the guts to ask Mina to come over, had decided to throw a little party for himself with Mina as the imaginary guest of honor. He had sat at the dining room table that had been laid with Mother’s best china and cutlery, methodically drinking one glass after another of the expensive wine he had bought at the liquor store just for this wonderful occasion.
His throat tightened and he blinked to hold the tears back. He was turning thirty next week, far too old to be choked up like this.
He hadn’t even wept like this when Mother died.
At the end of the street stood a set of traffic lights; Smile’s coffee shop was right there. A sprint of a minute or two and he would be walking in the door. There was hope; she might still be there. He checked his watch. It was only ten-thirty. Her shift didn’t end for another hour at least. He would go there and see her and talk to her, convince her that she should date him.
But, he had to steady himself first. He braced himself against the utility pole. His breath came in short gasps. His heart raced. His white dress shirt, hours ago so crisp and tidily pressed - he’d actually laid out a few bucks to get it dry cleaned for tonight - now dripped with sweat and clung to him in the clammy, humid air of the August night like a sodden rag. He caught his breath and held it. He had no choice. He had to get to Smile’s and see Mina. He had to.
He lunged forward and made himself run the final blocks. Soon, he was across from the strip mall which housed the coffee shop. He stood behind a tree, away from the glow of the street lights.
He could see Mina in the window, mopping the floor by the entrance. She was in her tight-fitting orange and white uniform that clung to her curvy figure so enticingly, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was a year younger than he, she’d mentioned her age in passing one night, but the pony tail and her warm smile dissolved the years and made her seem like a fresh-faced college girl, identical to the ones he admired from afar when he was a janitor at Dorchester College, before Mother had died and he didn’t need to work anymore, because he had her inheritance…
Don’t let the memories run away with you, he thought. Look at what’s in front of you. Look at how beautiful she is and how she could be yours, if only you spoke to her the right way and stopped being such a nervous ass.
He took courage from the night that surrounded him, and crossed the street, looking directly at Mina through the window. She couldn’t see him, not yet, but that was all the better.
He pushed open the door and he was inside.
Mina saw him and smiled. “Good evening, Johnny. You look kind of warm.”
Tom smiled back as he sidled up to the counter, hoping he wasn’t staggering. Mina set aside her mop and followed him. “Yeah, been walking too fast. It’s real muggy out. You been busy tonight, Mina?”
“We had a bit of a crowd in here about an hour ago, bunch of kids heading out to the clubs, I guess. No one since, though. Pretty quiet.”
Johnny was glad his voice sounded clear. He didn’t seem to be slurring his words. “Gives you time to yourself to look after the place”
“Yeah,” she said shyly, her voice trailing off as she walked behind the counter.
He looked at the faded lit-up picture on the wall behind the counter of a china mug almost spilling over with steaming coffee. He remembered coming in here as a child with Mother years ago when the picture was bright and new. Now Mother was gone and the picture was fading away. He cursed himself. Don’t get all morbid. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just ask Mina out? She’d been here a year, she knew who he was. He wasn’t a stranger to her.
He watched Mina slide gracefully behind the counter, her bare, well-toned legs exposed from just above the knee by her orange skirt that fit just right, not too sexy, but not too plain either.
Johnny licked his lips appreciatively. He coughed and raised his hand to cover his mouth, hoping she hadn’t seen him. “Got a bit of a cold?” she asked.
“Think so.”
“That sucks. Not surprising though, with so much rain lately. Oh well, what can you do? You want your usual?”
“Large coffee with two creams.”
“You got it.”
He paid for his coffee and while he took it in his hand that trembled maybe a little too much, he glimpsed at Mina’s dark brown, almond-shaped eyes. She smiled warmly and for a moment, his eyes lingered over the glimpse of cleavage her blouse revealed.
Had she noticed him looking? Maybe that was why she was still smiling as he sat down at his usual table. He glanced back one more time at her. She was still looking, but her forehead creased with what looked like a frown. Was she angry with him? Best not to look her way again for a while.
He sipped his coffee. He looked at the cup in his hand. Rock steady. His tremor wasn’t so bad. Maybe he wasn’t as visibly drunk as he had feared.
Someone had left a newspaper on the table and he looked through it, occasionally sneaking peeks at Mina. She was no longer at the counter; she had returned to mopping the floor.
The front door opened and a young woman with long blonde hair swept in, a duffel bag in her hand.
“Hey, Erica! How you doing!” Mina shouted as the blonde woman smiled and waved a greeting as she hurried to the back of the store.
Erica worked the counter overnight. Johnny cursed to himself. Her arrival meant Mina’s shift was ending. Soon she would be going home. He would not talk with her again that night.
He would have no choice but to go out for one of his walks. He never used to take late night walks, but in the last month or so, they had become a real habit for him. He found they relaxed him and helped him sleep. They also helped him keep an eye on Mina. Now, that wasn’t the only reason he did them. He needed the exercise and the time to think, but it never hurt to make sure Mina got home okay and no one had disturbed her. He didn’t want to see any harm come to her and none had.
So far.
Upcoming Reviews on Hard Boiled Reads
Just a quick update to let you know that more reviews will be soon posted here. Future titles I'll be talking about include two new Hard Case Crime titles, Quarry's Ex, by Max Allan Collins and The Comsummta, an unfinished Mickey Spillane novel from the late 1960s completed by Collins, who was a close friend of Spillane. Also under consideration will be The Madman of Bergerac, a disappointing Maigret novel by Simenon and The Fifth Woman, a Kurt Wallander mystery by Henning Mankell.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Excerpt From No Time Like Now
A selection from No Time Like Now, a story included in my short story collection Slow Machine and Other Tales of Suspense and Danger, now available at Amazon Kindle Books.
NO TIME LIKE NOW
"Another day. Another dozen floors swept," Carter said, covering his mouth with his hand, as if stifling a yawn. Although he hoped he sounded tired to Luisa, his heart raced with anticipation.
Luisa laughed while she took away his empty coffee cup to the sink behind the counter. "That's what you do now? Sweep floors?"
She remembered him. Why else had she said "now", as if she had known what his job used to be? He struggled to conceal the excitement in his voice as he spoke. "I guess you could say I'm a janitor, but that's pushing it. Really, I just sweep floors."
She laughed as she rinsed out the cup and set it in the sink. "Well, we all do what we have to do." She placed a rag under the tap, ran some water on it and then wiped the counter. "Will that be all for tonight?"
He looked up at the clock beside the door. Not long until curfew. He would have to move fast.
"I guess so. Could I have the bill please?"
"Sure."
He wanted to look at her again, but he was afraid she would think he was staring. Instead, he glanced again at the clock, clenching and opening his fists as he watched the second hand sweep around.
All the better that he couldn't look at her. Take a moment to think over what he had seen. She'd aged for sure, the wrinkles about her eyes, the slight plumpness of her face, her friendly but tired voice all betrayed the passage of time, but her long dark hair had the same luster, her brown eyes the same flash of passion.
He chanced another glance as she wrote up the bill at the cash register. There was something about how she wore her starched and austere waitress uniform of plain slacks and cotton blouse that made it sexy, even if it fully complied with the Guardians' Moral Code. Just the same way the Luisa he had known long ago would have worn it.
As she returned to give him his bill, she smiled. "There you go,"
"Thanks."
She walked away and he pulled out his pen from the pocket of his faded and frayed windbreaker, something he once would have been embarrassed to have been seen wearing. But now...
Choking back the fear that made his throat burn and his hand tremble, he scribbled on the back of the bill his address and the brief note that he had memorized, the small but important message he had wanted to give to her ever since he'd first seen her at the coffee shop weeks before.
He pulled some coins from his pocket. Enough for the bill and a good tip.
He left the money and the bill on the counter.
As he rose from his stool and went to the front door of the coffee shop, he looked over his shoulder and saw her slipping the bill into her pocket.
"We'll talk about Gold Castle!" she called to him.
Silently he nodded and passed through the door into the quiet night. The street lights dimmed once, twice and then regained their previous brightness. The Guardians' way of warning that eleven o'clock curfew was only forty five minutes away.
Gold Castle. He couldn't believe his luck. She really did remember him.
*
Carter returned to his bachelor apartment only blocks from the coffee shop. He stood at the door, switched on the single bare overhead light bulb and looked around.
He preferred to think of his place as the very definition of simplicity. It was the only way he had of dignifying the drabness of his surroundings.
His apartment was sparsely furnished. An alcove in a corner was equipped with an old stove. The center of the room featured a table, a chair, a sofa that doubled as his bed, a chest of drawers, and a clock radio on the table. A narrow hallway led to a cramped washroom. Before the washroom was a modest closet. A small window framed by dusty venetian blinds provided a meager view of the street two floors below.
He thought it might be a good idea to liven the place up just a little for Luisa's arrival.
He opened the closet door and after pulling aside the shirts crammed along the rack, he pressed his hand against the wall. He pulled at a chunk of plaster until it gave away, exposing a patch of brick wall behind. He grabbed one of the bricks, until an opening came into view. From this he gingerly removed a bundle wrapped in cloth. He set this down on the floor and slowly unwound the cloth until he saw the compact digital camera he had bought the other day from some shopkeeper up the road. The guy claimed to have kept it from the days before the Guardians, but Carter wasn't so sure.
Underneath the camera was the picture, clipped out long ago from some forgotten magazine. He unfolded it. His nose crinkled as a slight odor of dust and age wafted from the faded and tattered paper, but he smiled with pride as his eager eyes took in the image on the paper.
Bold yellow letters at the top of the page screamed GOLD CASTLE BEER - GOLDEN FLAVOR.
Underneath the headline, two women in bikinis reclined on a beach, basking in the glow of a golden sunset. A bottle of Gold Castle loomed on the twilit horizon.
His smile faded. Better not to leave the picture and the camera out. He should wait until he had talked to her first and made sure of a few things. After all, as everyone knew, possession of a photograph, not to mention a camera, was a criminal offense.
He wrapped the camera and picture again in the cloth and returned the bundle to the hiding place, replacing the brick and the chunk of plaster to their former positions. He hurried over to the window and pulled aside the blind, just in time to see the street lights blink five times.
Only five minutes to curfew.
He looked along the lonely street that stretched before the apartment in a faded ribbon of cracked asphalt. Cars had vanished, and pedestrians knew better than to be out so close to curfew. Except one. Yes, someone was walking, almost running up the broken sidewalk. As the figure drew closer, Carter recognized it.
Luisa.
He clenched his hands into tight, sweaty fists and he took several deep breaths as he walked to the door, standing before it, awaiting her arrival. Was she really Luisa, the model from long ago, or was she an agent from the Guardians sent to destroy him?
Best not to think about it. Best...
A knock at the door.
He unchained it and threw it open.
Luisa stood in his doorway.
"Hello, Mark," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Her breath came in short gasps. She must've ran up the steps to the apartment.
"Welcome," Carter answered, his voice almost choking in his throat.
She remembered his name. His real name.
NO TIME LIKE NOW
"Another day. Another dozen floors swept," Carter said, covering his mouth with his hand, as if stifling a yawn. Although he hoped he sounded tired to Luisa, his heart raced with anticipation.
Luisa laughed while she took away his empty coffee cup to the sink behind the counter. "That's what you do now? Sweep floors?"
She remembered him. Why else had she said "now", as if she had known what his job used to be? He struggled to conceal the excitement in his voice as he spoke. "I guess you could say I'm a janitor, but that's pushing it. Really, I just sweep floors."
She laughed as she rinsed out the cup and set it in the sink. "Well, we all do what we have to do." She placed a rag under the tap, ran some water on it and then wiped the counter. "Will that be all for tonight?"
He looked up at the clock beside the door. Not long until curfew. He would have to move fast.
"I guess so. Could I have the bill please?"
"Sure."
He wanted to look at her again, but he was afraid she would think he was staring. Instead, he glanced again at the clock, clenching and opening his fists as he watched the second hand sweep around.
All the better that he couldn't look at her. Take a moment to think over what he had seen. She'd aged for sure, the wrinkles about her eyes, the slight plumpness of her face, her friendly but tired voice all betrayed the passage of time, but her long dark hair had the same luster, her brown eyes the same flash of passion.
He chanced another glance as she wrote up the bill at the cash register. There was something about how she wore her starched and austere waitress uniform of plain slacks and cotton blouse that made it sexy, even if it fully complied with the Guardians' Moral Code. Just the same way the Luisa he had known long ago would have worn it.
As she returned to give him his bill, she smiled. "There you go,"
"Thanks."
She walked away and he pulled out his pen from the pocket of his faded and frayed windbreaker, something he once would have been embarrassed to have been seen wearing. But now...
Choking back the fear that made his throat burn and his hand tremble, he scribbled on the back of the bill his address and the brief note that he had memorized, the small but important message he had wanted to give to her ever since he'd first seen her at the coffee shop weeks before.
He pulled some coins from his pocket. Enough for the bill and a good tip.
He left the money and the bill on the counter.
As he rose from his stool and went to the front door of the coffee shop, he looked over his shoulder and saw her slipping the bill into her pocket.
"We'll talk about Gold Castle!" she called to him.
Silently he nodded and passed through the door into the quiet night. The street lights dimmed once, twice and then regained their previous brightness. The Guardians' way of warning that eleven o'clock curfew was only forty five minutes away.
Gold Castle. He couldn't believe his luck. She really did remember him.
*
Carter returned to his bachelor apartment only blocks from the coffee shop. He stood at the door, switched on the single bare overhead light bulb and looked around.
He preferred to think of his place as the very definition of simplicity. It was the only way he had of dignifying the drabness of his surroundings.
His apartment was sparsely furnished. An alcove in a corner was equipped with an old stove. The center of the room featured a table, a chair, a sofa that doubled as his bed, a chest of drawers, and a clock radio on the table. A narrow hallway led to a cramped washroom. Before the washroom was a modest closet. A small window framed by dusty venetian blinds provided a meager view of the street two floors below.
He thought it might be a good idea to liven the place up just a little for Luisa's arrival.
He opened the closet door and after pulling aside the shirts crammed along the rack, he pressed his hand against the wall. He pulled at a chunk of plaster until it gave away, exposing a patch of brick wall behind. He grabbed one of the bricks, until an opening came into view. From this he gingerly removed a bundle wrapped in cloth. He set this down on the floor and slowly unwound the cloth until he saw the compact digital camera he had bought the other day from some shopkeeper up the road. The guy claimed to have kept it from the days before the Guardians, but Carter wasn't so sure.
Underneath the camera was the picture, clipped out long ago from some forgotten magazine. He unfolded it. His nose crinkled as a slight odor of dust and age wafted from the faded and tattered paper, but he smiled with pride as his eager eyes took in the image on the paper.
Bold yellow letters at the top of the page screamed GOLD CASTLE BEER - GOLDEN FLAVOR.
Underneath the headline, two women in bikinis reclined on a beach, basking in the glow of a golden sunset. A bottle of Gold Castle loomed on the twilit horizon.
His smile faded. Better not to leave the picture and the camera out. He should wait until he had talked to her first and made sure of a few things. After all, as everyone knew, possession of a photograph, not to mention a camera, was a criminal offense.
He wrapped the camera and picture again in the cloth and returned the bundle to the hiding place, replacing the brick and the chunk of plaster to their former positions. He hurried over to the window and pulled aside the blind, just in time to see the street lights blink five times.
Only five minutes to curfew.
He looked along the lonely street that stretched before the apartment in a faded ribbon of cracked asphalt. Cars had vanished, and pedestrians knew better than to be out so close to curfew. Except one. Yes, someone was walking, almost running up the broken sidewalk. As the figure drew closer, Carter recognized it.
Luisa.
He clenched his hands into tight, sweaty fists and he took several deep breaths as he walked to the door, standing before it, awaiting her arrival. Was she really Luisa, the model from long ago, or was she an agent from the Guardians sent to destroy him?
Best not to think about it. Best...
A knock at the door.
He unchained it and threw it open.
Luisa stood in his doorway.
"Hello, Mark," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Her breath came in short gasps. She must've ran up the steps to the apartment.
"Welcome," Carter answered, his voice almost choking in his throat.
She remembered his name. His real name.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Hard Case Crime Uncovers Final James M. Cain Novel
Hard Case Crime has announced that it has secured the rights to The Cocktail Waitress, the final and long-lost novel by hard boiled luminary James M. Cain, the scribe behind The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. The novel tells the story of a woman whose first husband died suspiciously and who is now being pursued by two new suitors, each of whom has something she wants. Hard Case reports that the novel is "gritty, steamy and suspenseful" and "worthy of the legacy of this great author." Definitely sounds like one worth checking out once it hits the stores.
Already out is Getting Off, the first hardcover release by Hard Case, a Lawrence Block thriller about a woman methodically bumping off her ex boyfriends one by one. In the stores soon is The Consummata, an incomplete Mickey Spillane novel that has been finished by Max Allan Collins. Spillane gave Collins his blessing for the project before he passed away. Also on the way is The Comedy is Finished, an unpublished novel about the kidnapping of a TV comedy show host. Apparently, Westlake shelved the novel back in the 80s because of its similarities to the Martin Scorsese cult classic, The King of Comedy, but Hard Case reports that the novel is quite different from the Scorsese movie and worthy of Westlake's reputation. This is one I'm very curious to check out.
It's great to see Hard Case back in business again and I will review these and other new Hard Case releases once I am able to obtain them.
Already out is Getting Off, the first hardcover release by Hard Case, a Lawrence Block thriller about a woman methodically bumping off her ex boyfriends one by one. In the stores soon is The Consummata, an incomplete Mickey Spillane novel that has been finished by Max Allan Collins. Spillane gave Collins his blessing for the project before he passed away. Also on the way is The Comedy is Finished, an unpublished novel about the kidnapping of a TV comedy show host. Apparently, Westlake shelved the novel back in the 80s because of its similarities to the Martin Scorsese cult classic, The King of Comedy, but Hard Case reports that the novel is quite different from the Scorsese movie and worthy of Westlake's reputation. This is one I'm very curious to check out.
It's great to see Hard Case back in business again and I will review these and other new Hard Case releases once I am able to obtain them.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Gil Brewer's The Vengeful Virgin
Doom. You recognize Doom easily. It's a feeling and a taste and it's black, and it's very heavy. It comes down over your head, and wraps tentacles around you, and sinks long dirty fingernails into your heart. It had a stink like burning garbage. Doom.
Gil Brewer ' The Vengeful Virgin
A terrible atmosphere of dread and inevitable disaster hangs over The Vengeful Virgin, a noir classic by the brilliant 1950s hardboiled author Gil Brewer and re-published by Hard Case Crime in 2007. The plot is routine enough. Jack, a working stiff in a nowhere gig running a penny ante TV repair shop, goes out on a routine job to install some TVs and an intercom system at the home of a sharp tongued and mean-spirited - but incredibly wealthy - invalid. The invalid is being cared for by his eighteen-year-old stepdaughter, Shirley Angela.
Jack is all eyes for Shirley, a hot red head in a tight sweater and skirt that just barely conceal her shapely body. The TV and intercom are soon installed, but Jack has fallen in lust with Shirley and soon they are making volcanic sex just out of sight and earshot of her stepfather.
She began to groan and moan, writhing wildly. She was a tiger. She tore at my belt, then began tearing at her clothes, her hair swinging across her face. She yanked her sweater up to her neck and I got as crazy as she was. Those toreador pants of hers were as thin as silk and as tight as skin. They wouldn't come off.
"Rip 'em!"
I ripped...She dropped to the floor, dragging me with her. I knew I would never get enough of her. She was straight from hell.
Shirley has torn open the floodgates of Jack's thwarted dreams. Shirley, frustrated from having to spend so much of her life caring for an ailing but heartless old man, sees Jack as a way out of the prison that has become her life. They hatch a plot to kill the old man and take his wealth, only his death would be made to look like an accident.
This book has an inexplicable, almost hypnotic power about it. The plot is routine enough. The wages of sin is death and the road to hell imagery are driven home with sledgehammer subtlety. But what makes this book is the power of Brewer's descriptions - and the horrible power of his heroine Shirley Angela. She is almost a mythic force of nature - a deadly hybrid of Lady Macbeth with a barely legal Lolita. She is also the bearer of the wicked vagina dentata:She showed me her teeth, glowing and white and maybe even predatory, between her red lips.
The two evil-starred lovers follow through on their plot. The old man dies horribly of course, and of course the plot blows up in their faces. Jack goes on the run with Shirley and heads straight to hell - a damnation of his own making.
I'd like to say more about this book, yet saying too much would give a lot of the fun away. If you're curious about noir fiction and wondering where to start, this would be a perfect book to begin with.
Gil Brewer ' The Vengeful Virgin
A terrible atmosphere of dread and inevitable disaster hangs over The Vengeful Virgin, a noir classic by the brilliant 1950s hardboiled author Gil Brewer and re-published by Hard Case Crime in 2007. The plot is routine enough. Jack, a working stiff in a nowhere gig running a penny ante TV repair shop, goes out on a routine job to install some TVs and an intercom system at the home of a sharp tongued and mean-spirited - but incredibly wealthy - invalid. The invalid is being cared for by his eighteen-year-old stepdaughter, Shirley Angela.
Jack is all eyes for Shirley, a hot red head in a tight sweater and skirt that just barely conceal her shapely body. The TV and intercom are soon installed, but Jack has fallen in lust with Shirley and soon they are making volcanic sex just out of sight and earshot of her stepfather.
She began to groan and moan, writhing wildly. She was a tiger. She tore at my belt, then began tearing at her clothes, her hair swinging across her face. She yanked her sweater up to her neck and I got as crazy as she was. Those toreador pants of hers were as thin as silk and as tight as skin. They wouldn't come off.
"Rip 'em!"
I ripped...She dropped to the floor, dragging me with her. I knew I would never get enough of her. She was straight from hell.
Shirley has torn open the floodgates of Jack's thwarted dreams. Shirley, frustrated from having to spend so much of her life caring for an ailing but heartless old man, sees Jack as a way out of the prison that has become her life. They hatch a plot to kill the old man and take his wealth, only his death would be made to look like an accident.
This book has an inexplicable, almost hypnotic power about it. The plot is routine enough. The wages of sin is death and the road to hell imagery are driven home with sledgehammer subtlety. But what makes this book is the power of Brewer's descriptions - and the horrible power of his heroine Shirley Angela. She is almost a mythic force of nature - a deadly hybrid of Lady Macbeth with a barely legal Lolita. She is also the bearer of the wicked vagina dentata:She showed me her teeth, glowing and white and maybe even predatory, between her red lips.
The two evil-starred lovers follow through on their plot. The old man dies horribly of course, and of course the plot blows up in their faces. Jack goes on the run with Shirley and heads straight to hell - a damnation of his own making.
I'd like to say more about this book, yet saying too much would give a lot of the fun away. If you're curious about noir fiction and wondering where to start, this would be a perfect book to begin with.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Excerpt From A Prison for Identities
A selection from A Prison for Identities, the opening story in my e-book, Slow Machine and Other Tales of Suspense and Danger. Get it now at the Amazon Kindle Store!
A PRISON FOR IDENTITIES
“Damn you, Gem, I’ve come here three straight nights to meet you and you never showed up. You let me down, girl.”
Ed was angry and he wanted Gem to know it. He slouched in his chair in the bank office tower food court. From his side of the table, Gem looked like she didn’t care, brushing back her long dark hair and smiling that funny smile of hers that seemed, in spite of its brightness, to say “go to hell.” She sat upright in her chair, her partially unbuttoned blouse displaying her ample cleavage that looked as inviting as ever. He knew, though, not to look, not tonight.
“I had other things on the go, Ed.”
“Like?”
“My mother. Remember? She had a heart attack a few months ago and I have to look after her. I’m all she’s got. She’s hit a rough spot and I had to stay with her in case she needed to go to the hospital. And I told you if I couldn’t make it the first night you should keep coming back here every night during the week ‘till I showed up. That’s what I did, right? I’m here now.”
Ed shook his head and glanced at the store across the concourse from them. A neon sign announced in stylized letters that the place was called Dawn Star. It looked like it sold art work, and damn crazy-looking stuff it was, too. What were those things in the front window? Little statues? His stomach tightened with disgust, mixed with hunger. When did he last eat? Almost a day ago?
“You know Gem, look at that stupid store over there.”
Her big brown eyes narrowed. “What about it? What’s that gotta do with us?”
He nodded at the display in the store’s front window. “Plenty. It’s for people who want to waste money on stupid things. Look at those weird statues in the window. They look like little men, little three-foot high men, and they got no faces. Just blank stone. And the paintings on the walls. Just squares and rectangles, some of them black or white or orange or whatever. I mean, what’s it gotta do with anything? It’s like you. You always gotta go on about things that aren’t important.”
“You mean my mother isn’t important, Ed?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. You pushed me out a few weeks now and I need some help, you know, some support. I can’t even count on you anymore Can’t count on anybody.”
She frowned and her voice went down a few notches. He knew he was getting to her.
“You can’t count on me? What about you, Ed? You don’t have a cell phone and that flophouse you’re staying at doesn’t even have a phone number. How am I supposed to stay in touch with you?”
He smirked. “Who’s staying at a flop house? I’m at a hotel. The Bosley Arms..”
She threw up her arms in frustration. “I know, I know. Five-star all the way. Gold plated cockroaches in the bathtub.”
He snickered and when Gem spoke again, her voice was almost girlish, at least for her, like she was trying to flirt. “Look, I still care about you. I just want you to clean up a bit. Lose some of those friends of yours. Like Billy. I can’t believe you’ve wasted the last five years working as a bouncer in that pig’s bodyrub parlors. I thought you had an honest job as a janitor. Sure, that’s not great, but at least it’s honest. Then I found out the cops caught you in that raid and I had to come down to the division house to get you. I finally find out what you really do for a living. You lie to me about how you earn your money and then you wonder why I kick you out.”
Ed grinned. “Hey, those places were licensed adult entertainment establishments.”
Carmen slapped the table in anger. “It’s not funny. Who knows what could happen to you, hanging around with that damn Billy and his whores. You’re lucky the cops let you go. You could’ve been charged, then where would you be? I wonder if Billy would really help you out. That guy treats you like you’re his servant or something. Have you told him you’re not working in his toilets any more?”
He kept grinning. It was good to have her all keyed up. “Working on it.”
Her eyes flashed poison darts at him. “Stop working on it and start doing it, okay? Talk to him. Maybe after that I can take you back. I can’t have you working with him anymore.”
He fell silent. She was right, sort of. That was the worst thing about Gem. Just when you really wanted to unload on her, she’d say something that hit bang on target and you couldn’t talk back to her. Better to change the subject. Talk about that weird noise that was getting on his nerves, scraping away at his razor thin hold on sanity like a saw-toothed edge.
As he spoke, his voice was thick with fatigue. “What the hell is that noise? Seems like it’s coming from the ceiling?”
She did a double take and glanced across at Dawn Star. “No, it’s coming from that store. It’s like weird violin music, but it’s just a drone. Why would anybody listen to that?
He looked through the front window. A man in a navy blue suit with silver hair, wearing wire glasses and a blonde woman in slacks and a jacket were talking and gesturing at each other. Every few moments they discretely peeked at him. He looked back them as he spoke. “It just opened too. When I first got here Monday it was empty space. The last few days they’ve been putting all that stuff in there, I guess.”
Gem twitched her eyebrow, motioning for him to stop looking at the two people. “I don’t like them, Ed. They keep looking at us, like they’re trying to listen to us.”
He frowned. “You don’t suppose…”
Gem stiffened. She was all business now. “I don’t suppose anything. Let’s just make this short and sweet. Take care of yourself and make sure you talk to Billy, ASAP, all right? Take this. It’s all I got until the bank pays me Thursday. Should help you keep your penthouse suite.”
Gem’s soft hand took his and something rough brushed against his palm. Money? Whatever it was, he clasped it tight in his fist.
She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, honeybabe.”
She and then choked back a sob as her eyes glistened. That really got her. “You know I hate that name.”
“No you don’t. Not as much as Gemini, the name your folks gave you.”
She laughed. “Well, they were in a commune somewhere up north in the early Seventies. People gave their kids stupid names back then. At least they didn’t call me Sky or Water.”
“Yeah, that’s true. And when you changed your name, you just shortened it to Gem. That’s a nice name.”
The tears were running down her cheeks now. She could barely get the words out. “I’ve really got to go.”
Ed raised his hand in silent farewell as she rose from the table and strode away, head held high, her long, athletic legs carrying her proudly down the concourse. In moments she was gone, the only evidence of her presence a ghostly breath of her perfume in his nostrils.
Ed sat alone in the food court, his head bowed, staring at what Gem had given to him: a crumpled fifty dollar bill. As he stuffed it in his pocket, he blinked repeatedly. He was wavering on the edge of sleep. Or, was he asleep already?
His eyes popped open again and he shuddered at the memory of some dream about a woman’s voice singing about the end of everything. The lights were still on Dawn Star, but those two people had vanished, as had that awful droning. For some reason, the sliding glass door at the store’s entrance had been left open a crack. Ed wondered why that was, but he didn’t want to investigate. He just wanted to get out of here. This place was just a drag.
From somewhere overhead, the sultry recorded voice of some woman singer wailed away. Wasn’t it the voice he’d just heard in his dream? The voice sighed lonely and sad, offering love and comfort to the food court’s shadows and empty chairs.
He rose to his tired feet. How long had he slept there? Minutes? Hours? Too late now. Better just to leave, get moving and get over to Billy tonight. Yes, Gem was right. Have it out with him tonight.
He walked down the concourse, toward the subway entrance. He kept walking, shoving one foot in front of the other, going through the motions, making the moves. Tonight, he would confront Billy. Go up to Eglinton station, to that stupid bar where Billy always hung out and demand to know who the hell was he to expect Ed to slave for him.
His stomach ached like someone had punched him in the gut. Nerves probably. His body was pumping adrenaline, pumping fear. Bile burned at the back of his throat. He made for the men’s room on the left, just a few paces from the subway entrance.
The restroom’s white tiled walls and gleaming mirrors and faucets shone with reflected light from globe-shaped bulbs in the ceiling. More music whispered from a hidden speaker, another woman’s caressing voice promising eternal love, if only you would run away with her.
A faint smell gripped his nostrils. Disinfectant. Stale urine.
He found a stall and locked himself inside. A wave of sleepiness mixed with nausea washed over him. He slumped against the door, his face buried in his hands. Should he be sick or pass out? When was the last time he’d been so tired? Stop thinking about that. Gem’s right. Pull yourself together. Get on the subway and go to Eglinton and tell that bastard Billy off…
What was that? Sounded like a door opening and some footsteps.
Somebody had come in to the washroom. Better to sit tight until the guy was gone.
He pressed himself up against the stall partition. Was that a pair of black leather business shoes outside of the door?
The door rattled. The guy was trying to get in. Who the hell was it?
He tensed and ran a nervous hand into his back pocket. Nothing there but his key chain. Gemma had taken his key to her apartment. All that was left was the useless metal hoop the key once had been attached to. Well, if it came to a fight, he might be able to do some scratching and poking with the hoop before he went down.
The guy shook the door again and pounded his fist.
“Get out of there! I know you’re there, so just get the hell out!”
In a flash, the door flew open and Ed’s eyes caught a blur of a familiar face. The silver-haired man in the suit from that art store!
He grabbed Ed and dragged him out of the stall and shoved him face down to the floor. A nose full of disinfectant and cold tile and then those nice classy, black leather business shoes went to work on him, kicking his ribs, his back…
A pair of hands grabbed his hair. A laser jolt of agony shot down his spine and his eyes exploded with stars…
A PRISON FOR IDENTITIES
“Damn you, Gem, I’ve come here three straight nights to meet you and you never showed up. You let me down, girl.”
Ed was angry and he wanted Gem to know it. He slouched in his chair in the bank office tower food court. From his side of the table, Gem looked like she didn’t care, brushing back her long dark hair and smiling that funny smile of hers that seemed, in spite of its brightness, to say “go to hell.” She sat upright in her chair, her partially unbuttoned blouse displaying her ample cleavage that looked as inviting as ever. He knew, though, not to look, not tonight.
“I had other things on the go, Ed.”
“Like?”
“My mother. Remember? She had a heart attack a few months ago and I have to look after her. I’m all she’s got. She’s hit a rough spot and I had to stay with her in case she needed to go to the hospital. And I told you if I couldn’t make it the first night you should keep coming back here every night during the week ‘till I showed up. That’s what I did, right? I’m here now.”
Ed shook his head and glanced at the store across the concourse from them. A neon sign announced in stylized letters that the place was called Dawn Star. It looked like it sold art work, and damn crazy-looking stuff it was, too. What were those things in the front window? Little statues? His stomach tightened with disgust, mixed with hunger. When did he last eat? Almost a day ago?
“You know Gem, look at that stupid store over there.”
Her big brown eyes narrowed. “What about it? What’s that gotta do with us?”
He nodded at the display in the store’s front window. “Plenty. It’s for people who want to waste money on stupid things. Look at those weird statues in the window. They look like little men, little three-foot high men, and they got no faces. Just blank stone. And the paintings on the walls. Just squares and rectangles, some of them black or white or orange or whatever. I mean, what’s it gotta do with anything? It’s like you. You always gotta go on about things that aren’t important.”
“You mean my mother isn’t important, Ed?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. You pushed me out a few weeks now and I need some help, you know, some support. I can’t even count on you anymore Can’t count on anybody.”
She frowned and her voice went down a few notches. He knew he was getting to her.
“You can’t count on me? What about you, Ed? You don’t have a cell phone and that flophouse you’re staying at doesn’t even have a phone number. How am I supposed to stay in touch with you?”
He smirked. “Who’s staying at a flop house? I’m at a hotel. The Bosley Arms..”
She threw up her arms in frustration. “I know, I know. Five-star all the way. Gold plated cockroaches in the bathtub.”
He snickered and when Gem spoke again, her voice was almost girlish, at least for her, like she was trying to flirt. “Look, I still care about you. I just want you to clean up a bit. Lose some of those friends of yours. Like Billy. I can’t believe you’ve wasted the last five years working as a bouncer in that pig’s bodyrub parlors. I thought you had an honest job as a janitor. Sure, that’s not great, but at least it’s honest. Then I found out the cops caught you in that raid and I had to come down to the division house to get you. I finally find out what you really do for a living. You lie to me about how you earn your money and then you wonder why I kick you out.”
Ed grinned. “Hey, those places were licensed adult entertainment establishments.”
Carmen slapped the table in anger. “It’s not funny. Who knows what could happen to you, hanging around with that damn Billy and his whores. You’re lucky the cops let you go. You could’ve been charged, then where would you be? I wonder if Billy would really help you out. That guy treats you like you’re his servant or something. Have you told him you’re not working in his toilets any more?”
He kept grinning. It was good to have her all keyed up. “Working on it.”
Her eyes flashed poison darts at him. “Stop working on it and start doing it, okay? Talk to him. Maybe after that I can take you back. I can’t have you working with him anymore.”
He fell silent. She was right, sort of. That was the worst thing about Gem. Just when you really wanted to unload on her, she’d say something that hit bang on target and you couldn’t talk back to her. Better to change the subject. Talk about that weird noise that was getting on his nerves, scraping away at his razor thin hold on sanity like a saw-toothed edge.
As he spoke, his voice was thick with fatigue. “What the hell is that noise? Seems like it’s coming from the ceiling?”
She did a double take and glanced across at Dawn Star. “No, it’s coming from that store. It’s like weird violin music, but it’s just a drone. Why would anybody listen to that?
He looked through the front window. A man in a navy blue suit with silver hair, wearing wire glasses and a blonde woman in slacks and a jacket were talking and gesturing at each other. Every few moments they discretely peeked at him. He looked back them as he spoke. “It just opened too. When I first got here Monday it was empty space. The last few days they’ve been putting all that stuff in there, I guess.”
Gem twitched her eyebrow, motioning for him to stop looking at the two people. “I don’t like them, Ed. They keep looking at us, like they’re trying to listen to us.”
He frowned. “You don’t suppose…”
Gem stiffened. She was all business now. “I don’t suppose anything. Let’s just make this short and sweet. Take care of yourself and make sure you talk to Billy, ASAP, all right? Take this. It’s all I got until the bank pays me Thursday. Should help you keep your penthouse suite.”
Gem’s soft hand took his and something rough brushed against his palm. Money? Whatever it was, he clasped it tight in his fist.
She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, honeybabe.”
She and then choked back a sob as her eyes glistened. That really got her. “You know I hate that name.”
“No you don’t. Not as much as Gemini, the name your folks gave you.”
She laughed. “Well, they were in a commune somewhere up north in the early Seventies. People gave their kids stupid names back then. At least they didn’t call me Sky or Water.”
“Yeah, that’s true. And when you changed your name, you just shortened it to Gem. That’s a nice name.”
The tears were running down her cheeks now. She could barely get the words out. “I’ve really got to go.”
Ed raised his hand in silent farewell as she rose from the table and strode away, head held high, her long, athletic legs carrying her proudly down the concourse. In moments she was gone, the only evidence of her presence a ghostly breath of her perfume in his nostrils.
Ed sat alone in the food court, his head bowed, staring at what Gem had given to him: a crumpled fifty dollar bill. As he stuffed it in his pocket, he blinked repeatedly. He was wavering on the edge of sleep. Or, was he asleep already?
His eyes popped open again and he shuddered at the memory of some dream about a woman’s voice singing about the end of everything. The lights were still on Dawn Star, but those two people had vanished, as had that awful droning. For some reason, the sliding glass door at the store’s entrance had been left open a crack. Ed wondered why that was, but he didn’t want to investigate. He just wanted to get out of here. This place was just a drag.
From somewhere overhead, the sultry recorded voice of some woman singer wailed away. Wasn’t it the voice he’d just heard in his dream? The voice sighed lonely and sad, offering love and comfort to the food court’s shadows and empty chairs.
He rose to his tired feet. How long had he slept there? Minutes? Hours? Too late now. Better just to leave, get moving and get over to Billy tonight. Yes, Gem was right. Have it out with him tonight.
He walked down the concourse, toward the subway entrance. He kept walking, shoving one foot in front of the other, going through the motions, making the moves. Tonight, he would confront Billy. Go up to Eglinton station, to that stupid bar where Billy always hung out and demand to know who the hell was he to expect Ed to slave for him.
His stomach ached like someone had punched him in the gut. Nerves probably. His body was pumping adrenaline, pumping fear. Bile burned at the back of his throat. He made for the men’s room on the left, just a few paces from the subway entrance.
The restroom’s white tiled walls and gleaming mirrors and faucets shone with reflected light from globe-shaped bulbs in the ceiling. More music whispered from a hidden speaker, another woman’s caressing voice promising eternal love, if only you would run away with her.
A faint smell gripped his nostrils. Disinfectant. Stale urine.
He found a stall and locked himself inside. A wave of sleepiness mixed with nausea washed over him. He slumped against the door, his face buried in his hands. Should he be sick or pass out? When was the last time he’d been so tired? Stop thinking about that. Gem’s right. Pull yourself together. Get on the subway and go to Eglinton and tell that bastard Billy off…
What was that? Sounded like a door opening and some footsteps.
Somebody had come in to the washroom. Better to sit tight until the guy was gone.
He pressed himself up against the stall partition. Was that a pair of black leather business shoes outside of the door?
The door rattled. The guy was trying to get in. Who the hell was it?
He tensed and ran a nervous hand into his back pocket. Nothing there but his key chain. Gemma had taken his key to her apartment. All that was left was the useless metal hoop the key once had been attached to. Well, if it came to a fight, he might be able to do some scratching and poking with the hoop before he went down.
The guy shook the door again and pounded his fist.
“Get out of there! I know you’re there, so just get the hell out!”
In a flash, the door flew open and Ed’s eyes caught a blur of a familiar face. The silver-haired man in the suit from that art store!
He grabbed Ed and dragged him out of the stall and shoved him face down to the floor. A nose full of disinfectant and cold tile and then those nice classy, black leather business shoes went to work on him, kicking his ribs, his back…
A pair of hands grabbed his hair. A laser jolt of agony shot down his spine and his eyes exploded with stars…
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