Son of Gun in Cheek

by Bill Pronzini

  Lunacy of a different sort reigns in Manhattan, where Staunton tries to save Fitzhugh from his midnight date with death. Just as it seems he’s succeeded, Fitzhugh is kidnapped by a Chinese taxi driver—and his body is later found with the head blown off by a shotgun blast. Enter Captain Morgan of the NYPD and a stout stranger who identifies himself as Lieutenant Condon, British Secret Service, Shanghai, China. During a meeting of these minds (such as they are) in Staunton’s office, another purple-hieroglyph note turns up unexpectedly. How do these messages keep appearing in unlikely places? Could it be . . . Oriental magic?

  More lunacy, if not more magic, ensues: Condon gives Staunton a letter which he says was in the pocket of Fitzhugh’s jacket and which Fitzhugh must have written earlier that night, before he was kidnapped and had his head blown off, because “he felt sure he was going to be killed.” It asks that he be buried in Woodlawn Cemetery the following midnight with Staunton as one of the pallbearers. Everybody agrees that this is a pretty queer request; but that doesn’t stop them from going to the graveyard to carry out Fitzhugh’s last wishes. Jeanne goes along, too, for no good reason, and tries to lighten things up, “to be ribald,” by looking at the undertaker’s man and saying, “He has—he has such a lovely graveside manner.”

  In the midst of the eerie proceedings at Woodlawn, a doctor named Mansfield—a collector of porcelains whose presence at the burial Fitzhugh specifically (and for no explained reason) requested—spots a card in one of the floral offerings that has been made of “roses and carnations, queerly dyed” to represent a purple hieroglyph. The card says, “In the midst of life we are in death,” which is a little vague and not very sinister; so the wily Orientals, evidently realizing their mistake, follow it up with another card that contains a somewhat more cryptic message: “One o’clock tonight.”

  What happens at one o’clock? Why, Doctor Mansfield is poisoned by a cigarette whose burning paper and ash form a purple hieroglyph (neat trick!). Ah, but Mansfield doesn’t immediately succumb; there’s still hope for him, Condon informs Staunton, because the poison is something called “Flower of Oblivion . . . one of the opium group” and there is “an absolute and positive antidote.”

  Mansfield weakly (and conveniently) claims to have the antidote in his rooms in Brooklyn, toxicology being his field of expertise, so they all rush out to Flatbush in a desperate attempt to save his life. When they arrive Mansfield uncorks a bottle filled with clear liquid, swallows the contents, and announces with relief, “Beat ’em! That—that will work like magic.” But he’s wrong. The canny villains have gotten there first and substituted water for the antidote: instead of being saved, the doctor keels over and Condon pronounces him defunct.

  The scene shifts back to Wyndale, the Baldwins’ Long Island estate, but not before Mansfield’s body mysteriously disappears and still another purple-hieroglyph note turns up. This one says: “Mr. Leonard Staunton is informed that in part because of his meddling in the affairs of the Society whose symbol is below, he will shortly receive the orders of the Society as to what sum he is to pay, and how he is to pay it. He is informed that it will do him no good to appeal to the police, and that if he behaves in an undesirable fashion, Miss Jeanne Baldwin will be executed to convince him of the necessity of obedience.”

  What to do, what to do? More cryptic messages. More anonymous telephone calls. More hand-wringing. What to do, what to do? Decision: Senator Baldwin calls in the “Federal Secret Service,” not to mention Captain Morgan, Lieutenant Condon, a passel of New York State troopers, and four private detectives—a small army to guard Wyndale from an invasion by the Society of the Purple Hieroglyph. One of the Feds says confidently, “You’re guarded, Senator, a good deal more carefully than the President of the United States.

  Sure. Right.

  Two more notes materialize, one demanding that Staunton appear at a pagoda on the estate grounds, where “the Head of the Society will appear before him and communicate to him the orders of the Society as to the sum he is to pay and the manner of its payment.” Before Leonard goes to the pagoda, while Condon is out prowling the grounds (where the Feds et al. are likewise on patrol), explosions and a fire occur inside the main house; everyone rushes in, thinking the Chinese villains have somehow managed to breach security, but of course it’s only a ruse to draw everyone’s attention away from the pagoda. When Staunton finally does go there he finds a bloodstained dagger, Condon’s cigar (but no sign of the lieutenant), and the inevitable purple hieroglyph.

  Still another communication instructs Staunton to bring five hundred thousand dollars to the last buoy of the Ambrose Channel outside New York Harbor and to do so by motorboat (as opposed to swimming, perhaps). Staunton reluctantly agrees. And Senator Baldwin reluctantly raises the dough.

  It is on the harbor, on a dark and stormy night, that the exciting climax takes place. A second speedboat approaches Staunton’s craft, occupied by three men. One of them, speaking in Chinese dialect, demands the money. But Staunton and Jack Baldwin have a surprise ready for them instead—a little magic of their own. It so happens that Jack (a naval officer, remember?) has convinced his commander to bring the S-35 submarine they’re serving on to the rendezvous. The sub looms up out of the water so fast that the three Chinese in the speedboat have no time to escape (some submarine!). Sailors and marines quickly capture them.

  And you’ll no doubt be flabbergasted, if not actually prostrated by amazement, to learn that the three men aren’t Chinese after all. “Unmasked now and standing shamefacedly in the bright electric light in the belly of the submarine . . . were Fitzhugh, Mansfield, and Condon—the three dead men, very much alive!” (Italics Leinster’s.)

  They were the ones leaving all the notes around for each other to find; they were the dastards behind the extortion scheme. Just the three of them. Three evil white guys masquerading as Celestials under the guise of a phony Society of the Purple Hieroglyph.

  Now you know why Leinster’s Yellow Peril recipe is so unique. What he so cunningly cooked up here is an Oriental-villain pie which does not contain a single Oriental villain!

  The main plot ingredients of Murder Will Out are not the only ones that make it such a savory dish. Leinster’s prose lends plenty of spice. For instance, there is his cauliflower ear for Chinese dialect:

  “We just sell Senator Baldwin li’l piecee porcelain of Pen-Ho, ma’am.”

  And his passion for adverbs to modify the word “said”—in particular the adverb “comfortably,” which he was fond of using in some rather curious contexts:

  Leonard said comfortably:

  “My bootlegger has committed a quite pardonable gin this time. I’ll get you a drink.”

  “A long cool drink is what you need,” said Leonard comfortably. “This weather is enough to make anybody nervous. It is hot as the devil!”

  “I’m on leave,” Condon added comfortably, “and this is not official business with me.”

  “I said,” said Condon comfortably, “that I had evidence. I found Mr. Fitzhugh’s body this morning.”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Staunton,” he said comfortably. “At what time did you come in?”

  “Do you realize,” he asked comfortably, “that both of us—you and I—have now attracted the attention of the Society of the Purple Hieroglyph?”

  Lieutenant Condon smiled drily.

  “Perhaps,” he said comfortably, “they think it will make it more difficult for us to interest the police.”

  “Why,” said Condon comfortably, “we’ve gone over the pagoda almost with microscopes. No one is hidden there.”

  And his (repetitive) descriptive powers:

  Over all the house a deep silence brooded, and over the wide-spreading gardens the infinite peacefulness of a summer night held sway. There was the chirping of innumerable insects, which formed a sustained shrill clamor without pause or alteration of tone. . . . The mutter of motor-cycle engines on the roadway outside was an anomaly, to be sure, but over the star-lit
garden paths small bats flitted noiselessly, and somewhere nearby a whipporwill repeated its unspeakably monotonous cry, and the stars in their course blinked and twinkled in their customarily inane fashion.

  Then the peace and quietness of Wyndale was shattered indeed. It seemed for a moment as if the shrubbery itself were on the move. The stars blinked down inanely at men running madly, desperately, toward the house.

  And his portrayal of young love:

  Leonard did kiss her. But the romantic rapture that had made them both so idiotically happy just before sundown was replaced by a tense anxiety which was no less romantic, but was much less comfortable.

  And finally, his perfect grasp of the setting of his story:

  The normal audience for the departure of a speedboat, the capsizing of a canoe, the irritated cranking of a motor, or any other diverting activity in this section [of New York City] is in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty people.

  And here I thought New Yorkers were blasé about everything. . . .

  Alternative classics by respected writers being as rare as they are, I’ll fill out this chapter with several “good gold” nuggets of various types and sizes.

  In the category of Fractured Similes and Metaphors:

  In spite of his weathered appearance he looked like a drinker. (Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake)

  Even Captain Woofer had excused their failure to keep the dates with Internal Affairs. But Captain Woofer was still monomaniacal, and would have gladly nailed a gold piece to the mast if he thought a reward would harpoon the swine who had been tormenting him so mercilessly. (Joseph Wambaugh, The Glitter Dome)

  And I think it’s interesting, if irrelevent, to note how a person out on the sidelines of a certain chain of events can make so great a dent in those events without even trying. (Max Allan Collins, The Baby Blue Rip-Off)

  My life was an ice floe that had broken up at sea, with the different chunks floating off in different directions. Nothing was ever going to come together, in this case or out of it. (Lawrence Block, Eight Million Ways To Die)

  Darius’ voice was tight as a drumhead, dripping bitterness like acid from a cracked battery. (George C. Chesbro, City of Whispering Stone)

  She pointed an arm as long as a windmill’s across to a yellow stucco house that in some odd disintegrated way looked not unlike herself. (Leslie Ford, Siren in the Night)

  It was a full summer in Boston and the heat sat on the city like a possessive parent. (Robert B. Parker, Taming a Seahorse)

  The category of Anatomical Oddities:

  She lay on her back, arms and legs akimbo. (Ed McBain, Ghosts)

  A quick smile shot through Thorne’s eyes. (Leslie Ford, Siren in the Night)

  Big Brennan, badge pinned to the light summer jacket over his cream-colored shirt, stood with his hands on his hips, gunbutt jutting, and pushed his Stetson back on his head. (Max Allan Collins, A Shroud for Aquarius)

  The category of Strange Phenomena:

  And with this he stopped short, mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, and polished the lenses of his pince-nez with absent fingers. (Ellery Queen, The French Powder Mystery)

  About him, the maple-wood furniture of suite seven stood shivering in the chill of a December morning. (Earl Derr Biggers, Seven Keys to Baldpate)

  The category of Author Omniscience:

  Staying out of the hot clutches of the Mafia might be the most difficult accomplishment of his checkered career, but if he could survive that cliche he might be able to outlast anything. (Leslie Charteris, Vendetta for the Saint)

  The category of Narrative Hooks, First-Sentence-of-a-Novel Division:

  Cyrus Hatch aroused himself. (Frederick C. Davis, Let the Skeletons Rattle)

  The category of Whacky Word Choices:

  Constable Lee had one of his shoes off and was thoughtfully pouring its boatload of water onto the floor. (William Marshall, Perfect End)

  “But we must first, while there is still time, exercise the malign being that is Gilles de Rais so that he can no longer menace the world of the living.” (Stuart Towne [Clayton Rawson], Death Out of Thin Air)

  The category of Specialized Knowledge, Handgun Division:

  [Lieutenant Freevich] had fired almost a complete round of ammunition. (Hugh Pentecost, The Steel Palace)

  The category of Unintentional Puns:

  “Plaza 3-7918,” Emily read aloud. “Henry, doesn’t that ring a bell?” (Margaret Scherf, The Green Plaid Pants)

  Then, once out of the town, there seemed to be nothing but the endless landscape of snow and trees, the occasional lorry, or a car heading back towards the last town, or great monster log-bearing trucks, lumbering in either direction. (John Gardner, Icebreaker)

  The category of Dubious Claims, Language Division:

  We spent the next few minutes discussing the fact that Miss Larsson was fascinated by private detectives because she’d learned English with the help of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. (George C. Chesbro, City of Whispering Stone)

  The category of Medical Marvels:

  [Cult leader] Simeon Taylor was killed—beheaded and left to die on a roadside in a Southern town. (Hugh Pentecost, Sow Death, Reap Death)

  The category of “Huh?”:

  She had a full bosom like a breastplate, looked at her watch impatiently. (Michael Collins, Freak)

  And finally, the category of Dream Sequences (and winner of the Pronzini Award for Best Alternative Nugget by a Major Writer):

  Gerald Whittaker dreamed he was standing in a muddy plain. It was smooth, dark gray ooze. The landscape was flat and even and empty, the sky sullen with fast rushing clouds. The clouds were gray too, a dirty gray with ragged fingers, and they came so close overhead he wanted to duck. And they came from behind, sweeping off to the far horizon, running away.

  Gerald Whittaker was all alone in his landscape. There was not so much as a broken sapling, not so much as a dried leaf. And a cold wind was wailing. He could hear it now, the hollow moaning that from time to time rose to a keening shrill of anger.

  The wind came from his rear too, and it drove the clouds like whip-lashed horses. (Hillary Waugh, Parrish for the Defense)

  9

  Confessions Of A B-Movie Junkie

  Bad alibi like dead fish—cannot stand test of time.

  —Charlie Chan in

  Charlie Chan in Panama, 1940

  Even now, automobile and assistants outside loaded for trip to distant city . . . uh, automobile loaded, not assistants.

  —Charlie Chan in

  Dark Alibi, 1946

  One of my shortcomings, as has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion, is that I have an addictive personality. I can’t do anything in moderation; overindulgence is my middle name. Give me one potato chip and I’ll eat the whole bag. Give me one alternative classic and pretty soon I’m not only wallowing in the things, I’m writing books about them.

  It’s no different with B-grade crime films from the thirties and forties. Many of which, if you didn’t already know it, are filmdom’s version of alternative classics. I’ve been hooked for years on those grainy, flickering, black-and-white Bs—in particular the ones featuring series sleuths: Mr. Moto. Torchy Blane. The Saint. The Falcon. Boston Blackie. The Crime Doctor.

  And Charlie Chan, the most insidiously addictive of them all.

  Ah, Charlie Chan. . . .

  I don’t remember the exact date I saw my first Chan film, though I do remember the title—Charlie Chan on Broadway—and that it was sometime during my impressionable, formative years. The willingness for experimentation was rife in me in those days; I had already had my first beer and my first unclean thought. So when a friend invited me to his house one afternoon while his parents and siblings were out, to try my first Chan, I accepted with nervous anticipation. We sat in his darkened living room, and for an hour and a half we tripped out on the combined effects of Warner Oland (the best of the screen Chans, who reprised his role sixteen times before
his untimely death in 1937), Keye Luke (Chan’s Number One Son Lee in eight early films), Douglas Fowley, William Demarest, Marc Lawrence, and Lon Chaney, Jr., in a brief but psychedelic walk-on. I marveled at Charlie’s wisdom, I giggled at Lee’s bumbling attempts to become a master detective like his father, I sat damp-palmed as the suspense built to its climax. I even guessed the identity of the murderer.

  I was hooked.

  At first, though, I could take Chan or leave him alone. He was plentiful in those days; you could get him just about any Saturday afternoon, and often on weekday evenings, too. Sometimes I would go three or four months without even wanting a fix, much less needing one. Still, on an average of one Saturday a month I would find myself cinematically stoned before the tube. I didn’t even mind the commercials; they only heightened the delicious anticipation at what lay ahead, the rush I would receive when, for example, the lights went out (as they often did in Chan films) and another corpse turned up.

  Then, in 1970, I moved to Europe to pursue my writing career, and for three years I did not see a single Chan film. Most of the time it wasn’t so bad; I had plenty of other things to occupy my time and my mind. Oh, I admit that I felt the craving now and then, and that on one trip to New York I became sulky and abusive when plans to watch Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo went awry. But all in all, those three years were not difficult. For I knew that someday I would move back to San Francisco, and that when I did Charlie and Lee and Number Two Son Jimmy and Birmingham Brown and all the rest would be waiting there for me.

  Only . . . they weren’t.

  Things had changed drastically in San Francisco during my absence. Minorities had gathered a unified strength and were being paid attention to by, among others, the program directors of the various television channels. The Chinese community felt that the Chan films were a sham, owing to the fact that the great Chinese detective had never once been portrayed by a Chinese. (The two Orientals who played him in silent films, George Kuwa and Kamiyama Sojin, were Japanese; all the others—E. P. Park, Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and Roland Winters—were Caucasians.) They felt that although Keye Luke, Victor Sen Yung (Jimmy), Benson Fong (Number Three Son Tommy), and Frances Chan (daughter Frances) were Chinese, the characters they played were little more than foils and buffoons, and that the Chinese way of life and thought were badly distorted by these depictions. And the black community felt that the antics of Birmingham Brown, as portrayed by Mantan Moreland, and of his cousin Chattanooga, as portrayed by Willie Best, were racial stereotyping at its most offensive. All with just cause, of course. They were right, the Chinese and the blacks, and never mind that the Chan films were a product of a different if less enlightened time and could be viewed by some of us as entertainment in spite of their shortcomings.