Son of Gun in Cheek

by Bill Pronzini

  Then Laurel/Laura/Laurette, who has herself been placed in a hypnotic trance, is ordered by the strange disembodied voice to put on the green scarf blindfold, which she does and which causes her to scream and fall down dead. Whereupon everyone scurries about in a frenzy, until Raymond goes out into those same damn bushes and with no struggle at all puts the arm on Mrs. Williams, the mysterious woman who made the earlier appearance decked out like a horse show patron. Only Mrs. Williams isn’t really a woman at all but a guy in drag, and not just any guy but René, he of the Dance of the Green Mask with Laurette/Laurel/Laura in the Green Room of the Parisian Something-or-other who was betrayed by Laura/Laurette/Laurel but who miraculously managed to escape the Nazi firing squad so he could come to Central City and wreak his revenge.

  The final scene takes place in the “autopsy room” of the morgue, where the kindly old coroner tells Terry and Jane and Bill Raymond that Laura/Laurette/Laurel was literally scared to death. Laurel/Laura/Laurette’s corpse doesn’t have any comment to make on this, her voice-over narration having ended abruptly about two-thirds of the way through the picture, just before René/Mrs. Williams started his voice-over narration. More of the same weird music, up and out. The End.

  Voilá!

  No, not quite. To absorb the full flavor of Scared to Death, you must experience some of W. J. Abbott’s splendiferous dialogue. Here are a few of the more interesting lines and exchanges.

  LAURA: I know what’s going on here. Someone’s trying to scare me out but it won’t work, see? Here I am and here I’ll stay until I rot.

  DR. VAN EE (cryptically): I’m afraid there’s more truth in that than you might expect.

  LEONIDE (upon meeting Bill Raymond): Sir, there is an air of inquiry about you that immediately offends my deepest nature. There’s something suggesting Scotland Yard, the French Sureté, the Italian carabinieri, the Turkish polizei. In short, sir, I think you’re a cop!

  LEONIDE (to Ward): My boy, trouble and I are (pregnant pause while he holds up two entwined fingers) like this!

  LEONIDE (mugging fiercely in an off-angle closeup): Laurette, Laurette . . . I’ll make you a bet . . . the man in green will get you yet!

  BILL (bursting into Laura’s bedroom after hearing her scream): To the rescue, ma’am! Who done it? Which way’d he go?

  LAURA: Get out! Get out!

  BILL: I just heard you yell. I was hoping it was a murder, at least.

  LAURA: Get out of here! You have no business here!

  BILL: But you don’t understand. I’m supposed to be here. That’s what I’m being paid for. You see, I’m Bill Raymond, private cop in this neck of the woods. I was hoping we’d have a little murder or something happen around here so’s I could solve it and get my old job back at Central Homicide. Nothin’ personal, of course.

  LAURA: You and Mr. Ward are pretty thick, aren’t you?

  LILLY BETH: Thick?

  LAURA: Yes—like your head!

  BILL: Dere I was . . . outside her room, minding my own business . . . listening at the keyhole—

  DR. VAN EE: I don’t think that falls into the realm of your duties here, Raymond.

  BILL: But Doc, there was screams inside. You gotta admit it’s within the longitude of my profession to make an investigatory reaction thereto. . . . Jeez, what am I sayin’?

  TERRY (to Jane): Baby, I’m gonna miss you an awful lot when I grow tired of you.

  BILL (soliloquizing when he thinks Lilly Beth is dead): Poor Lilly Beth. I kind of hinted that I needed a murdered body, but . . . gee, I didn’t think she’d take it personal.

  LEONIDE (to Dr. Van Ee): My dear Joseph, the principle of hypnosis isn’t as simple as you would make them believe. It requires long and patient study. But I will risk the wrath of the unknown . . . and use my great knowledge.

  TERRY. Think hard, now. You saw a green mask—

  JANE: OO! It came out of the wardrobe.

  TERRY Like a moth?

  JANE (claps her hands): Yes, darling, just like a moth! Aw, how clever of you! It was just like a great big moth . . . (Pirouettes gaily) . . . and it flew around and around and around—

  TERRY Please! Don’t make yourself any dizzier than you already are.

  I can’t help wondering: What would Charlie Chan have made of all this enlivened nonsense?

  “Man who hook self on alternative classics,” he might have said, “like Number One Son who have hallucinations he is great detective. Even small mind terrible thing to waste.”

  10

  Titles, Anyone?

  Death Takes a Stroll Down Memory Lane

  Murder Invites Some Friends Over for a Few Beers

  —Mythical titles

  I wish someone had used

  Have you ever noticed how many dumb titles there are on mystery and suspense novels?

  The history of the genre is littered with them. Most are of unimpressive dumbness, to be sure, but there are some that achieve alternatively zany heights. This being the case, it seems to me there ought to be a small display of these, too, in the Alternative Hall of Fame annex. That’s one of the benefits of creating your own hall of fame. You can put any damn thing in it you want.

  Many of the outstanding dumb titles appear on criminous works published in the thirties and forties; and in turn many of these begin with the word “death” or the word “murder.” Back in those days, publishers were insistent upon mysteries looking and sounding like mysteries, so that potential readers wouldn’t mistake one for, say, a treatise on the mating habits of the Mediterranean fruit fly. They and their editors wanted mystery titles to be simple, colorful, provocative—even to the point of employing sometimes outrageous puns. Therefore they used (and overused) such words as “corpse,” “blood,” “case” (as in The Case of the Beckoning Dead), “clue,” “riddle,” “secret,” “terror,” “sinister,” “mystery,” “death,” and especially “murder” (which S. S. Van Dine reportedly once nominated as the strongest word in the English language).

  But there are only so many ways to incorporate such words into a short and colorful title, at least insofar as keeping the title within the bounds of literacy. As a result, some authors and editors let themselves get carried away to ridiculous extremes in their search for a catchy title. Such as in anthropomorphizing “Death” and “Murder”—endowing each with physical and vocal abilities that, instead of hooking the reader, can inspire a comic reaction in the mind of one such as yours truly.

  This is what I mean:

  Death Goes Window Shopping. (Looking for layaway plans?)

  Murder Joins the Chorus. (One, two, three, kick. One, two, three, kick.)

  Death Plays the Gramophone. (Golden Oldies like “Lights Out,” “A Scythe Is Just a Scythe,” and “Cruisin’ Down the River Styx.”)

  Murder Does Light Housekeeping. (But I’ll bet it doesn’t do windows.)

  Death Serves An Ace. (And John McEnroe throws another on-court tantrum.)

  Murder Goes to College. (Where it shoots off its mouth and graduates Magnum Come Louder.)

  Death Tears a Comic Strip. (No sense of humor.)

  Murder Seeks an Agent. (“I got this little image problem, see, and I thought maybe you could arrange some positive PR . . . ”)

  Death Turns a Trick. (The Unhappy Hooker.)

  Murder Greets Jean Holton. (“Hi there. What’s your sign?”)

  Death Takes the Bus; Death Drives; Death Rides a Train; Death Rides a Sorrel Horse; Death Rides a Camel. (Fear of flying?)

  Murder Gives a Lovely Light. (By flicking its Bic?)

  Death Wears a Copper Necktie. (Tacky, tacky.)

  Murder Has No Tongue. (A mute point.)

  Death Stops the Manuscript. (From doing what?)

  Murder Makes Us Gay. (Gee, I always thought it was either genetics or personal preference.)

  Death Kicks a Pebble. (No bucket handy?)

  Murder Makes a Man. (“Behold, Igor! Now all we need is a living brain!”)

  Death Paints a Pictu
re. (Free-hand or by-the-numbers?)

  Murder Leaves a Ring. (In the bathtub? Around the collar?)

  Death Calling—Collect. (“No, operator, I will not accept the charges!”)

  Murder Plays an Ugly Scene. (Break a leg, Murder.)

  Death Wears Pink Shoes, Death Wears Red Shoes, Death Wore Gold Shoes. (“So what do you think, Imelda? Shall we try on just a few more pairs?”)

  Murder Rents a Room. (“Don’t you have anything with southern exposure?”)

  Death Designs a Dress. (Shroud control?)

  Murder Was My Neighbor. (There goes the damn neighborhood.)

  Death Takes the Joystick. (Everybody’s doing drugs these days, it seems.)

  Murder Lays a Golden Egg. (Thus pissing off the goose, who figured he had a lock on the job.)

  Death in the Fifth Position. (Best argument I’ve ever heard for sticking with the missionary position.)

  Corpses, too, have come in for titular abuse from overzealous writers and editors. As in the following:

  The Corpse Spells Danger. (“D-a-n-g-e-r. Not bad for a dead guy, huh?”)

  The Corpse That Spoke; The Corpse That Talked; The Corpse That Walked; The Corpse That Traveled. (Iwish I had half as much pep and vitality.)

  Corpse de Ballet. (Oh yeah? Let’s see one do a pas de deux.)

  The Corpse Came C.O.D. (“Mabel, you been out shopping again? There’s a delivery guy here with the biggest damn package . . .”)

  Corpse for a Client. (‘‘Listen, mister, I’m not a mind reader. I can’t help you if you’re gonna sit there looking deadpan.”)

  The Corpse in the Camera. (Not only a clever hiding place, but an amazing feat of personal engineering.)

  A Corpse for Kofi Katt. (Krazy’s sister?)

  Corpse in Handcuffs. (Insult to injury.)

  The Corpse in the Cab. (“I don’t care what your problem is, bud, you pay the goddamn fare or you don’t get out of this hack.”)

  The Corpse in the Elevator. (“Going up? What floor, please?”)

  The Corpse Moved Upstairs. (And good riddance, too.)

  The Corpse on the Flying Trapeze. (“Oh, look, George! Look! He’s not even going to use a safety net!”)

  The Corpse Came Calling. (“You don’t mind my dropping in like this, do you? It’s just that I’ve been dying for a cup of coffee.”)

  The Corpse Is Indignant. (And who’s got a better right to be?)

  The Corpse Said No. (“And I meant it, too. You just have no sense of timing . . .”)

  And here are the worst of the rest, including some of the more interestingly silly pun titles.

  All Killers Aren’t Ugly. (Nope. Some are cute as lace pants.)

  Another Mug for the Bier, Bier for a Chaser, Three Short Biers. (Come to think of it, I’ll have a Heineken.)

  Baby Don’t Love Hoodlums. (She don’t love good grammar, neither.)

  Blood for Breakfast. (I prefer toast and coffee, myself.)

  Brain Drain, Brainfire, Brainwrack. (What you get from reading too much alternative fiction.)

  Breath of Murder. (A condition even Listerine can’t cure.)

  Clean, Bright, and Slightly Oiled. (Me on Saturday night.)

  Don’t Just Stand There, Do Someone. (The author of this title, preferably.)

  The End of the Mildew Gang. (Spring cleaning in the underworld?)

  Enter the Corpse; Enter Two Murderers; Enter Three Witches. (Exit Pronzini.)

  Felo de Se? (“Hell, no! What are you, some kind of pervert?”)

  The Fifth Must Die! (I’ll drink to that.)

  Flash of Splendour. (“That’s what he called it, officer. I call it just plain disgusting.”)

  The Girl with the Dynamite Bangs. (And a short fuse to go with them?)

  Honey, Here’s Your Hearse! (“It’s very nice, dear, but . . . well, I was hoping for something a little smaller and sportier . . .”)

  I’ll Fry Yet. (Vow made by a fired short-order cook.)

  In the Grip of the Dragon. (Tong-tied?)

  It Always Rains on Sunday; He Hanged His Mother on Monday. (Well, that explains it.)

  It’s Always Too Late To Mend. (Darn it.)

  Justice Peeps Over the Handkerchief. (So that’s what that blindfold really is—life’s snotty noserag.)

  Kill Him Quickly, It’s Raining. (“And I forgot to roll up the windows in the car.”)

  Lady, Shed Your Head. (“I’d rather garage it instead, if you don’t mind.”)

  Last Rites for the Vulture. (But his family will carrion without him.)

  The Mind Benders; The Mind Killers; The Mind Poisoners. (Those in charge of network TV programming.)

  The Mouse Who Wouldn’t Play Ball. (Another greedy jock looking to renegotiate his contract.)

  The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes. (Hemorrhoids?)

  Poisoned Fang. (What happened to Phyllis Diller’s husband.)

  Rope for an Ape. (Monkey business.)

  She Ain’t Got No Body. (So how can she hold her head up in public?)

  Softly Dust the Corpse. (Heloise’s Household Hint #1763.)

  Stiffs Don’t Vote. (No, but some stiffs get voted for.)

  The Swinger Who Swung by the Neck. (Gallows humor.)

  The Thing That Made Love. (“Oh, mother, it was awful! I’ll never, never go out on another blind date as long as I live!”)

  Vegetable Duck. (Quacked corn?)

  What To Do Until the Undertaker Comes. (Take a nap, watch TV, play Trivial Pursuit, read an alternative classic. . . .)

  11

  Hail To The Chief!

  But in that flying, fleeting instant, I got the message.

  The urgent telegram. The Red Alert. The Forget-Me-Not.

  The SOS. The May Day.

  The Change of Heart. The Reversal of Motive . . .

  I’ve changed my mind, Helen Friday’s eyes said.

  —Michael Avallone,

  The Hot Body, 1973

  There are notable alternative writers, and outstanding alternative writers, and great alternative writers.

  And then there is Michael Avallone.

  Avallone: The Fastest Typewriter in the East. Avallone: Author of some 220 novels from 1953 to the present, nearly all of which are paperback originals. Avallone: Creator of Ed Noon, private eye extraordinaire. He’s the greatest of them all by a wide margin. The giant among giants.

  The top of the heap.

  The nonpareil.

  The chief.

  Nobody else can touch him, not even with a ten-foot pole.

  Or any other cliché.

  What makes Avallone number one, numero uno, the leader of the pack? What makes him the Alternative Writer of the Century? Lots of things. All the reasons there are.

  And then some.

  He is the patriarch of point-belaboring.

  The master of the malaprop.

  The overload of wonderful one-liners.

  The nabob of non sequiturs.

  The savant of silly similes.

  The sultan of screwy said substitutes.

  The Amazon of absurd alliteration.

  The captain of cliché.

  The duke of the daffy, the powerhouse of the preposterous, the Hercules of the haphazardly hilarious.

  In other words, the one to be reckoned with.

  The Big Guy.

  You can’t read an Avallone novel without finding a plot of high alternative standards and at least a dozen passages of such alternative brilliance that they sparkle like gold fillings in the molars of a mess of small-time mugs. Dialogue, description, introspection, action, reaction, and the sock finish—he can do it all.

  And he does.

  Every time.

  Some of those times he outdoes himself, usually when he’s dealing with one of his favorite subjects.

  Baseball.

  Old movies.

  Patriotism and/or right-wing politics.

  Breasts.

  Nobody writes about breasts the way Avallone does, with such flair, such rev
erence, such passion. Not that he neglects thighs, of course. Or calves. Or hips.

  Or faces.

  Eyes, nose, cheeks, lips. Even ears. Described lovingly, eloquently, innovatively.

  The feminine phiz in all its glory.

  The fact of the matter is, Avallone likes dames. And so does Ed Noon. Beautiful dames with big bazooms. Especially glamorous beautiful dames with big bazooms, such as Hollywood and Broadway actresses, fashion designers, and the wives (and mistresses) of important politicians, not excluding an expresident.

  Ed Noon is very horny private richard. The horniest. But that isn’t all he is, not by a long shot. On the contrary and au contraire.

  He’s also as tough as they come—a red-blooded, fast-shooting, wisecracking, ball-busting PI in the grand tradition of Spade and Marlowe and Mike Hammer. There’s no situation he can’t handle. No obstacle he can’t overcome. He’s seen it all, done it all.

  He’s been there and he knows the score.

  When to throw the high hard one and when to whip in a roundhouse curve or the old changeup.

  When to hit-and-run and when to pull the straight steal.

  When to swing for the fences and when to lay down a sacrifice bunt.

  When to crap and when to get off the pot.

  In the early days of his career, back in the McCarthy era, Noon was a loner working out of his “mouse auditorium” of an office on West Fifty-sixth Street in Manhattan. Later on he acquired larger, spiffier offices on West Forty-fourth, as well as a beautiful black secretary with big bazooms named Melissa Mercer. (Wait a minute. The big bazooms aren’t named Melissa Mercer. That’s the secretary’s name. The big bazooms don’t have a name, other than big bazooms and a lot of euphemisms that mean big bazooms.) Melissa taught him about civil rights, not that he was ever prejudiced against people of the Negro persuasion. He even took Melissa as a lover to prove that he isn’t prejudiced.