The Shamus Sampler II
The Shamus Sampler II
Collected and Edited by Jochem Vandersteen
Published by Sons of Spade
Copyright 2014
All rights reserved by individual authors
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of each author's respective imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Introduction by Timothy Hallinan
Bobby’s Bar by Graham Smith
Brain Mistrust by Will Viharo
With Cunning Wickedness by Peter DiChellis
Exceptions to the Rule by Phillip Thompson
IFHC by Mark Troy
Jimmy Jazz (A Joe Geraghty Story) by Nick Quantrill
The Season of Brotherly Love by Michael Koenig
Burned Down to the Heart by Gareth Spark
The Hard-Boiled Detective No. 3: Simeon Von Runck by Ben Solomon
The First Time He Smelled Fresh Death by Michael W. Clark
Voices by Nick Andreychuk
Zero Tolerance by Dana King
Girl Gone Wild by Jochem Vandersteen
Introduction
Not-So-Mean Streets
by
Timothy Hallinan
As Raymond Chandler, one of the primary inventors of the fictional private eye, put it, “Down these mean” (or not so mean) “streets” (superhighways, country lanes, dirt paths, ancient ley lines, virtual connections through cyberspace; blacktop or concrete in Asia, North America, South America, Scandinavia, Central and Southern Europe, Australia, you name it) “a man” (woman, 12-year-old-girl, oddly matched duo, Golden Retriever, computer chip, android) “must go, who is not himself mean,” (unless he or she is), “who is neither tarnished (unless he or she is) nor afraid” (unless he or she is). “He is the hero.” (Unless he or she isn't.)
What I'm trying to suggest with all these distracting interpolations is that the P.I.—probably the most durable of all literary prototypes—is in no danger of becoming obsolete, even 65 years after Chandler wrote those words. Rather, as our tastes in fiction have changed and broadened, the private eye has not only kept up with us but has, at times, outpaced us. You want realism? I got the private eye for you. You want noir? I got the private eye for you. You want cozy? You want 500 years in the future? You want Tudor England, Ming-Dynasty China, Freud's Vienna, Ancient Egypt, the world of dreams? You want virtual?
About the only thing I haven't seen yet is a multi-generational, personalized private eye novel in which the characters are drawn from the reader's own family tree and the action plays out in the reader's neighborhood. And how far off can that be? I could do it on my laptop.
The private eye, it would appear, is infinitely variable. He/she/it will apparently be with us as long as we write and read stories.
And why is that?
I've read a few scholarly attempts at explaining the mysterious (to scholars) enduring popularity of the detective story and the private eye. None of these explanations was vulgar enough to mention fun. Most scholars seem to possess a fun filter; they're completely unaware that for some people, reading is fun, and some kinds of books are more fun than others.
So before we even get to private eyes, let's look at why mysteries in general are so much fun.
A mystery (whether it's a private-eye novel or not) plants a question mark right at the beginning of the story. It may or may not be a coincidence that a question mark is shaped like a fish hook, but that hook grabs the reader and drags him or her over tens of thousands of words (if they're any good and the characters aren't marionettes) until the question is answered.
And by “the question,” I don't actually mean “Whodunnit.” “Whodunnit” is a pretty simple and somewhat dull question, one that can usually be answered with a single character's name or, if you're reading Murder on the Orient Express, all the characters' names. (Sorry about the spoiler.) The question, now that we've moved beyond the age in which the puzzle was all, is “What happens as we find out who dunnit? And what do we learn about the people in the story?”
And answering those questions is fun, but it can also engage us very seriously indeed.
From the dawn of written narrative – Homer in The Iliad, Cain and Abel in “Genesis,” Oedipus in Sophocles' “Oedipus the King,” or, for that matter, “Hamlet,” – writers have used violence and its aftermath to stretch characters thin, to turn their masks transparent and to to show the reader what's really at the character's core.
A murder, an act of violence, needs to be taken seriously. It affects people – obviously not just the victim, but those who loved the victim, who hated the victim, who envied the victim, who had his or her hopes pinned on the victim. Ultimately, since such acts have a ripple effect, people who never heard of the victim. An act of violence is an interruption of everything we planned for, all the assumptions we depended on. It's a disruption in the world. It makes it apparent that our hopes are predicated on expectations that may not be fulfilled, on rules that some people don't follow, on an instinctive belief in a prevailing, underlying justice that may not actually exist. An act of violence, a murder, creates a crisis. And what happens in a crisis is that character reveals itself.
So, reading a mystery, we're dragged by a question mark through a story in which people, under the pressure of a crisis, reveal, both to themselves and others, who they really are. And, at the end of the story, the disruption in the world that began the book is to some extent healed; order is restored.
And what the private eye brings to all of this is, first, a perspective – the perspective of someone who's seen the worst of people but still hopes for the best, who has been soaked in evil but isn't willing to let it stand, to let it become the status quo. In one regard, this represents all of us at our best; and one reason (I think) why so many private-eye novels are written in the first person is that the private eye stands in for the best in us, a sort of projection of how we try to behave in our own lives. By this I don't mean getting hit on the head by thugs or keeping a bottle of scotch in the desk drawer; I mean maintaining a kind of bruised and battered idealism, trying to lead a decent life, trying to be fair in our dealings with those we love and those we don't, finding courage when it's necessary and then letting our knees shake afterward. Somewhere inside, we are all Kinsey Millhone.
Another thing the private eye brings to the game is an increase in pressure. Force is heavier when it's trained on a single target. A woman who weighs 100 pounds and is foolish enough or sober enough to balance her weight on a single stiletto heel, will exert a pressure of 1600 pounds per square inch on someone's nice new hardwood floor. When the private eye ventures out onto that mean street – even if it's leafy and lined with knitting shops – he or she walks point as they say in the infantry, becomes the most visible target for the book's evil. This is why even in a police procedural or espionage novel, with a hundred characters and a whole organiz
ation available to confront the evil, the focus at the book's climax virtually always comes down to one person, stranded at the point of impact.
And finally, in a way that Chandler probably couldn't have anticipated, the private eye today represents the triumph of the individual. We live in a time when many people feel that they're essentially powerless, that the game is rigged, that money rules the world, that what we used to think of as political parties and branches of government—and even nations—have become brands, representing something they may not stand for, and no more honest and transparent in their dealings than the food industry or the oil companies or the CIA. That the enemy whom those men and women with the flags in their lapels spend our billions of tax dollars to kill may be peasants huddled in a hut.
This is the environment that nurtures noir, a form in which idealism is a vaudeville joke and redemption is a broken promise, and different standards apply to the noir writer and even the noir private eye. But this is also the environment that's given rise to those of us who don't subsist exclusively on noir (which after all, is just another viewpoint) and who turn to the private eye story to remind ourselves us that an individual who possesses courage, intelligence, and conviction can make a difference, at least on the everyday level, which is, of course, the level on which most of us live.
So I think we'll continue to turn to private eyes, to see our world through their eyes, to imagine ourselves from time to time taking the wheel of our own destiny and helping others while we're at it. Heroism. On a good hair day.
*****
Timothy Hallinan is the Edgar, Macavity, and Lefty-nominated author of sixteen published novels. He lives in Los Angeles and Bangkok and sets a series of novels in each city. In July of 2014, his fourth Junior Bender mystery, Herbie's Game, will be published by Soho Crime. In November of the same year, Soho will issue Hallinan's sixth Poke Rafferty Bangkok thriller, For the Dead.
Bobby’s Bar
by
Graham Smith
Graham Smith returns to the Shamus Sampler with another exciting short but sweet story which seems to come directly out of Black Mask Magazine.
I was sitting in my office reliving the day’s events, with a bottle of beer when Young Jimmy burst in. ‘Mr Peters, can you come quickly. Uncle Bobby needs you.’
Easing my tired frame from the chair I reached over and grabbed my hat from its usual resting place on top of my battered Remington. Typing was not my forte and I usually talked the dame from the neighbouring office into doing a little extra-curricular work whenever I needed to draft up a report or a bill.
‘What is it Jimmy? What’s wrong?’
‘He didn’t tell me why he wanted you. He just said to get you at once.’
‘Run and tell him I’m on my way.’
I wanted to walk in peace so I could clear out the debris from my mind before a new challenge presented itself, and with his habit of chattering nervously when taken from his own comfort zone, Young Jimmy would only provide distraction. He wasn’t the brightest flame in the fire, but he was fiercely loyal to his uncle and could tend bar with the best of them. His one spark of intelligence was a fantastic numerical advantage. You could order ten drinks at once and he’d know the price before you’d finished speaking. He was also a whiz at counting stock for Bobby when he was making up his beer orders.
Walking into the bar I nodded to Mikey who was standing by the door rather than at his usual station behind the bar. I took a long look around to see if I could identify the problem without being told. Everything looked as normal, from the fug of cigarette smoke hiding the ceiling and far corners, to the quiet sounds of schmucks drinking themselves stupider.
Bobby’s wasn’t the kind of place you’d find luxury and opulence; it was the kinda joint where misery and bitterness dominated. It wasn’t a pickup joint or a hangout for the young and trendy, instead it was filled with serious drinkers who only wanted the kind of company that came in a bottle. The floor was covered with ceramic tiles and there was a supply of sawdust behind the bar, ready to dry up any bodily fluids which escaped from the barely conscious drinkers.
‘Thanks for coming so quickly Leonard.’
Bobby had known I would come to his aid at once. That’s why he sent for me. We’d known each other since we’d been sent on a tour of Europe by Uncle Sam. For eighteen hellish months we’d lived and fought side by side until peace was restored across the battlefields of World War Two. Neither of us talked about those days to anyone but each other.
‘What’s wrong?’ I repeated my earlier question to someone who could provide an answer.
‘Annie’s been stabbed.’ The words hung between us like a damp hammock.
Annie was Young Jimmy’s mother. I’d walked out with her on more than one occasion since her husband succumbed to cancer last year.
‘Is she okay?’
Bobby didn’t answer me verbally, but his damp eyes and shaking head gave me all the answer I needed.
‘I need to deal with this myself. No police. No investigation other than yours. No justice but my own.’
Vigilantism wasn’t something I would normally condone, but Bobby was the man who saved my life. The man who poured me out of the bottle I’d inhabited after the war. The man who was closer to me than the brother I’d watched breathe his last in a French military hospital.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Before he could answer I raised my hand to stop him. I knew what he wanted me for. The sign on my office door says Private Investigator, and here was the best friend I’d ever had, in need of someone to investigate. Privately.
‘Silly question. Now where was Annie found? Who by? And was there any other signs of violence or robbery?’ As an afterthought I added the most concerning question. ‘Have you told Young Jimmy yet?’
‘I found her in my office. She’s still there.’ He looked up at me with distress written all over his weathered face. ‘How am I gonna tell him his Momma’s gone too?’
I couldn’t give him the answer he needed, so I simply shrugged and made my way through the bar, past the barflies and around the latest puddle on the floor. I went to open the door to Bobby’s office only to find he’d had the wherewithal to lock the door.
Bobby had followed me and he thrust a key in my hand before walking back to the bar. He didn’t want to see his sister again. Not the way I found her. Facedown in a pool of her own blood. A bloody knife sticking from her back.
I stood next to the body, careful to keep my brogues clear of her scarlet plasma. Bending down I could see that there were a number of wounds on her back. They were partly obscured by the blood which had turned her blouse crimson. As I examined her lifeless body, I could see that the marks spoke of a savage and angry killer. I knew without looking to see if the safe had been emptied, that I wasn’t dealing with a robbery gone wrong.
This was murder, planned and premeditated. Yet carried out in a frenzied rage.
Next I turned my attention to the knife. Half of the blade still protruded and the serrated edge spoke to me of domestic style. Not a bread knife or a paring knife. More the kind of knife you’d you use to carve a Thanksgiving turkey. Nine inches of jagged vicious steel.
This was very informative. Domestic knives were used by women, usually on errant husbands, but they were the housewives’ knife of choice when a weapon was needed. Men on the other hand preferred either a straight razor or the flickknives you saw gangsters using in the movies.
The other thing that struck me was the way that the majority of the wounds inflicted were on the left hand side of Annie’s body, to my mind that gelled with a left handed assailant. Also the blade was positioned in Annie’s heart with the cutting edge nearest her side; again this indicated a left handed person as nobody holds a knife with the blade turned inwards towards their own stomach.
I locked the door behind me and made my way back to the bar. Despite being deep in thought, a subconscious part of me spotted a symmetry about the bar I’d never noticed before.
>
The main bar jutted out from the back wall and on one side you had the gents and a storeroom while on the other side was the ladies and the office. Typically the bar was populated at each end by the sexes according to the restrooms.
Calling Young Jimmy over, I asked him if any of the guys had been near the ladies restrooms. He answered in typically guileless fashion that the only man who’d been down that end was his Uncle Bobby. Although one of the guys had been across to retrieve an errant pool ball which had bounced off the table.
‘How long was he down there for Jimmy?’
‘Less than a minute. He just got the ball and went back to the game.’
I went across to Mikey and Bobby who were at the door with the dual purpose of preventing patrons from either leaving or entering. I asked them the same question and they both gave the same answer, although I believed the dim but observant Jimmy’s recollection more.
‘Who are the two broads in the corner Bobby?’
‘Margaret Negri and Lillian Brokaw. A couple of party girls who’ll do a turn if you buy them drink all night. Why do you ask?’
I didn’t give him his answer. Instead I probed him about Annie’s relationship with all the dames who were in the bar. Once he’d replied, I went back to talk to Young Jimmy. Getting different information from him I went over to speak to the two broads.
‘Not tonight sugar. I’m busy getting me a headache for tomorrow.’ The words a drunken slur from a twisted mouth.
‘Never you mind Margaret. I’ll look after you, provided of course you buy me a few drinks.’
‘I’m spoken for I’m afraid.’ My unthinking reply was spoken before I realised this was no longer true. ‘What I want from you ladies is a little information.’
I placed a bottle of gin on the table and indicated that they help themselves. One by one they poured themselves a full glass and drank heartily before looking at me for permission to help themselves again. A nod sent their hands snaking for the bottle. Once they’d filled their glasses I made my excuses and went to talk to the next two of the three remaining dames.
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