crime factory september 2010

For
David
Thompson
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
THE LINE UP
CRIME
FACTORY
VOL.2
NO.5
SIX-FIFTY OR TWO-FORTY: The
Garry Disher interview
...Andrew Nette
...Page 07
THE SCORE
...One Dead Hen by Charlie
...Page 19
Williams
TOUGH GUYS AND DEADLY DAMES:
British Gangster Digests
...Gary Lovisi
‘SAD JANITOR’ Short Story Competition Winners
...Page 28
...Page 41
NERD OF NOIR
...Peter Dragovich
SHIFT WORK: A Double Hit of
Victor & Sheila
...Page 54
...Page 61
...Libby Cudmore
03
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
THE LINE UP
CRIME
FACTORY
VOL.2
NO.5
THE CZAR OF NOIR: The Eddie
Muller interview
...Page 70
...Eric Beetner
TEMP WORK: Fiction
...Ruttan/Brazill/Seen/
Funk/Weagly/Godwin/Rohrbacher/
Winter/Blackmoore
...Page 77
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
...Reviews
by
The
Crime
Factory
...Page 152
WEB:
FOREMEN:
...Ashley/José/Rawson
DESIGN:
...José/Ashley
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CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
“There’s
nothing in
you now.”
-Westlake
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Six-Fifty or Two-Forty
The Garry Disher interview
Garry Disher is a veteran of the Australian crime-writing scene. He
is the author a series of books featuring the professional hold-up
man known as Wyatt. Disher wrote six Wyatt novels in the nineties
and the seventh was released by Text Publishing to widespread acclaim, and recently took the top prize at the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards.
He has also authored a series of books featuring Hal Challis and
Ellen Destry, two police working on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsular, about an hour’s drive southeast of Melbourne, where Disher also
lives. Andrew Nette caught up with him to talk about the difference
between writing hard-boiled characters and police procedurals, why
after over a ten-year break he decided to write another Wyatt book
and the state of crime fiction in Australia
v
07
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
It’s been over 10 years since
Are you surprised by the posi-
the last Wyatt book, Fallout, in
tive reaction to the latest Wy-
1997. Why the break and what in-
att book?
spired you to give Wyatt another
outing after such a long time?
I’m always surprised by positive
reactions. When I read reviews
The break was to try and get es-
that are positive I always think
tablished with the new series of
it’s not me, it’s another guy
police procedurals, the Challis
that I am reading about.
and Destry books, which for me
was a completely different way
of looking at plot and structure. I wanted a break from Wyatt because there was basically
one book a year and I thought I
might get stale on them.
There are a number of rea-
sons why I came back to Wyatt.
I’d
often
go
to
festivals
or
give talks in libraries and people would come up to me and say
‘when are you going to bring back
Wyatt,’ so I have a sense of a
readership for him out there.
At the same time I was getting
tired of the police procedurals
I was writing, so when my German
publisher said we are about to
publish number six have you got
a seventh in the wing for us, I
thought, well, yeah, it was a
good time to write another Wyatt.
One of the things I thought you
did so well in the latest Wyatt
is way you created a sense of an
old school heist guy who is out
of his time and place in a high
08
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
-tech society. The modern world
wrong,
is really pressing in on him and
what the Parker books were about
the atmosphere in the book is
too. What is it about this genre
very
of crime fiction that works so
claustrophobic.
That
was
obviously a conscious decision?
which
the
Richard
Stark
nov-
els and I liked the remote and
essentially
well?
It was in the sense that I’d
read
is
“If we are
learning too
much about
amoral nature of his character
him, he’s be-
Parker. I didn’t want to create
some sort of James Bond charac-
coming too
ter who is always charming to
vulnerable.”
women, ready with a quick quip
and good with cars. His roots
are working class and if he happened to be very good at bypassing electronic security systems, then that would mean that
I would have to do a hell of a
lot of research on how you do
that and then I would have keep
up to date with the technology. Then there’s the question of
how I make that interesting in
a book, so I went with the idea
of the old-style heist guy. He
relies on experts occasionally,
but usually they betray him or
something like that.
On one level all the Wyatt books
have
been
about
a
heist
gone
Well, there is always the promise that it might go right for a
Wyatt or a Parker. There’s also
the tension of the actual crime,
and
when
it
falls
apart
when
he robs a bank or whatever and
things go wrong. Can Wyatt retrieve the situation? Can he get
the money back? Can he find out
who betrayed him? That’s where
the tension lies. Wyatt finding
out where it has gone wrong and
how he is going to get his revenge or get the money back or
both.
Donald
Westlake
meant
the
about
“a
Process,
said
Parker
workman
that
books
at
mechanics,
to
he
be
work”.
trouble
09
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
shooting, sometimes of a very
sort of background is about as
technical
much as I am prepared to pro-
nature
dominate
his
books, which is why some people
say they have so few parallels.
Was it hard to write a character
that was, in a sense, an homage to Parker without it being
a parody?
It required a lot of thinking
through. After I had read the
Parker books I had to forget him
and Wyatt had to be my character.
Part of that was deciding not to
know too much about him. If we
knew who his mum and sister were
and that he had favourite teacher in grade five or his old man
used to beat him up, suddenly we
are learning too much about him,
he’s becoming too vulnerable.
At the same time, I give
little clues about his past. In
his latest book, for example, he
is helping Lydia wash her hair
and suddenly thinks, did I ever
do this? Did a mother or sister ever do it for me? It gives
him a feeling of tenderness that
he’s not used to and he’s back-
vide.
That
was
a
fascinating
thing
about the recent book, you give
us absolutely no back-story for
what Wyatt has done in the last
decade and it works fantastically.
That was a conscious decision.
If there’s too much background
too early in a book, I think
you loose your readers. It was
enough to hint that things went
wrong and he had to go away for
a while.
Do you have a favourite Parker
novel?
I think it’s too long since I’ve
read them. I bought them all one
by one about 10 or 15 years ago
and have told myself I should
read them again. I do remember
the first one in particular and
I’ve seen the film that Lee Marvin was in, Point Blank. I also
saw the Mel Gibson remake of that
film but it was terrible.
ing away from it but at the same
Is there going to be another Wy-
time acknowledging it. But that
att book?
10
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
big houses clustered along the
canals. I took the kids out on a
little motorboat and went up and
down the canals and I could see
Wyatt doing that. Casing these
places, figuring out when they
are empty. Whether the next book
is set there, however, I don’t
know.
What crime fiction are you enjoying reading at the moment?
I have just been re-reading the
Martin
Beck
police
procedur-
als by the Swedish husband-andwife team, Maj Sjowall and Per
Wahloo. There are ten of them,
first published in the ‘sixties
Yes, I think I need to follow up
with another.
Any clues where you might be going with him, because as I said
earlier, you have sort of backed
him into a corner?
Yes, well, that is part of cranking up the tension. I don’t know
what I will do as a backdrop
to the next one. For the last
couple of years we have gone to
Noosa for school holidays and
my first impressions were those
and early ‘seventies, and recently republished. The authors
were both communists and critical of welfare state Sweden,
how poverty leads to crime and
how Sweden was becoming a police
state. They are good stories,
good yarns, but there’s a lot
of
social
commentary
threaded
through them too. I have also
been re-reading some novels by
the American writer John Sandford, his Davenport novels. He’s
a sneaky plotter, I admire him
11
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
greatly. I have a large stack
in a small regional town, not
of books by the bed including
another big anonymous city and
the third Stieg Larsson, which I
they have an ensemble caste and
haven’t read yet.
deal with major alongside minor
The books about the two police,
Challis and Destry, are the fo-
ones, just as you’d expect in a
regional setting.
cus of your other crime series.
You said they were a different
way of looking at plot and structure. Why did you feel the need
to change your style of writing
from the Wyatt books?
I felt there was a danger of getting repetitive with the Wyatt
books because they follow a certain pattern, and I think writers have to keep pushing their
boundaries and try new structural forms and approaches.
“I have certainly bumped up
the crime rate
there.”
They are set on the Mornington
I’d been reading a lot of
the police procedurals of the
English
writer,
John
Harvey,
around a character called Inspector Resnick and what I liked
about them are that they are set
Peninsula. Is there a bit of a
dark underbelly there?
I have certainly bumped up the
crime
rate
there,
the
murder
rate in particular.
I didn’t know where I would
12
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
set these books but when I moved
Can you talk a bit more about
down to the Mornington Peninsu-
the different mindset you have to
la, the serial killer John Paul
apply to writing the Challis and
Denyer had recently abducted and
Destry books as opposed to the
murdered three young women near
Wyatt series?
Frankston. I went into the deli
near Hastings one day and heard
some mothers of teenage daughters talking about their fears,
and how their lives had changed
in
order
to
chaperone
their
daughters everywhere, and I had
this strong sense of community
anxiety. I knew then that the
Peninsula was a good community
to write about.
When I read the local news-
papers, I do get a sense of a society under strain a bit. There
is
a
shortage
of
police.
The
population is growing and services don’t keep up. There are
not enough primary schools for
the kids that are moving in. All
of these things interest me, as
does the tension and the gap between rich and poor on the Peninsula. I don’t want to beat the
The Wyatt novels have a simple
structure.
Wyatt
identifies
a
target, he gets a robbery crew
together if necessary, something
goes wrong and he has to put it
right. The plotting at that level is quite simple.
With the Challis and Destry
police procedurals I needed to
stay
more
consciously
a
step
ahead of the reader and try to
trick the reader in the sense of
planting clues and having multiple plot threads. At the same
time I am weaving in aspects of
the characters’ personal lives
or workplace tensions or whatever it may be. So there are quite
a few more balls in the air.
In terms of writing, are you a
planner
or
do
you
just
start
writing?
reader over the head with it but
I’m a planner. An extreme plan-
it is present as a layer in all
ner. I identify what the main
the Challis and Destry books.
crime might be and what the social milieu might be that it takes
13
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
place in. Once I have identi-
them on the Australian market
fied the crime and where it might
and I couldn’t really think of
be, then I work out who did it.
any. It’s very different to the
I might know from the start who
US market where there’s a much
did it, in which case I have to
bigger publishing industry just
work out how they did it, how it
focusing
unfolds and how the police might
and pulp crime fiction. Obviously
investigate it.
there is the question of size,
So you have pretty much plotted
out the entire book by the time
you have sat down to start writing?
Yes, chapter-by-chapter, sceneby-scene, trying to balance the
demands of character traits and
personality with those of a good
plot.
I’m always testing the
plan, asking myself things like:
‘Would she do that, given the
kind of person she is?’ But I
trust my instincts too. If it
takes me away from the plan I
always follow my instincts. For
example in Snap Shot, the third
in
the
series,
I
changed
the
identity of the murderer in the
final rewrite before it went to
print.
The Wyatt books are pretty hardboiled. I was trying to think of
other books and characters like
on
noir,
hard-boiled
but is that the only reason why
there’s not more of a market for
harder boiled crime fiction in
Australia?
I think there is a kind of cultural cringe operating against
all Australian crime fiction. If
you go into one of the chain
books stores like Angus and Robertson
or
Collins,
they
will
have all the big new American
and British authors on prominent
display but not the Australians,
not unless it’s Peter Temple,
maybe. So there’s a mindset encouraged by the chain bookshops,
where most book-buyers shop, but
even some of the independents
are culpable of it.
About four or five years ago
several of the independent booksellers put out a catalogue of
the newest crime titles. There
14
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
“It’s almost
reading crime fiction 20 years
as though lo-
ago, in terms of Australian ma-
cal publishers
think that the
Australian product is not as
good as American .”
was not a single Australian title in it, even though Peter Temple, Kerry Greenwood and I had
just had books out. I got really
cranky and wrote to all of them
terial, there was Peter Corris
and his character Cliff Hardy and
there was Wyatt. I know there
was other stuff out but they were
my first two.
Yes, well hopefully that might
change
rent
to
a
bit
publisher]
acknowledge
win,
with
who
[his
Text.
Allen
published
a
cur-
I
want
and
lot
Unof
my early crime titles and were
able to sell some to overseas
in turn and got a couple of measly answers but it just didn’t
occur to them, I think, to put
an Australian title there. It’s
almost as though local publishers think that the Australian
product is not as good as American hard-boiled. I think we have
got to battle against that.
You
have
won
prizes
for
the
Challis and Destry books, including a Ned Kelly for Chain
of Evidence in 2007. But there
hasn’t been much recognition for
Wyatt, even though he is one of
the stayers on the crime scene.
I remember when I first started
15
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
publishers, but they struggled to
those books but not for Austra-
find a local readership.
lian crime fiction in general.
Heyward
Michael
[the owner of Text] re-
ally gets behind all his titles,
particularly his crime titles.
It helps to have a young, newish
and aggressive publisher. It’s
possible Allen and Unwin didn’t
really know how to publish the
Wyatt books. They released them
Where are the Challis and Destry
published apart from Australia?
Challis and Destry are published
in the United States, Germany,
the UK, Italy and a couple of
smaller markets like Turkey and
Spain.
as inoffensive little pulp paper-
What about Wyatt, is he going to
backs that were not going to be
get an international outing?
noticed in bookshops.
Paperbacks
that
shelves
second
The first six Wyatts have been
the
published in Germany, where they
books
have been a bit of a hit and
shops across Australia and fur-
by smaller publishers in Denmark
ther abroad.
and Holland.
of
That’s true.
litter
hand
When I ran out of
Soho,
the
same
American
my own copies I went on the In-
group that publish the Challis
ternet. I was trying to find a
and Destry novels, are publish-
copy of Kick Back. I found it
ing him later this year or early
for six dollars fifty in New Zea-
next year.
land or $240 in New York.
In
addition
to
writing
crime
Is there much interest in Aus-
novels, you have also written
tralian
for TV.
crime
fiction
overseas
that you are aware of?
I
did
an
author
tour
What was it like and
how is it different from writing
of
the
novels?
states last year for Blood Moon.
After
I had reasonably modest audienc-
appeared,
es in books stores. I was cer-
I
tainly aware of a following for
production company to write a
was
a
couple
of
Wyatts
back
in
the
contacted
by
a
had
1990s,
Sydney
16
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
character profile for a series
security for crooked loans, etc,
character, and three storylines
etc. In real life, art theft is
that a scriptwriter could turn
a big deal.
into two-hour telemovies.
said: ‘We see our audiences as
I got paid well, it helped
me clear our mortgage, but two
things went wrong, leaving me
pretty cynical. First, I had met
an undercover cop who had infiltrated the NSW bikie gangs, and
But the producers
the western suburbs of Sydney.
They’re not interested in art.’
.
So, take the money and run is
the only attitude to take to film
and TV
was interested in the strange
kind of double life he led, where
he had to keep reminding himself
he was the good guy, and a normal guy, with a house and a job
and a girlfriend, and I thought
a guy like that would make a terrific series character.
But the
producers said: ‘This is a bit
dark; Gary Sweet can’t do dark.’
So, I had a created character in
mind, they had an actor.
Then the storylines. It’s
a strange form, present tense,
no writing craft involved, only
plotting craft.
‘And then this
happened and this happened and
a
bit
later
that
happened’.
One story I wrote involved art
theft,
stolen
paintings
being
used to bankroll crimes or as
17
“If they
were really smart
they’d get
the hell
out completely.”
-Clark
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
THE SCORE
An excerpt from the forthcoming novel ONE DEAD HEN
by Charlie Williams
‘Cigarette?’
in
get for a copper. Ain’t saying
The copper who’d just come
never
even
looked
at
us.
Tossed the pack down on the table, then a file, then himself in
the placcy chair across the table from us. I hadn’t ever seen
this one before. He was in his
thirties, suntanned in an orange
sort of way and wearing jeans
and a shiny shirt, like he was
just off out on the razz. Smell-
he wernt another kind of twat,
mind.
‘No ta,’ I says.
‘I’m DI Borstal. You can
call me Dave if you want but I’d
be sure about that before you
do. So, you don’t want one of my
fags? Your file says you smoke.’
‘Well I don’t. Change it
in the file. Dave.’
ing like a tart’s window box as
‘I
will.’
Looking
at
us
well, although I did quite admire
now. He had grey eyes that would
the pine-fresh fragrance of his
have made him look a bit hard if
aftershave. Big city all over
they wernt so watery. I think I
him, mind you. He didn’t look
got to him there, calling him
like the normal kind of twat you
Dave so quick off the mark. Bet
19
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
he wernt used to that. I knew he
aren’t cunts. You’re good peo-
wernt used to the like of me.
ple, right? You never do any-
‘But you used to smoke, yeah?’
thing wrong. In fact, you keep
the peace. You’re a stabilis-
‘Perhaps.’
‘When did you stop?’
‘About a minute ago.’
‘Oh, I see. You don’t want
ing influence on the town. Meanwhile, we coppers here are just
out to make everyone’s life a
one of my fags. That right?’
‘Yer gettin’ it, pal.’
‘Right, and let me guess:
you don’t want one of my fags
my
fags
are
copper’s
fags. And you wouldn’t be seen
dead with a copper’s fag between
your lips. But hey, you’ve got
your reasons. Of course you’re
not blindly prejudiced against
all coppers. Lemme see... persecution. Since boyhood the coppers have persecuted you. And
not just you - your family and
everyone
you
know.
Again
smoke a copper’s fag. Isn’t that
right?’
because
misery. And that’s why you won’t
and
again, they’ve locked you up for
crimes you were innocent of. And
on the flimsiest of evidence...
things like fingerprints, witness
testimony and being collared on
the scene. So the coppers must
‘No,’ I says, ‘I just don’t
like Camels.’
He tried to use them grey
eyes. I think he knew they didn’t
work cos he soon gave up. Maybe
they’d worked for him once, before they went watery. ‘I like
you,’ he said, lighting a smoke
instead. ‘You’re good value.’
‘Good value?’
‘Yeah.’
He liked me but I didn’t
like him. I’m a good judge of
character, and I had him down as
a pure cunt so far. And a twat.
I fixed him with a proper hard
look and says: ‘I ain’t a fuckin’ frozen chicken, you know.’
be cunts, right? Because you and
He was taking his first drag
your family and friends, you lot
just then and started coughing
20
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and spluttering and eye-water-
it being pink. Cos I ain’t bent
ing even more. I looked around
neither, right? You wanna know
and wondered what to do, in case
about bent people, ask Johnny. I
he passed out. I could change
telled Big Bob that but he just
into his togs and slip out, per-
wants to fuck us about and keep
haps. Bit short on the inside
us here. Come on mate, do us a
leg, mind you. While I was still
favour and let us go.’
thinking on that he sipped some
coffee and got himself together
again, saying: ‘You’re a funny man, Royston Blake. I’ve not
laughed like that in a cop station in... well, I dunno.’
‘Laugh? You was laughin’
at us?’
‘With you, Royston. I ap-
‘No one gives a fuck about
your
satellite
dish,
Royston.
Weren’t you told what you were
being arrested for?’
I shrugged.
‘Well
they
should
have.
You’re in here on suspicion of
murder.’
‘Oh for fuck sake...’
mour, no matter what side of the
‘You don’t seem too both-
law he’s on. Know what I mean?
ered.’
preciate a man of spirit and hu-
We’re all in the same game, cops
and robbers, and it’s good to
get along.’
‘I ain’t no robber. I ain’t
‘And
just used to it is all. They’m
I’m
not
saying
of murder, and they never got no
evidence. I ain’t done nuthin’.
you
are, it’s just a turn of--’
‘I am fuckin’ bothered, I’m
always gettin’ us in here on suss
robbed no one in donkeys.’
‘And I never distracted no
airplane. Not on purpose nohow.
I got that satellite off Johnny
Bengel, so you can ask him about
Who’s I meant to of carked, anyhow?
You
ain’t
on
about
them
airplanes, is yer? Don’t tell
us one crashed cos of my fuckin’
satellite.’
‘No plane crashed, so far
as I know. And there is enough
21
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
evidence
now.’
to
justify
bringing
you in. A red bomber jacket was
found in the alley behind your
house, and we think it belonged
to the girl. Plus the chief says
you made some highly suspicious
remarks to him.’
‘I never said fuck all sus-
picious to him. And what girl
you on about? You sayin’ a girl
got topped behind my house?’
‘A young woman, to be ac-
curate. She was pulled out of
the river earlier today, but we
think the murder took place at
a location about four hundred
yards from your street. It was
just the jacket that we found
behind your house. What are your
shaking your head for?’
‘Nah, I’m just amazed, re-
ally. At the coincidence of it
all. See, I was sayin’ to some
‘Bollocks. Everyone knows
I never kill birds. It’s just Big
Bob fuckin’ us around again.’
‘I don’t know it, Royston.
And I’m the one who matters. But
don’t worry, I’ll find out the
truth. You know what’s going on
out there? They got about ten
boxes
of
suspicious
material
found in your house, and they’re
searching
through
it,
looking
for evidence.’
‘You can’t take my gear.
It’s my fuckin’ gear, that is.
And I ain’t done nuthin’. Woss
you took anyhow?’
‘Ah, all sorts... Books,
tools and utensils that could
be used for violent purposes,
soiled garments, footwear, other odds and ends.’
‘Soiled garments?’
ought to watch out, on account
‘Yeah - you know, jeans,
of
around,
underwear... other clothes that
and murderers and that. They’m
might show up DNA or other in-
all over the fuckin’ shop these
criminating
days, murderers. You sees it on
it’s an invasion of privacy, but
the telly.’
we can’t take any risks in a
bird just earlier today that she
bad
folks
roamin’
‘I might be talking to one
material.
I
know
case of this magnitude. Do you
22
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
realise that this is the fifth
I says. ‘If you knows they’m all
vict--’
cunts, why’s you workin’ here?
‘You’ve
swiped
me
dirty
trolleys? How many pairs?’
‘What? Oh... I really dun-
no. Look, it’s not--’
‘Cos I only got four pair.
Woss
I
gonna
wear
for
trol-
leys?’
I mean, you ain’t from Mangel,
is yer?’
‘I transferred here from
the city. I chose to come here,
Royston. The city, it’s not all
they
say
it
is.
You
can
get
bored of it like anywhere else.
I wanted pastures new. And when
‘If they find anything in-
I heard about Mangel, I knew it
criminating, you won’t need to
was for me. It’s an all-action
worry about that.’
kind of town, you know? Bloke
‘They’d fuckin’ better not.
I ain’t done fuck all wrong, like
I says.’
‘Well, if that’s true then
like you knows all about that,
right?’
I was nodding slow. ‘I seen
a bit.’
we’ll soon know it. That’s what
a copper does, Royston. We’re
record,
not all cunts. Although...’ He
lot.’
checked that the door was shut
then leaned in. ‘I can see how
the ones around here might give
you that impression.’
I couldn’t help but smile,
despite the trolley problem. He
was alright, this copper. Hard
to believe it but here was a
copper, and he was alright.
‘Why’s you here, though?’
He winked. ‘I’ve seen yer
mate.
You’ve
seen
a
‘Aye, well... It ain’t all
like it seems.’
‘Nothing is as it seems,
Royston. Like the birds in this
town. They’re rough but they’re
quality, you know? When you get
em in the sack, I mean. I knew
it before I came here, but I’ve
had it confirmed since, if you
know. Girls in the city, I’ve
23
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
got no patience for them. The
opened just then and a uniformed
demands... Jesus.’
copper walks in carrying a box
I looked at him, rubbing
me chin and going: ‘Hmmm..’
‘You look pensive, Roys-
ton.’
Nah,
I’m
just
thinkin’.’
summat so I went on:
‘Thinkin’ about you being
a copper, see. I mean, you just
don’t
expect
coppers
to
pull
birds.’
‘Why not?’
‘Cos no birds’d touch em,
starters.
The
ones
round
‘It’s like I was saying,
Royston, there’s all kinds of
coppers
rites), a round metal thing that
was getting quite into cooking
just then), and some strands of
the blond wig I’d put on earlier in that lock-up. I hadn’t
noticed I was still wearing it
until I’d walked past a mirror
here anyhow.’
(one of em being UFOs - Fact or
at home.
for
a couple of books sticking out
looked like my garlic crusher (I
He seemed confused about
ERALS. On the top you could see
Myth?, which was one of my favou‘Eh?
marked R BLAKES SUSPISCOUS MATI-
these
days.
It’s
all
‘Don’t
you
people
knock?’ says DI Dave.
‘Soz guv but we--’
‘Who are you?’
‘PC
Mard,
guv.
rself apart. If you wanna catch
dence or what, Mard?’
side him. You gotta be like him.
You gotta blend, mate.’
‘Hmmm...’ I says again.
I had a couple of further
questions for him, but the door
We
got
a--’
about fitting in, not setting yethe crook, you gotta live along-
ever
‘Did you lot find any evi‘Aye we did. Most of them
vids is Rocky ones, and Clint
Eastwood cowboy ones and that,
but
six
of
em
is
just
plain
filthy. So aye, we think we got
him’
24
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
through, but he was quick and
‘You can’t lock a man up
for having skin flicks.’
got a paw under it. He had to
‘Nah but it says all about
his psychological state, see. He
projectifies women, see, and--’
‘Objectifies.’
‘--and he... What’s that?’
‘Just shut up, Mard. The
man’s sat right here. Show some
respect.’
The
narked
copper
but
looked
turned
it
a
bit
into
a
guv. When you knows him like we
knows him, you won’t worry about
respect.’
‘You cheeky fuckin’ cunt,’
I says, standing up. ‘Didn’t you
hear DI Dave? He told you to
shut yer mouthy fuckin’ gob. And
that’s a fuckin’ order.’
‘Alright,
Royston.
Sit
down. Mard, are you just gonna stand there talking shit, or
have you got something useful to
tell me?’
top, namely the garlic crusher
‘Watch me fuckin’ garlic
crusher, you,’ I says.
‘Garlic crusher?’ He looked
at DI Dave, shaking his head firm
and saying: ‘It ain’t, guv. Ser-
sneer. ‘It’s only Royston Blake,
a couple of things fell off the
and the wig.
lurch forward a bit though and
PC Mard didn’t look hap-
py. He was clutching the box a
bit too hard and the bottom fell
geant Jones says it’s a secret
device for tocherin’ fingers, not
an onion crusher.’
‘Garlic,’
I
says.
‘It’s
for garlics, you twat.’
‘It
ain’t,
guv.
Jonah
showed us. You puts the finger in
there and squeezes it like so,
and it puts lots of little holes
in the... ow...’
‘Take yer finger out, Mard,’
says DI Dave. ‘And get out.’
Mard
stuffed
the
crusher
and the wig back in the box,
saying: ‘They got the results
back on that blood in the lockup. It does match the corpse we
pulled out the river. So we’re
lookin’ at a feller in his mid to
25
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
late-thirties, with blond, curly,
shoulder-length hair and a look
of the Viking about him, accordin’ to that old dear’s testimonial.’ With that, he stepped
back out and slammed the door.
In the corridor you could hear
him dropping the box again.
‘What the fuck’s that all
about, guv?’ I says. ‘I mean,
Dave?’
raised in Worcester, which is
where they make the famous sauce
you put in cocktails and things
‘It means you can go.’
‘What? Serious?’
‘Are you or are you not an
innocent man?’
(although he does not much like
it himself). He went on to write
the books DEADFOLK, FAGS AND LAGER, KING OF THE ROAD and STAIRWAY
TO
HELL.
He
also
writes
short stories, screenplays and
‘Aye, course.’
‘Well clear off then. One
.
of the grunts’ll bring your gear
round tomorrow. If they don’t
crush their fingers first’
CHARLIE WILLIAMS was born and
comics.
Other than writing he has held
down
jobs
as
a
warehouseman,
toilet cleaner and potato packer. He really toiled for those
potatoes. And he toils for his
writing, regularly going far beyond the call of duty in pursuit
of a story.
ONE DEAD HEN will be published
by AmazonEncore in August 2011.
Check out his site:
http://charliewilliams.net/
26
“It struck
him full
force, the
unavoidable knowledge that he
was riding
through life
on a fourth
class ticket.”
-Goodis
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
TOUGH GUYS
& DEADLY
DAMES:
British
Gangster
Digests
by
Gary Lovisi
One of the most interesting things about writing about books,
is
when
you
delve
into
an
area
of
lost
publishing
that
took
root in a very specific place in time and rediscover it for a
new
generation
of
readers
or
collectors.
In
this
case,
it
is
the post-war years after World War II and up until the middle
1950s in the UK, when a special era all it’s own was born. It
28
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
was a time when brutal crime fic-
Hadley
tion not seen since the Ameri-
hard-boiled crime novels, like
can pulps of the 1930s, a time
No
when the British gangster digest
set the stage. The trend con-
thrived. It was pulp crime of-
tinued with Darcy Glinto and his
ten at its worst… and maybe even
first book, Lady Don’t Turn Over
worse! But they’re still great
in 1940. Glinto followed with
fun and there is nothing else
many more books during the years
like ‘em!
1941-42. Things would have to
During that brief period
hundreds
and
hundreds
of
in-
tensely violent, sexy, risqué and
thoroughly cool gangster crime
digest-size paperbacks were published. This stuff made Spillane
seem almost cozy by comparison.
Chase.
Orchids
For
His
mainstream
Miss
Blandish
wait until after the War for the
genre to really take off -- and
that would be when the right author, right character and right
artist came together to dazzle
the British crime reading public.
It was sometimes disgusting, of-
ten blatantly offensive, definite-
phen Frances, the right char-
ly
and
acter was Hank Janson, and the
to-
right cover artist was Reginald
politically
certainly
day’s
incorrect,
exploitative
“enlightened”
by
standards.
Nevertheless -- or perhaps just
because of that fact -- these
books are avidly sought by collectors today and can bring high
prices for what was then looked
at as merely
throw-away pulp
fiction “garbage.”
The right author was Ste-
Heade!
After World War II ended
people were looking for entertaining reading material again
– but not the staid and boring work of the pre-war era. No
aristocratic
crime
dilettantes
solving quaint puzzle stories.
The
UK
gangster
phe-
nom
from
its
earliest
roots
wanted
was
actually
James
the reality they had seen and
begun
by
No, not that at all. Now readers
material
that
mirrored
29
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
lived though during the war years
books and the gangster digest
and the gangster digests gave it
explosion began.
to them. These were exciting,
intense, violent and much more
sexy stories with hard, tough,
world-weary
characters.
Almost
like the readers themselves.
Readers got what they want-
ed, and more, in these so-called
gangster digests, and publishers would increasingly push the
boundaries of taste and censorship in stories and cover art.
The results were sky-rocketing
sales but there were also police raids, and in some cases,
prison sentences for some in the
UK. But when the dust cleared,
what was left were a lot of really cool books that are avidly
collected today on both sides of
the Atlantic!
Stephen
The Hank Janson books told
stories of murder and mayhem,
tinged
Frances
(1917-
with
raw
sex
and
vio-
lence. They were full of dou-
1989), began writing hard-boiled
ble-crossing
crime fiction as Hank Janson in
gangsters
1946.
published
corners of British and American
the books himself under the SD
cities. Frances wrote tough and
Frances
quick pulp-prose, searing first-
He
originally
Publications
imprint.
dames
and
inhabiting
brutal
the
dark
In 1948, Gaywood Press took over
person
the publishing reins, Reginald
struck home with English readers
Heade began doing covers for the
hungry for anything that smacked
narratives
that
really
30
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
of America or its tough-guy he-
B.Z. Immanuel, who began Scion,
roes.
Ltd., one of the most prolific
In 1947, Gaywood Distribu-
tors was founded by Julius Reiter, a German who opposed the
Nazi’s and left Germany for England
in
1933.
During
the
war
he was interned on the Isle of
White and then in Canada, but
returned to England after the
war. In 1948 he began to distribute the Hank Janson books
written by Stephen Frances and
publishers. Soon other publishers came into existence, many
of them had gangster lines of
their own. In 1948, Modern Fiction
began
the
hard-as-nails
“Griff” series written by Ernest
Lionel McKeag (aka Roland Vane),
with some great titles. One of
the best books and titles in the
Griff series was Some Rats Have
Two Legs.
in 1951 to publish Janson books
under his New Fiction Press im-
ers”, a term coined by British
print with Reg Carter.
scholar
“These men
were less ‘publishers’ in the
traditional
sense... maybe
These
“mushroom
Steve
publish-
Holland
because
they had apparently sprung up
like mushrooms after the war,
still operated under wartime paper restrictions even into the
1950s. The result was an incredible mish-mash of art, stories,
even mobsters
binding and paper that ran the
themselves.”
gamut from quality formats to
As
Janson’s
popular-
ity zoomed and sales skyrocketed,
other
writers
imitated
the formula for a growing group
of
British
paperback
publish-
ers. In 1947, another publisher
who escaped Hitler’s Europe was
simply terrible product. Paper,
even within the same book often
changed quality from slick to
pulp, and sometimes even color!
These often fly-by-night, lowerlevel publishers used whatever
was handy or what they could beg,
buy…or steal. The aim here was
31
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
to make as many sales as fast as
“The closest
they could, to make as much profit
most of these
as possible. These men were less
“publishers” in the traditional
gentlemanly sense and much more
calculating
businessmen
–
or
maybe even mobsters themselves?
authors came
to American
was when they
smoked Ameri-
They wanted to give the public can cigarettes.”
what it wanted to buy, and for a
while what the public was buying was Hank Janson and a lot of
other gangster crime fiction.
bylines,
mostly
pen
names
or
house names demanded by their
publishers so no author would
ever become too popular and be
able
to
make
his
own
career.
Some of the most famous bylines
included such unlikely monikers
as Ben Sarto, Darcy Glinto, Griff
(no last name), and Ace Capelli,
all created to evoke a toughguy persona. There were dozens
more
lesser
bylines
as
well:
Nick Baroni, Bart Carson, Jeff
Bogar, Al Bocca, Ricky Drayton,
Ross Angel, Nat Karta, the interestingly
named
Hyman
Zore,
Hans Lugar, Gray Usher (an actual author’s name), and Brett
Vane. Needless to say there are
The writers who wrote gang-
ster fiction were professionals
who did so for a quick payday.
They wrote under a plethora of
many more. All were supposedly
ace American crime newspaper reporters, but truth be told the
closest most of these authors
came to America, was when they
32
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
smoked American cigarettes!
conservatively
Who were the author’s be-
hind
the
pen
names?
Well,
Al
Bocca was actually Bevis Winter
(a male UK writer); Johnny Dark
was really Victor Norwood who
wrote SF and fantasy; Dale Bogard was Douglas Enefer; Stephen
Frances even came back and wrote
estimated
there
are over 2,000! A quick run-down
on the various series by author
tells us just how many there are
in some of the more popular series. None of these books were
ever
numbered,
so
series
can
only be listed by author, and
then titles.
as Duke Linton sometimes, when
he wasn’t writing Jansons. Darcy
quickie run-down on some of the
Glinto was actually Harold Kelly
most popular series: Ace Capel-
and Michael Storme was George H.
li, 36 books; Griff, 49; Ben Sar-
Dawson. Some of the author’s were
to, 109; Darcy Glinto, 27; Rex
actually female! Danny Spade was
Marlowe, 11; Hans Lugar, 20; Al
really Dail Amber a British fe-
Bocca, 38; Jeff Bogar, 24; Dale
male novelist and perhaps an ex-
Bogard, 14; Spike Gordon, 12;
Hollywood screenwriter – as she
Nat Karta, 36; Duke Linton, 34;
was fond of saying in her bios.
Gray Usher, 17; Brad Shannon,
She wrote under other names also.
27; Danny Spade, 34 and Hyman
Brett Vane and Nick Baroni were
Zore, 22. And that’s just the
actually Frederick Foden; while
tip of the iceberg! Hank Jan-
big-seller Ben Sarto was Frank
son’s published by Gaywood Press
Dubrez Fawcett. Sarto books were
include at least 25 books, and
said to have sold 5-6 million
from Alexander Moring there were
copies, and Fawcett also wrote
even more. Later other publish-
the Miss Otis series as by Sarto
ers stepped in as well. There
for Milestone Books. He was a
are dozens and dozens of Jan-
busy guy!
sons!
books
There
in
are
this
many
genre,
more
it
is
of
For
As
instance,
you’d
publishers
here’s
expect,
a
jumped
on
a
host
the
33
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
gangster bandwagon. They knew a
cover art for gangster novels
good thing when they saw it – and
by other writers and some oth-
what they saw were sales! Many
er publishers. His sexy, pin-
of these publishers are main-
up girls, hard but vulnerable
stays of early UK paperback pub-
femme fatales, really hit the
lishing history. They were known
bull’s
by such names as Hamiltons (lat-
looking for violent excitement,
er Panther Books), Scion Books
hard-boiled action and sexy ti-
(their gangster line were Sci-
tilation. Heade’s women are in-
on American Thrillers), Curtis-
tensely sexual, they drip raw
Warren, Spenser (who published
wet sex, and even today over 50
the Badger lines), WDL (World
years later, they still get the
Distributors Ltd., later Coun-
male juices flowing.
sel Books), Brown-Watson (later
Digit Books), TV Boardman, and
the Hank Janson publishers; SD
Frances
Publications,
Press,
also
Alexander
published
Gaywood
Moring,
other
all
gangster
authors.
eye
You
with
can
male
not
readers
overesti-
mate the impact Heade’s cover
art had on the sales of these
books. Heade’s art is glorious,
his women are sexual, often undressed, drop-dead gorgeous, and
deadly. In fact, almost all his
One of the reasons for the
cover art shows the crime and
great success of the early Hank
mystery staple of a sexy girl
Janson
cover
with a gun. But what a girl! No
(Reginald
one had ever done illustrations
1901-1957),
of women like these on books in
contributed covers for all the
those days. The reading public
early Janson books beginning in
ate up the Janson books as fast
1948. Heade covers appeared on
as they went on sale.
art.
Cyril
digests
Reginald
Webb
was
the
Heade
Heade,
Gaywood Press and New Fiction
Press Jansons until 1954; and
later also some Alexander Moring Hank Jansons. Heade also did
Of course, other artists
and publishers took note. Artists
such
as
Ferrari,
Gomez,
34
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
(who were actually been the same
but offered work of such varying
person), Roger Davis, Pollack,
quality that it ranged the gamut
Thorpe, and the mysterious and
from excellent to often down-
unknown artist who went only by
right crude. Obviously for Perl,
the
time, and the price he was paid
pseudonymous
initials
of
“F.T.” contributed many covers.
for art, were key issues.
Though less talented than Heade,
“They read
“F.T.” copied the Heade style
them under
with various modes of success
the covers, of-
and did some memorable covers.
ten reading the
best ones to tatters.”
The
result
was
colorful
cover art showing a myriad of
half-dressed, or undressed sexy
dames with guns, gazing out at
the prospective book buyer with
come-on looks and promises of
SEX! They said, “Look at me!”,
“Buy me!”, and “Take me home!”
And British male book-buyers in
the 1950s took them home by the
bushel full. Then they read them
under the covers, away from mum
or teacher, often reading the
best ones to tatters, so that
However, the gangster cov-
er art workhorse could only have
been H.W. Perl. Perl did an in-
today few and far between are
left in pristine condition today.
credible amount of covers show-
ing stylistic dames with guns,
high sales was the provocative
Another
reason
for
35
the
CRIME FACTORY
titles
of
many
books.
SEPTEMBER 2010
Titles
“Novels oozed
left no doubt just what the book
sex and vio-
was about. The titles told the
story and along with the art let
the reader know exactly what he
could expect within each book:
lence, or at
lease, as much
as could be
Live Till You Die by Ross Angel,
printed in Brit-
Night Club Moll by Nick Baroni,
ain during the
Some Dames Die Young by Dirk Fos-
1950s.”
ter and Sidewalk Floozie by Ben
Sarto, barely scratch the surface. But it got worse – ah,or
better… if you like…
printed in books in Britain during the 1950s. Which wasn’t much,
but they somehow found a way to
achieve a combination of sexual
sadism that held an almost synergistic power. In many cases it
proved more effective but also
more offensive than just plain
sex or violence ever did merely just by itself alone. Even
with the censorship rules and
publishing restrictions of the
time, for a certain period, publishers, authors and cover artists managed to get away with
quite a lot.
Subjects ranged from pros-
titution, gang war, race hatred
Novels oozed sex and vi-
olence,
sex
and
or
at
least,
violence
as
as
much
could
be
and racial subjects, mass murder, executions of all types,
bloody massacres, juvenile delinquency,
and
betrayal,
to
36
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
back-stabbing,
and became involved.
rape,
white
In 1952,
slavery, drugs, and more. White
and again in 1954, Scion, Ltd.
slavery and prostitution seemed
was fined for publishing “por-
to be tops, with drugs and gang
nographic” gangster novels. In
battles,
killings
1954 Modern Fiction came under
right behind in popularity. All
the scrutiny of the courts for
and worse, were staples in these
titles like Trading With Bod-
books. A few examples include:
ies by Griff, a particularly nas-
Tough On The Wops by Buck Toler,
ty
Tiptoe Thro’ A Graveyard by Mi-
with perhaps too-sexy cover art
chael Storme, Reefer Rhapsody by
showing half-naked women being
Hans Vogel, Yellow Babe by Ace
whipped by a villainous Mexican.
Capelli, Floosie On The Run by
Thus evoking images of violence,
Slim Vincent, White Slaves of
sadism, racism and… Well, it was
New Orleans by Roland Vane, One
just a bit too much for 1950s
More Nice White Body by Darcy
Britain.
robbery
and
Glinto and Dope For Delores by
Nick Perrelli. I’ll add two by
Griff, From Dance Hall To Opium
Dive and I Spit On Your Grave
(that last, a particularly nasty
racial and racist crime novel).
In the sleazy crime novel Traffic
in Souls by Geoffrey Pardoe, we
have a white slavery and prostitution novel that is one example
of the kind of book that became
a popular genre with mushroom
publishers and their readers.
Naturally
this
couldn’t
white
slavery
crime
novel
The most notorious police
and court action however was the
Hank Janson trial. In 1954 four
of the first seven Hank Janson
books were cited at the Old Bailey in a trial as “obscene libels” and the books were subject to destruction orders. The
books, published in 1952 by New
Fiction
Press
and
distributed
by Gaywood Press, Ltd., included seven titles: Accused, Auctioned, Killer, Persian Pride,
Amok,
Vengeance
and
Pursuit.
last forever and the police and
Advertised but never to appear
courts eventually got wind of it
were three others, Woman Trap,
37
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Perfumed Nemesis and Blond Dupe.
now it was under his new pseud-
All books featured sexy women in
onym signed as “Cy Webb” and it
cover art by Heade.
was much more circumspect. He
The results of the trail
were that certain of the Hank
also
did
some
covers
for
the
Sexton Blake crime series.
Janson books were censored and
banned in the UK. Covers were
revived
censored
overprint-
continued publishing Hank Janson
ed with silver paint to cover
books and Heade began doing Hank
Heade’s sexy female images, lat-
Janson
er books used only the Janson
Heade’s covers did not have the
logo as the cover “art” and no
quality and passion evident in
other art at all. Heade’s work
his earlier art and all were now
– some of his best Hank Janson
unsigned. The court case seems
cover art – was never used on
to have made Heade more care-
some of the books.
ful. Heade died in 1957 and with
by
being
Worse yet, the publishers
of the Janson books, Julius Reiter of Gaywood Press and Reg
Carter
of New Fiction
Press,
were imprisoned! They received 6
months in Brixton Prison and each
were fined 2,000 pounds! Meanwhile, Heade seemed to have gone
underground and to have disappeared completely. No more books
In 1955, when Reg Carter
New
Fiction
covers
Press
again.
he
However
him the art that was the spirit behind Hank Janson and the
UK gangster digest boom. Prison
for Reiter and Carter must have
sent a real chill into the men
who published gangster books, so
that many publishers moved on to
do science fiction and westerns –
genres which were just as popular and a hell of a lot safer!
appeared with his sexy art and
Today
his distinctive bold signature.
these
Heade did continue to do paper-
are avidly sought after. Prices
back cover art, for Pan and Pan-
vary, but they are going up, es-
ther Books for instance, however
pecially for books in Near Fine
books
collectors
highly
and
prize
they
38
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
(almost as new) condition. Many
books that sold for $5-15 a few
years
ago
now
sell
for
$150!
Some of the more uncommon titles, with excellent cover art
and in Near Fine condition can
sell for $300 or more. Some of
these books sold on eBay easily go for 150 pounds or more!
Demand
among
collectors
seems
steady and growing, but supply
-- especially of uncommon titles
in better condition – is quite
limited.
Many
of
these
books
were very popular with readers
and simply read to extinction
when they came out, others were
destroyed -- either by shocked
parents or the courts in police
raids. Today 1950s British gangster digest paperbacks remain a
small but fascinating part of
crime
fiction
.
publishing,
but
most of all they’re a lot of fun
to collect – and dare I say it,
even read!
REFERENCES
The Mushroom Jungle by Steve Holland,
Zeon Books, UK, 1993.
The Trails of Hank Janson by Steve
Holland, Telos Books, UK, 2004
British Gangster & Exploitation Paperbacks of the Postwar Years by Maurice
Flanagan, Zeon Books, UK, 1997.
Thanks also to Tom Lesser for his assistance and information
GARY LOVISI is a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award nominee who also writes on all aspects of collectable books. He
is the editor and publisher of
Paperback Parade, the world’s
leading magazine on collectable
paperbacks, and Hardboiled, the
toughest
little
crime
magazine
in
world.
the
fiction
Hard-
boiled won a Spur Award from
the Western Writers of America
for the best story of 2010. Under his Gryphon Books imprint
Lovisi publishes books in many
pulp-related
latest
book
fields.
is
Lovisi’s
Ultra-Boiled
(Ramble House Books, www.ramblehouse.com, which collects 23
of his hardest crime stories.
To find out more visit his website at: www.gryphonbooks.com.
39
“Prophecy is a byproduct
of my extreme single-mindedness
and the
cultivation of my
solitude.”
-Ellroy
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
‘SAD JANITOR’ SHORT
STORY COMPETITION
WINNERS
After viewing the horrendous Thomas
Haden Church vehicle DON MCKAY (see
review in issue #3) CRIME FACTORY decided to throw down the gauntlet and
challenge our readers to come up with
a better story about a sad janitor in
1500 words or less.
Your move, Haden Church.
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
FIRST PLACE:
Patricia Abbott
Brother of the Divine
Light
The year I was sixteen, Mr. Vernon was hired as janitor at the
Children
of
Academy,
a
the
Divine
rinky-dink,
Light
school
for the children of the Brethren of the Divine Light Church.
Housed in what was once a nursing home, the heating system exhaled the ghostly odors of bedpans,
stewed
vegetables,
and
Murphy’s Soap. Money was scarce,
but with antiquated electrical,
heating, and plumbing systems,
help was essential. Mr. Vernon
cleared
the
back-five,
walks,
washed
mowed
the
windows,
and
did all the requisite chores.
Like
most
of
the
eleven
staff
members at the school, he had
multiple assignments. He coached
the girls’ basketball team (a
4-4 season) and led the choir.
It was in these last two
capacities that many of us girls
developed crushes on Mr. Vernon.
He had a blonde brush cut, amber
eyes, was small, sleek and elegant, but couldn’t give directions, name the state capital,
or conjugate a verb. When a new
piece of equipment came into the
school, he tossed its directions
aside, figuring it out by intuition. We concluded he couldn’t
read. His janitorial duties were
largely
administered
from
the
basement, a mysterious and semioff-limits place.
Jay
Vernon
had
a
police
record from several shoplifting
incidents as a teenager, a time
when
he’d
fallen
in
with
the
42
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
wrong crowd. His mother, a prom-
were carefully ferried between
inent Brethren, put pressure on
our homes, the school, and the
the principal, Mr. Amundsen, to
church.
hire Jay my junior year. “It’s
the Christian thing to do,” she
must’ve told him.
“Nah,”
Philomena
Raskin
said, “You know they’d any find
girlie magazines. Same as with
At the top of a long list
us.” “They” was Mr. Amundsen,
of forbidden activities, Chil-
the school secretary, and Mrs.
dren of the Divine Light were
Rose.
not allowed to date and conse-
at frequent and unannounced in-
quently, Mr. Vernon became an
tervals, publicly justified as a
object of lust. The boys found
state health requirement.
similar solace in Mrs. Rose, the
art and German teacher, although
her faint mustache and muscular
calves prevented complete devotion. As the only female teacher
under fifty, she came in for some
attention, but it was the janitor who captured our joint obsessive interest.
magazines
down
there,”
Kenny Whitby said at lunch. “Ferguson’s stocks them behind that
ripped
curtain
When
inspections
the
eleventh
came
grad-
ers read THE GREAT GATSBY that
year, we began calling Mr. Vernon, Gatsby. “Did you see Gatsby’s mowing the lawn?” Our eyes
sought the back window through
which we could see Mr. Vernon
pushing a hand mower, the only
thing the school could afford. He
“I bet he has a stash of
girlie
Locker
in
the
back.”
Shopping at Ferguson’s was on
the forbidden list too. In fact,
it was astonishing Kenny knew
what was behind the curtain or
even that there was one since we
has his shirt off as was natural
in late May when the temperatures hit eighty.
“Don’t
be
silly
girls.”
Mrs. Rose said, coming over to
the window and fanning her flushed
face. Soon Gatsby was shirted,
a straw hat covering his downy
blonde head.
Of
the
forty
girls
old
43
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
enough to harbor desire or even
her desk. “He didn’t say any-
curiosity,
found
thing,” she added, shrinking in
reason to descend the basement
her seat. “He probably doesn’t
steps that spring. It became our
know it’s there.”
twenty-four
rite of passage. Like the personal testimony we gave in Bible
study class, stories of how we
descended the stairs and the excuses offered to Mr. Vernon for
out trips were shared at lunch
or in gym class.
“I
told
him
my
bikes’
the few girls allowed to travel
to school unescorted said. “He
was greasing the motor on the
furnace.” She shivered with excitement and bravado; we shivered too.
“Did he have his shirt off?”
someone wondered aloud. I could
tell that the girl wanted to say
yes, to get credit for a closeup of his chest and shoulders
but was too timid to lie. She
shook her head.
“Maybe we should make a list
of reasons to go down there,”
a twelfth-grader said. “So we
don’t
repeat
reasons
or
look
stupid.” We all glared again at
the girl who’d asked for bandages and risked spoiling our only
brakes weren’t working,” one of
“I asked him if he had any
bandages,” another girl said the
next week. We all moaned. Everyone knew the school secretary kept the first aid kit under
fun.
But, in the end, we agreed
it was necessary to invent our
own excuse for the trip downstairs—to succeed or fail on our
own. “It’s like getting saved,”
I found myself saying. “You go
to the preacher when the time is
right, when you hear the call.”
This was a guess since it’d
never happened to me, but the
other
girls
nodded
knowingly.
No voice had called me and none
ever would. In fact, I was the
first of my class to head for the
west coast two years later.
“Shira’s
right,”
someone
murmured. “Working from a list
would ruin everything.”
44
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
And so, one after the oth-
Other girls had chickened out
er, we went down those stairs,
and survived their disgrace, but
finding the lame excuses we need-
I hated to be among their num-
ed. Mr. Vernon never seemed to
ber after passing myself off as
notice our trembling voices and
a rebel.
shaking hands and helped us locate our lost umbrellas, fixed
our broken protractors, assured
us it wasn’t a mouse under our
desk, sniffing obligingly at the
odd smell we’d detected.
I took the steps gingerly,
afraid I might fall, that I might
have to admit defeat. Reaching
the bottom with great relief,
I heard noises coming from Mr.
Vernon’s
office.
I
opened
the
“Time’s running out, Shi-
door quietly, unsure of what I’d
ra,”
a
find, and saw Mr. Vernon and Mrs.
senior
warned
me.
“He
won’t bite.”
Rose on his little cot. She was
But it wasn’t due to a lack
of interest in spending five minutes alone with Mr. Vernon, nor
from any fear of him. Our house,
a trailer really, had no basement and basements had taken on
the
characteristics
of
horror
movies for me. But at sixteen,
it was time to put such childishness behind me.
On the next to last day of
school, I descended the stairs.
Most of the school was out on
the back five at a picnic, cel-
directing his activity much like
she directed the school plays,
telling
him
where
to
put
his
hand, what he should do next,
how it was done. He looked more
miserable than when the front
steps iced up last December and
five kids slid off. I wasn’t sure
why he was unhappy, but I knew
he was.
I backed out, quickly hid-
ing behind the furnace because
I heard someone coming down the
steps. It was Mr. Amundsen.
ebrating the years’ end with the
watery punch and under-sugared
feet hopped up with a scream.
cookies
“He forced himself on me,” she
kids
had
brought
in.
Mrs.
Rose,
quick
on
her
45
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
told Mr. Amundsen, covering her-
self with her discarded skirt.
knows what you might have seen
“He asked me to come down here
down there.” She patted my shoul-
to help carry up some equipment
der as a senior girl would do.
for the picnic. Then he jumped
We both watched Mrs. Rose climb
me.”
into her car. “Poor Mrs. Rose,”
“Is this true?” Mr. Amund-
sen asked Mr. Vernon. When he
got no answer, he sighed. “Are
“Just as well, Shira. Who
.
she said. “I bet it was something awful”
you saying he raped you, Mrs.
Rose? That he forced himself on
you?”
I continued to hide mutely
behind the furnace, listening to
Mrs. Rose say yes, watching Mr.
Amundsen marching Gatsby up the
steps, waiting while Mrs. Rose
dressed quickly, small smile on
her face. I said nothing to anyone, nothing at all.
“Did you go down to the
basement?” a girl asked me later,
when Mr. Vernon had been taken
away by a police officer. Most
of the kids were still out in
back, playing games and drinking
the awful punch. Just the two of
us stood there, hidden by the
teachers’ armoire.
“No, I never did go down.”
My voice quivered with the lie.
46
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
SECOND PLACE:
Erik Lundy
Pet Policy
Jake was a sad janitor.
Sad
while
that his momma hated him.
Sad
time with the boy since he’d hit
that he’d ever stuck his dick in
his teens, or each other, it’d
that poor excuse for a wife of
left a hole they hoped a tea cup
his.
Pomeranian’d fill.
Sad that his semi-retard-
ed son, Rusty, had fell off that
boat and drown.
Sad that, at
the age of fifty-seven, he was a
fucking janitor.
Balding, fat,
with a belt load of keys and a
back pocket whiskey bottle was
the best he was ever going to
get. But, more than all that,
most sad that he was going to
have to kill that goddamn dog.
* * *
they
hadn’t
“They’re
all
spent
so
much
cute!”
Helen’d rolled her eyes and clacking the dentures methmouth’d gave
her.
“Buy me one, now.”
Jake
hated it every time she ordered
him around, and she gave him a
lot of times to hate. But, they
were cute, and the cutest of all
hopped like her feet were on fire
every time an airport jet’d approach for landing. Missy.
Him and Helen’d drove all the
Jake’d picked up the fur
way to that Pomeranian breeder
ball
and
off the 291, just shy of the Kan-
tongue. It hadn’t mattered that
sas City Airport.
It was three
she cost six hundred dollars.
weeks after Rusty’d died, and,
She could’ve cost twice that,
got
a
nose
full
of
47
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and Jake would’ve found a way.
was a wheeze that began in her
toenails,
* * *
Jake got up at five AM each morning before heading to the school
and fixed a couple Eggo’s. One
for him, one for Missy. Butter
and grape jelly instead of syrup
on both.
He tried giving her
the wave gathering
force with every ripple of her
obese body. Until a shotgun spray
of brown, smoker’s phlegm flew
through her teeth. Jake started
noticing blood on the pillowcases when he did the laundry.
* * *
strawberry, but she spun around
in circles barking, crapped on
“I’m sorry. Three months. Tops.”
the
Doc Johnson smiled all crosseyed
rug,
calling
bullshit
on
that.
like
He
took
Missy
out
every
he’d
just
had
his
finger
pulled.
morning, Helen ordering that the
“You mean to tell me, my
first day. He fed the dog. Washed
wife
is
the dog. And was the only one to
three
pet the dog.
help grinning, too.
The dog, knew,
going
months?”
too. Growled at Helen and her
bags of dry food.
It was one of those morn-
ings
Jake
coughing.
first
heard
Helen’s
She was never one to
join him at the breakfast table,
even back when they did sleep
in the same bed.
But, since
Missy’d come into their world,
she’d been a tad friendlier. She
even
fucked
him
on
the
couch
twice one week.
It wasn’t just a cough, it
to
be
Jake
dead
in
couldn’t
* * *
Jake started planning the party he’d have the day after the
wake. Planning how he was going to spend her life insurance.
Maybe he’d buy a computer and
get on one of them sites that
sold pussy and wear himself out
on a new one every night.
Or,
get on one of them porno sites
and
study
up
a
couple
months
first. Get Missy them two hundred dollar dog steps to get up
48
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
on the bed with him since he was
next.
going to be able to sleep on it
again.
The lady showed up right
on time. Couldn’t have been more
Whatever he was planning
than five foot two, a buck fifteen.
to do or buy didn’t work out.
Olive skin, and a nose like the
By month seven, the coughing old
Italian’s he’d seen in movies.
bitch griping at him every time
The first thing he thought was,
he didn’t wipe her ungrateful
“Doesn’t look like much.”
ass right, he took matters into
came out of his mouth, too.
his own hands.
* * *
The
next
morning,
before
the
coughing started, he loaded the
shotgun. Stared at Helen in the
early morning sunlight.
Missy
barked, ran in circles.
Jake
couldn’t do it in front of their,
“daughter.”
“Orange juice!” Helen spat
her order. Jake put the shotgun
back in the cabinet, walked to
the kitchen and did what he always did- what she told him to.
* * *
Jake called in sick at the school
and drove up to Kansas City, like
Denny’d told him to. Walked into
this hamburger joint inside a
flea market, shaking his head and
wondering what people’d think of
It
“Excuse me?”
“It’s just, a thousand dol-
lars, it doesn’t look like much
to kill somebody.”
She adjusted her glasses,
“Favor.
Denny’s old man used to
run with mine.”
Jake pushed the bag across the
table, like he’d been told he
was going to do. “Five hundred.
When’s it gonna be done?”
“Believe me, you’ll know
when to hand me the second half.”
She said it so cold Jake had no
problem believing her.
* * *
The only thing that ever made
Jake forget his problems was the
cards. He wasn’t like his dad.
Jake stayed away from the sports
49
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
books, even when Denny offered
him freebies during Super Bowl
was over two years old, so they’d
season.
pay up. He’d researched it.
The sound of shuffling.
Jawing
with
buddies.
Anybody
at a card table was an instant
buddy. It made him feel alive.
He didn’t even have to have the
cards; he could bluff.
That night, he didn’t have
the cards, and every bluff got
called. When he walked into the
The life insurance policy
“Missy.
Forty
thousand
dollars. Rich.”
Then, he remembered Hel-
en’s dyslexia and inability to
write so much as a grocery list.
Which meant he owed a killer five
hundred dollars.
* * *
bar he had six hundred dollars.
When he walked into his kitchen,
Gus was gone from a heart at-
he had a headache, empty pockets
tack.
and his wife’s gaping head wound
enough change to make a purse
staining linoleum.
jingle. Denny’d cut him off from
skittered
in
the
black
pool, growling at Helen and her
hole.
Jake yanked the tiny dog
to his chest, clutching her while
she licked whiskey sweat from
his chin. He reached into his
pocket for the second half of
the payment.
The lint reminded
him of the cold streak the cards
had hit.
His heart leapt when he saw
the suicide note.
go on like this.
momma
didn’t
own
loan sharking when he’d had to
* * *
Missy
His
Cancer. Can’t
take Jake’s lawnmower as payment.
Jake had nobody.
Just a
dog with a tongue up his nose.
That’s when he remembered
Helen’s only good advice. “Paying this much for a dog, it’s
gonna cost to keep her healthy.”
So, he’d took out the insurance
policy. Seventy-five dollar deductible when she’d hopped off the
couch and broke a leg.
Another
seventy-five when she swallowed
that screw.
Another seventy-
five could replace his initial
50
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
investment of six hundred dol-
saw, the station wagon and Mis-
lars upon proof of accidental
sy.
death.
while he started the car, much
That’s
when
he
knew
his
best friend was going to provide. Jake was a sad janitor.
less stand still long enough for
him to hit reverse with her in
the tread lines.
Sad that his momma hated him.
Sad
utes,
that
he’d
ever
stuck
his
She wouldn’t stay on his lap
He chased her for ten minbribing
her
with
jerky
dick in that poor excuse for a
treats and soft food, all to no
wife of his.
avail.
Sad that his semi-
retarded son, Rusty, had fell
off that boat and drown.
Sad
that, at the age of fifty-seven,
he was a fucking janitor.
Bald-
ing, fat, with a belt load of
keys and a back pocket whiskey
bottle was the best he was ever
going to get. But, more than all
Table saw? Maybe, he was
cutting up a bird house and she
ran across the blade?
head,
He sat down to clear his
seeing
stars,
wheezing,
and telling himself he shouldn’t
have ever got that fat.
that, most sad that he was go-
ing to have to kill that goddamn
his face, and he stared into the
dog.
dog’s brown eyes, then at the
station wagon’s muffler he’d re-
* * *
Missy growled, and bit the hand
that fed her for the first time.
She was having none of those Xanax Jake crushed up in the soft
dog food. Just pissed all over
him.
He went to Plan B.
Missy came to him. Licked
Shoved
his way into the garage, barely
enough room for him, the table
fused to replace.
Eyes cloudy.
Limbs like concrete.
The
garage
door
opens.
“The other five hundred?”
“Help me.”
“The other five hundred?”
“I can get it.”
The last thing Jake saw was
51
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Missy in the arms of the Italian woman.
.
Licking her new best
friend’s nose. Then heard the
garage door click shut
52
“We all
drift
along,
silent,
alone.”
-Vallorani
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
NERD OF NOIR’S
CRIME SLEEPER
DOUBLE FEATURE
by Peter Dragovich
JOHN FLYNN’S OUT FOR
REVENGE
The
Outfit
(1973)
and
Rolling
Thunder (1977)
in my own mind, it fucking matters not to the Nerd, I simply
The Nerd is cheating something
terrible with this installment
had to tell you all about these
ridiculously kick ass films.
of the CSDF, but there’s no get-
ting
around
beauties on cable within 24 hours
this
article
ten.
it,
dear
had
to
reader:
be
writ-
Someone, some misguided
I managed to catch these
of one another and so, you know,
it
is
feasible
that
you,
the
fool like your favorite base-
reader, could have a similar ex-
ment
perience if you’re diligent with
crazy
had
to
spread
the
word about these films, had to
your DVRifying.
start the fucking ball rolling
just netflix these motherfuckers
on
over-looked
and call it a day is a goddamn
seventies gems to a fucking Ama-
shame, but we work with the hand
zon warehouse near you.
we’re dealt.
getting
these
Call
me a prophet or call me legend
That you can’t
Like I said, after
the DVD distribution world gets
54
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
a load of my rantings about John
eighties, guys like Walter Hill,
Flynn’s badass pair of aces, no
John Carpenter and John Milius -
doubt both films will be avail-
and (arguably) rightly so.
able within a month’s time. While
record was spotty at best and of
we’re on the subject of me and
his films the only ones that a
how awesome I am, let the Nerd
mild movie fan would even vaguely
say that he is both incredibly
recollect would be James Woods’
handsome and a genius while also
Best Seller, Sly Stallone’s Lock
possessing a penis of a length
Up and Steven Seagal’s Out for
and girth rarely seen outside of
Justice, nary a one of them be-
the porn world.
ing a particularly good flick.
John
Flynn
is
not
often
His
Say what you will about his
counted among the ranks of the
other films, though, dude hit two
great,
genre
out the fucking park right in a
filmmakers of the seventies and
row in the mid-seventies with
hyper-masculine
55
CRIME FACTORY
The Outfit and Rolling Thunder.
The
Outfit,
based
on
the
Richard Stark novel, finds Robert Duvall taking up the Parker
role (here called “Macklin” for
SEPTEMBER 2010
Macklin and Cody start ripping
off outfit bookies and card games
with a delicious mix of professionalism and sweet, sweet savagery.
some fucking mystifying reason).
Macklin is released from prison
of classic fifties film noir and
after serving a two year stretch
post-Wild Bunch bloody violence.
and within hours not only does
The attention to detail in the
he learn that his brother has
robbery planning and execution
been whacked but there’s also
reminds the Nerd of fifties flicks
an attempt made on his own life.
like The Asphalt Jungle and The
He learns from his would-be as-
Killing (In fact, both Timothy
sassin that the outfit, the boss
Carey and Elisha Cook Jr. from
of which being the great Rob-
The Killing show up in small but
ert Ryan, is behind the hits and
memorable
that they stem from a bank job
The body count is high and the
he, his brother and their friend
killings unrepentant like in the
Cody (the ever-awesome Joe Don
novel itself, the action filmed
Baker) did before he was sent up
with
the river.
ing the bullets punching holes
Unbeknownst to them
the bank was owned by the outfit,
dudes who are not the types to
let that shit go.
ing
lets
an
roles
in
emphasis
the
on
film).
captur-
through motherfuckers.
And while The Outfit is a
blood-spattered good time that
Instead of going into hidMacklin
The film is a hyper-clash
it
be
is utterly shame free, it’s mere-
known
ly an appetizer compared to the
that he wants to be reimbursed
thrills to be had in our second
by the outfit for the death of his
Flynn feature Rolling Thunder.
brother to the tune of a quar-
Paul Schrader of Taxi Driver and
ter of a million dollars.
When
The Yakuza fame co-wrote this
they, naturally, don’t pay up
spectacular, no-bullshit gem of
56
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
a revenge flick. William Devane
a man trying to adapt to the
plays Major Charlie Rane, a POW
normal
recently released and sent home
hell, the film takes a shocking
San Antonio after seven years
of torture
right turn when a gang of nasty
mother-
world
after
years
in
in a Viet-
fuckers
nam
pris-
grind
on.
For
his
hand
in
his suffer-
the
gar-
ing he gets
bage
dis-
2,500 sil-
posal
and
ver
dol-
kill
his
lars
(one
wife
and
for
kid before
every
day he was
taking
a POW), a
with Rane’s
kid
case
who
off
of
doesn’t
silver dol-
even
lars.
re-
If
member him
you
don’t
and
di-
think Rane
vorce
pa-
is planning
pers
from
on
get-
his
wife
ting
some
who
has
payback
been
car-
you clear-
on
ly haven’t
rying
with
an
old friend of his and is looking to marry the son of a bitch.
After a half an hour of the film
playing like a great, grim seventies-style character study of
been paying
any fucking attention.
What makes this film so fuck-
ing ridiculously great is how it
manages to be both a smart and
57
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
disturbing character study while
film alone it’s clear why Quen-
also really letting it fucking
tin Tarantino named his short-
rip in the crime plotting and
lived
action departments.
The bal-
pany, Rolling Thunder Pictures,
dramatic
after the film, but here’s some
ance
between
subtle
video
distribution
scenes and nasty-ass exploita-
more
tion thrills is on par with the
for the film.
best of the Budd Boetticher/Ran-
films, Rolling Thunder features
dolph Scott westerns of the fif-
a great, unsung character ac-
ties (and if you don’t know what
tor in an unexpected way.
I just referenced you should net-
viewers know William Devane as
flix away toot-fucking-sweet).
“that smarmy guy who pops up for
From
that
aspect
of
the
speculation
on
his
com-
love
Like many of QT’s
Most
twenty minutes in a thriller,”
58
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
but here he takes the rare lead
thing you had to do to make that
role and fucking runs away with
shit happen
it. It’s a quiet, no-bullshit
.
performance where the character
is revealed through small gestures, through sideways looks,
even when he’s slicing up motherfuckers
with
his
sharpened
prosthetic hook (yeah, you read
that shit right).
Speaking of
performances, don’t fucking get
the Nerd started on Tommy Lee
Jones. The moment where he finally comes alive?
When he deliv-
ers one of the most badass lines
since
“Let’s
Bunch?
Go”
in
The
Wild
Holy fuck, dear reader,
just shoot-in-your-pants cool.
But enough of this geeking
out bullshit, dear reader, I’m
thinking you get the point already.
If you don’t, let me lay
that shit out for you ever so
fucking plainly: Seek these films
out right now.
Program your Ti-
vos, search the shadier areas of
these here interwebbings, write
to the mayor of movies, blow a
thief in his van - do whatever
it takes.
The Nerd guarantees
you won’t regret watching these
movies, no matter what terrible
59
“Enough.
Enough.
I am sick.
I am sick.”
-Jakubowski
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
SHIFT WORK
A DOUBLE SHOT OF VICTOR & SHEILA
Episode 1
THE PI’s WIFE
By Libby Cudmore
I wake up to the sound of the
bottle of champagne we stuck in
shower running through the thin
the back of the fridge; we al-
wall between our bedroom and the
ways buy champagne when we have
bathroom.
I’m unwilling to open
a little extra cash so that no
my eyes, I can’t face the world,
matter how broke we are, we can
not yet, not when I know there’s
drink in style on a special oc-
a cheap-wine hangover waiting to
casion.
strike as soon as I make the first
opened a bottle of white wine,
move.
I lay still, picturing
something Hungarian, a present
the water running down Victor’s
that was probably stolen by a
naked body, through his graying
line-chef client to thank Victor
hair, dripping down his spine,
for proving that his wife wasn’t
sliding into the beautiful curve
cheating on him, as he’d sus-
at the small of his back before
pected.
I love a happy ending.
sense
dropping off and hitting the tub
with an ungraceful splatter.
Last night was our anni-
versary.
years.
at all.
Six years, six long
My
in next.
When that was gone, we
of
touch
kicks
Cheap sheets; Victor
piled all the blankets on top of
me when he left.
It’s too damn
Doesn’t seem that long
hot for me and I throw them off.
We started with the
I drag myself out of bed and out
61
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
to the kitchen for coffee.
He’s
I close my eyes and savor the
already started a pot and al-
sweet, cold scent of him while
ready smoked the day’s first cig-
I’m still out of his line of
arette.
vision.
He’s perpetually trying
When he goes away on
to quit, he’ll never give them
long-distance cases I use his
up and truth is, I don’t mind.
soap, just to have that little
I may hate the taste of the damn
part of him close by.
things, but I love the smell.
pears in the kitchen doorway and
His half-emptied coffee cup, a
grins.
“Good morning Sheila.”
smile.
chipped
brown
diner
piece
we
raided from a condemned greasy
spoon, sits on the table next
to his glass ashtray.
I take my
first sips from his lukewarm coffee; he mixed in a tablespoon of
new grounds to freshen up yesterday’s, but it still tastes
like a muddy dog.
I pour my
own cup and skip the milk.
I
drink half down quick; if Victor
catches me drinking black coffee I’ll get a lecture about how
it’ll give me an ulcer.
We all
have our vices.
The shower creaks off and
he hums a nameless tune, shuffling through the cabinets for
his
toothbrush,
mouthwash.
toothpaste,
The door opens and
the air, fragrant with aftershave and stolen hotel shampoo,
settling over me like LA smog.
I
He ap-
“Good
morning
Victor.”
He warms up his coffee and
lights
another
cigarette
with
the Gil Elvgren Zippo I gave him
last Christmas.
I know better
than to try and start a conversation while he’s smoking. Each
cigarette
is
his
last
and
he
wants to savor it, like the final night with the wife before a
solider goes off to war. He takes
a long drag and sits, exhaling
slowly in my direction.
watching him smoke.
I love
We could be
having one of those fights where
we yell and throw dishes, but
all he has to do is fire up a
cigarette and I melt.
Our din-
ner guests think our plates are
deliberately mismatched.
Victor
is
a
master
of
62
CRIME FACTORY
bumming
cigarettes.
When
SEPTEMBER 2010
we
so she became a fortune teller
were too poor to buy them, which
instead.
was often, he would take to the
back in those neo-hipster areas
streets to get his fix.
He knew
of the city, same with boxing and
all the right alleys, the right
Bettie Page haircuts and thirty-
bars, the perfect hours when ev-
four is the new twenty-three.
eryone outside is still drunk
I could dust off my old mirror
enough to be full of good cheer
routine, the one I used to do
and charity.
He started at one
for Victor in the early days.
end of the street and comes home
He would sit in his armchair,
with enough to get him through
hissing breath through clenched
one more day, crossing and un-
teeth while I undressed in the
crossing
full-length
his
fingers,
counting
Burlesque is coming
mirror,
acting
as
the hours he’s awake divided by
though he wasn’t there while I
the night’s cache, subtracting
unclipped my stockings and let
the ones he needs for rituals—two
down my hair.
with coffee, one before bed.
he couldn’t stand the tease a
Any
left over are fair game.
Once
again,
the
When I could tell
moment longer, I’d straddle his
money’s
run out. The years wax and wane,
last year everyone was getting
lap and we’d go at it like teenagers in the back seat of a borrowed car.
married, this year there’ll be
Victor already told me bur-
plenty of divorce work.
It’s
lesque was out of the question.
still early yet, but as we sit in
He’s the jealous type, but not
silence, I consider once again
so much like the guys who come
taking up burlesque.
I learned
banging on his door demanding to
the hoochy-coochie from the for-
know where their girlfriends are
tune teller I used to work for;
and swearing up and down that
she was a cooch dancer during
they’ll kill the bitch when they
the last holdout in the 1950’s.
gets
She was too old, too heavy-set
type of cases Victor won’t take—
to become a twiggy go-go dancer,
we’d have a lot more money if
their
hands
on
her,
the
63
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
he did, but he said he couldn’t
Catholic family who collective-
live with the blood on his hands
ly don’t think she should have
and I can’t blame him.
married
My hus-
a
low-life
cop-school
band doesn’t like the idea of
dropout.
other men seeing his wife take
not only be a sin, it would be
her clothes off.
It’s not the
admitting that her mother was
naked part that gets him mad,
right and that was a far worse
it’s the act of seduction.
hell.
He
Divorcing him would
I’ve met Victor’s mother-
wouldn’t care if I was a plain
in-law and I’d take eternal dam-
old
nation any day.
That meant our
around in a g-string and watch-
marriage
even
ing the clock, but peeling off my
just a quickie Vegas job with a
clothes is an act only he’s sup-
pawn-shop cocktail bauble and a
posed to see.
three dollar silk tie.
topless
dancer,
strutting
He exhales the last smoke
wasn’t
official;
He goes to Michelle’s when
from his lungs and stuffs out his
he needs time to think.
cigarette.
feels sorry for him, she slips
painfully,
The
we
rings,
the
him a couple hundred bucks when
suffering long enough to let the
she can see that he really needs
machine pick up.
it and in return, he performs
collector.
and
phone
endure
She
Another bill
Victor looks at me
and shrugs.
his
husbandly
duties.
Vic-
tor is good between the sheets,
“How about some eggs?” he
asks.
just because he fell short in
his faith doesn’t mean God took
back what he blessed him with at
***
birth.
His weekend getaways got
When Victor goes missing a few
under my skin at first, but after
days later, I know where to find
six years of marriage, I just
him.
I dial Michelle, his ex-
know it’s one of his tics, like
Not quite an official
an exact tablespoon of milk in
ex because they never divorced;
his coffee or the cigarettes he’s
she’s
perpetually trying to give up.
wife.
from
a
rich
Italian-
64
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
“Hi Michelle.”
the receiver.
“Hello Sheila.”
“How’s things?”
“Good, you?”
“They’d
be
maybe.”
***
When a few more days pass and my
a
hell
of
a
lot better if Victor would come
home.”
I feel kind of bad for
Michelle, she always sounds so
sad, so tired.
She’s got to
know he’s using her like teenage girl’s first credit card, but
I get the sense that with her
good looks and hefty bank account, she’s use to getting used
by guys.
I don’t blame Victor
for getting out of there, he was
never good at polo or tennis or
whatever it is the rich do to
pass time between mimosas and
blow.
want
to
talk
to
him?”
“Sure, thanks.”
There’s a moment of silence
to work. I put on my best lipstick, an eighteen dollar tube I
bought at a rich-bitch boutique
when we traced a daughter who
skipped town with stars in her
eyes. We found her two days later
in a basement porn studio, high
as Heaven and tied to a bedpost
with
silk
“Hi Sheila.”
“When
are
you
scarves.
Normally
we’d let something like that go,
but since she was two months shy
of fifteen, we were obligated to
bring her home.
Victor wasn’t
obligated to kick the director’s
That was a perk of
being on the job.
I set the lipstick on the
sink and leave my lingerie draw-
before Victor takes the phone.
coming
home?”
cide to put his detective skills
husband still isn’t home, I de-
teeth in.
“You
“A few more days,
I can hear him shrug through
er open. He’ll see that the pink
silk panties are gone, the ones
he bought me in Chicago while we
waited for a philandering husband to meet up with his floozy
secretary.
When he can’t get me
on the phone, he’ll come home
65
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
from Michelle’s and find all the
evidence.
He always is.
In the kitchen drawer
Jackey’s glad to see me.
He gives me a
I find a matchbook and leave it
big hug and lays a wet one on my
in his ashtray.
mouth.
He’ll light a
He never was a very good
cigarette while he tries to fig-
kisser, he’s too exuberant, lips
ure out where I could be, maybe
are like party favors to him.
he’ll rationalize that I’ve gone
let him linger longer than usual
for groceries.
He’ll see the
and when he lets me go, he grabs
lipstick, the logo on the match-
a bottle of champagne, gesturing
book, the missing panties and
grandly to the stairs leading to
he’ll put the clues together.
his office.
He’ll know where to find me when
he’s ready to look.
is nice to sip on a special oc-
Jackey Flinn and I go way back.
I used to waitress at his bar;
slinging drinks was how I met
Victor, and Victor never liked
ever
He’s the only man I’ve
known
who’s
taller
than
my husband, but in addition to
those two inches, Jackey’s got
at least fifty pounds on my wiry
Victor.
He’s
a
“A toast, m’lady,” he says,
handing me a glass. Champagne
***
the guy.
I
solid
German
casion, but men seem to be under the impression that pouring
champagne on any given Tuesday
will impress the dress right off
a girl.
Any woman who’s wooed
by a little bubbly on a grey afternoon could be wowed by just
about anything.
It’s all I can
do not to roll my eyes.
“What
brings you back by my place?”
Midwesterner with an easy laugh
No man can resist a pair
and eyes like gaudy jewelry; he
of
asks me when I’m going to marry
her lashes and Jackey’s no ex-
him every time we cross paths.
ception.
If Victor keeps running off to
old friends when she’s lonely,”
Michelle’s, I might have to take
I say.
him up on the offer.
friend I have.”
blue
eyes
lifted
up
under
“A girl likes to see
“And you’re the oldest
66
CRIME FACTORY
***
SEPTEMBER 2010
her, buddy, I’m serious.”
I already know how this will play
out.
At Jackey’s, the bar back
without looking at me.
will
tell
my time with my dress, watch-
Victor
that
Jackey
“Get dressed,” he snarls
I take
took off with some doll who said
ing the two of them sweat.
she was in the burlesque show.
you,” he adds to Jackey.
He might even get fresh about
your hands off my wife, pal.”
my legs and Victor will crack
grabs my elbow with one strong
him one hard.
hand and backs us both out of
Once he leaves
“And
“Keep
He
the bar, it’ll just be a matter
the room.
of finding out which sleazy dive
to turn his back on a business-
we’re shacked up in.
man.
I’ll leave
my car at Jackey’s, just to keep
him in practice.
the
DMV
for
He’ll call up
Jackey’s
plates,
it’ll cost him fifty bucks out of
whatever Michelle slipped him.
He’ll drive around until he finds
the Rock Inn and it’ll cost him
another fifty for Jackey’s room
key.
He can always go back to
Michelle for more.
Sure
enough,
just
getting
hot
things
with
are
Jackey
when Victor kicks down the door
and puts his piece in Jackey’s
face.
He knows better than
Outside in the parking lot,
he twists me around and bends me
backwards over the hood of the
car, kissing me hard.
“You re-
ally know how to get my attention,” he murmurs into my neck.
“I bet you were the queen of
hide and seek back on the playground.”
.
“I had to lure you home
somehow,” I say, smiling.
knew you’d find me”
“I
“Holy Jesus,” Jackie ex-
claims, scrambling to cover himself.
“We didn’t do anything,
buddy, I swear.
She’s still got
her panties on, I didn’t touch
Victor and Sheila return next
issue in “Midnight To Six
a.m.”
67
CRIME FACTORY
MAY
JUNE 2009
2009
SEPTEMBER 2010
ROAD TRIP - POWDER BURN FLASH
GIN FOR TWO - INERTIA MAGAZINE
JUNE
2009
PROPS - A TWIST OF NOIR
AUG.
2009
FIRST NIGHT IN A NEW TOWN - A
TWIST OF NOIR
AUG.
2009
ABSOLUTION - THE FLASH FIC-
AUG.
2009
LAST NIGHT - EASTERN STANDARD
CRIME
AUG.
2009
UNPLANNED - THRILLERS KILLERS
AND CHILLERS
DEC.
2009
DEATH IN HOLLYWOOD ANONYMITY
- CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE
DEC.
2009
LIPSTICK KISS - THRILLERS
KILLERS AND CHILLERS
DEC.
2009
NO VALENTINES FOR GENERATION
FEB.
2010
TWILIGHT - CELEBRITIES IN
DISGRACE
TION OFFENSIVE
68
“Her face
had a little too
much of
everything.”
-Riordan
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
The Czar of Noir
The Eddie Muller interview
He’s been called the Mayor of Noir City and The Czar of Noir. Eddie
Muller is an author of both fiction (the Billy Nichols series) and
non-fiction books on Film Noir such as the essential Dark City: the
Lost World of Film Noir. He has become the face of Noir in America
today because of his work as founder and president of the Film Noir
Foundation, a non-profit that seeks to rescue classic films from the
vaults and preserve them for generations to come.
70
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Muller spends his year criss-crossing the country to attend screenings at the ever expanding Noir City festivals from Los Angeles to
Seattle to Washington D.C. The traveling festival screens films both
well known and obscure, many seen on the big screen for the first time
since their premiere some sixty to seventy years ago. The foundation also works with studios to strike new prints of films that have
languished for decades in a vault, forgotten and at risk of disintegration.
As author of Shadow Boxer and The Distance, the first two in his series set in Noir era San Francisco and books which can deservedly
be called Chandler-esque, Muller knows from crime fiction. He’s also
written short stories that have appeared in San Francisco Noir, part
of Akashic books stellar series and Busted Flush Press’ A Hell of a
Woman. The latter story, ‘The Grand Inquisitor’, even became a short
film that Muller directed himself and starred Marsh Hunt, a veteran
actress of the 1940s and 50s who can still deliver a knockout performance on par with her work in the Noir classic Raw Deal.
Above all he is a man who has taken his passion and made it his mission. Eric Beetner spoke with Mr Muller for CF
How has your experience with the
having to foot the bill. That’s
Film Noir Foundation lived up to
actually
your expectations since it was
nario. It’s also been fun and
founded?
gratifying to discover how many
It’s exceeded all expectations.
We’ve been able to restore two
films completely, and our relationships with the studio archives
have
led
to
many
more
film prints being freshly-struck
and preserved, without the FNF
the
best-case
sce-
film noir fans there are all over
the world. And our periodical,
the Noir City Sentinel has grown
from a 4-page newsletter to a 40+
page electronic magazine that’s
attracting essays and articles
from some of the world’s leading
71
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
authorities on the subject.
coming to re-experience a film
Why is it important to show these
films on the big screen?
Well, it is essential for us economically because that’s how we
raise the bulk of our restoration war chest. It’s a very organic process: we put on a show,
people pay to see the films, we
use the profits to reclaim films
that would otherwise never again
be shown on a big screen. But
there’s also the communal aspect
of it. We don’t promote this as
a major part of our mission, but
we clearly see the NOIR CITY fes-
they already love?
It’s
both.
cross
Seeing
these
generational
films
lines
is
one of the most exciting things
about the festivals. Every show,
I’m not kidding, I have the same
experience:
somebody
comes
up
and says, “Thank you for showing this again, I haven’t seen
it since the day it opened in
1948 at so-and-so theater.” And
then some kid comes up and says,
“Awesome! I’ve never a blackand-white movie that big before!
I’m stoked!”
tivals as upholding traditional
Do you think 70 years from now
cinema. These films weren’t made
we’ll
for
Neo-Noir and if so, what will be
television,
and
certainly
not for iPods. You are not getting the experience as it was
intended unless you see the film
projected on a big screen. And
since some of the films I find
will never be digitized, it’s in
some cases the only way fans can
see them.
be
having
festivals
of
screening?
No, on two counts. First, there
probably won’t be theaters left
showing
movies,
certainly
not
festivals of old films. And secondly, I don’t think that neonoir is as clearly defined and
artistically rich as films from
The Noir City festivals really
the original noir era. They re-
seem to be taking off. Do you find
ally are just crime films, giv-
most audience members are new to
en a highfalutin name by people
Film Noir or are these people
who don’t believe the original
72
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
era ended. They think it morphed
To the enjoyment of the films,
into something else. That’s only
probably not at all. But when it
true from a writing standpoint.
comes to scholarly appreciation
Stylistically,
of the films, I am on a crusade to
there
are
very
few similarities.
Is
the
wholesale
return proper recognition to the
slapping
of
the Film Noir label on anything
black and white with a gun hurting the public’s idea of what a
film noir is?
It’s
certainly
affecting
it.
“Hurting” it, I don’t know. I’ve
been guilty of using the term
loosely, so I could include some
rare films in a series, for example. I don’t think that’s hurting anything, unless you’re an
writers, of both the novels and
the screenplays. Far too much
credit accrues, in many cases
unfairly, to directors -- thanks
largely to the auteur theory.
It has been swallowed whole by
a generation of film critics and
enthusiasts and it is unjustified
in virtually all cases if you’re
not talking about Orson Welles,
Alfred Hitchcock, Samuel Fuller,
Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch, in
“There’s a
obsessive purist. There’s a time
and place to plant your flag and
time and
take a stand on what truly is
place to plant
“noir.” When you’re trying to
your flag on
schedule a fun film series and
what is truly
rescue vintage films, that time
rarely
comes,
if
it
comes
at
all.
‘noir.’”
other words, artists who are the
driving force behind every as-
As someone who is also an au-
pect of a film. It’s absurd to
thor, of both non-fiction and fic-
me when this grandiose theory
tion work, how important to you
is applied to the work of a for-
is an appreciation of the lit-
hire
erary tradition of Noir to the
of
enjoyment of the films?
chael Curtiz, aren’t better at
director.
those
Not
craftsmen,
that
some
like
Mi-
73
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
telling a story than most of the
now. These occasions have been
auteurs! If I read one more crit-
some of my fondest memories, for
ic talking about Lang’s genius
the very reason you describe.
at having Lee Marvin throw coffee
They’re sure everyone has for-
in Gloria Grahame’s face in The
gotten,
Big Heat, I’ll kill them. It’s
weren’t a BIG star, and to see
in the book, for Pete’s sake. If
a
anybody gets credit, it should
sionately to work they’d done
be the writer, William McGivern.
60 years ago... it’s magic. I’ll
I
the
always remember Coleen Gray see-
screenwriter, Sidney Boehm, in
ing Nightmare Alley again with a
adapting the book, had opted to
full house, tears streaming down
leave that scene out, Lang cer-
her cheeks. And Ann Savage talk-
tainly wouldn’t have thought of
ing to several full houses for
it himself. McGivern thought of
Detour. I think it kept her go-
it, Boehm recognized it’s impact
ing for a few extra years.
and significance to the story,
A
can
attest
to
you:
if
and Lang shot it as written. Yet
he gets all the credit for it.
Ridiculous.
or
actress
few
or
filmmaker
shows up for a screening to find
a whole new audience for a film
that was practically forgotten?
And is there anyone who is still
alive you haven’t gotten to come
out to a screening but really
want to?
I always wanted Richard Widmark
to come out, but it’s too late
house
respond
if
so
they
pas-
per-
sonal things
-
What
thors
Describe what it’s like when an
actor
full
particularly
auare
you reading
these days?
I
was
re-
viewing for
awhile, and
it
became
overwhelming. It really wasn’t a smart
idea to get into that. It’s hard
to name crime fiction authors I
like -- because I have about 200
friends who write crime fiction,
74
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and I’ll piss off 197 of them if
expectancy is. Big corporations
I start picking favorites. I al-
don’t give a damn, and philan-
ways read Paul Auster. He’s an
thropists should be giving their
automatic buy for me.
money to aid medical research
Will we see another Billy Nichols
novel? How about another film?
I’m writing another Billy Nichols
now. And yes, I expect to make
another film, either a few shorts
or something feature-length. But
it’ll be a DIY project, that’s
the only way to go now. I do not
have the patience for the money
dance and all that. Frankly, I
don’t have the patience for the
and end poverty. If you’re a film
noir fan, you can actually help
save films and it doesn’t cost a
fortune. No one has even donated
more than $5,000 (Ellroy) and we
do just fine. You should donate
because it works. You’re not paying my salary, because I don’t
.
have one. Plus, you can hook up
with people all over the world
who share this passion
movie business or the publishing
business -- so it’s nice that
you can do everything yourself
these days.
So there you have it. Are you a
member yet? Well, you should be.
Finally, sum up for us why some-
And it’s damn easy. filmnoirfoun-
one
dation.org
should
become
a
FNF
mem-
ber and supporter. Give us the
pitch.
We should not be a culture that
allows
its
indigenous
popu-
lar art to die. But we are -unless
somebody
steps
up
and
does something about it. Films
are perishable. The medium is
so young we’re only now learning
what
an
older
film’s
life
Eric Beetner is the co-author
of One Too Many Blows To The
Head and a frequent contributor
to the Noir City Sentinel, the
.
Film Noir Foundation news letter, which you would have known
if you were a member
75
“Ah, see,
you’re
starting off
on the
wrong
foot,
mate.”
-David
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
TEMP WORK
SHORT STORIES
enough to make the thin white
blouse pull against her breasts.
To Die For
The
By Sandra Ruttan
tissue-thin
material
be-
trayed the absence of a bra but
she definitely didn’t need one.
“Looking for this?”
his pulse quickening as his eyes
The voice was low, sultry,
compelling.
He felt his head
snap up as though it was nothing
more than tiny metal shavings
caught in a magnet’s pull.
She was leaning against one
of the beams that anchored the
covered balcony.
Her left foot
traced a slow path along the calf
of her right leg and the short
red skirt fluttered in the soft
breeze.
The sandals she’d re-
moved dangled in her right hand
while she gently rubbed her neck
with her left.
them.
She didn’t need
Even leaning back she was
almost at eye level with him.
Her
back
arched.
Gary straightened slowly,
Just
lingered on her body.
“And what would that be?”
“Ah.”
Her
left
eyebrow
rose as a smile danced across her
lips and she pulled her hand out
from behind her neck.
“This.”
The key to the door dan-
gled from her manicured fingers,
right in front of those supple
breasts. It wasn’t until he managed to pry his gaze away that
he realized she’d finally opened
her eyes.
Crystal blue, which
stood out against the chestnut
hair, the bronzed skin.
Her
“Sorry if I startled you.”
face
betrayed
no
lie,
or
77
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
apology. The curve of her lips,
the way her eyes sparkled, even
and low, like water in a shallow
the softness of her words hint-
steam gently rushing over the
ed at her amusement.
rock bed.
He’d been
staring at her. In his mind already on the other side of the
door, pulling that translucent
blouse off, steering her toward
the bed.
And she knew it. She want-
ed it.
He was certain.
“I, uh,” he nodded at the
tree behind her and flashed a casual grin, “didn’t see you.”
Her smile widened.
“That
was the idea.”
Her laugh trickled out soft
It was musical.
Hypnotic.
Then she stopped, the tip
of her index finger against her
lips, the key now clasped in her
hand.
‘I’m here to look after
you, Gary.’
“Where’s Catherine?”
The smile faded, eyes wid-
ening
just
enough
to
hint
at
concern as the woman pushed herself off the beam with her shoulders, tossed the sandals down
Even the way she brushed
and stepped into them. Slow, de-
back a loose strand of hair with
liberate steps, closing the gap
her fingertips made him salivate.
between them as she said, “Poor
Gary scratched his head, prof-
thing wasn’t feeling well.”
fered a smile and small chuckle.
fingertips outlined the curve of
“Okay…”
his bicep as her gaze drifted
Let
her
do
the
Let her take the lead.
talking.
Just in
case…
slowly down his body.
He liked the way she took
her time studying him, as though
It was the shrinking voice
of reason whispering in his ear,
barely audible over the staccato
rhythm his heart was pounding
out.
Her
it wasn’t a put on but for real.
When she looked up she ran her
hand down his chest, stopping
at the button on his shirt just
above
his
belt,
fingering
it
78
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
playfully. The skin that brushed
into a pout. “I’d really like to
against his was smooth.
spend some time with you.”
“I’m not Catherine.”
“I know.
“I’ve only ever seen Cath-
erine.”
The lips puckered into a
small pout, her shoulders lifting and falling in a matter of
seconds.
just
“Suit yourself.
didn’t
want
to
let
She
you
down.”
He caught her hand as she
turned away.
“Hey.
I didn’t
say-“
“That’s okay.”
This smile
didn’t reach her eyes.
“We can
just cancel and you can see Catherine when she’s feeling better.”
“Whoa
whoa
whoa.
Hold
on.”
He moved toward her, still
holding her arm, and reached for
I was just surprised, is all.”
“So you don’t expect me to
be like Catherine?”
“I-“
“Because
against him uncomfortably.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
pancreas.
now.
She
wasn’t
smiling
She moved clos-
er, barely an inch between their
bodies, her breath tickling his
skin.
the
landing somewhere south of his
The glint
gy, his boxers starting to pull
wasn’t-“
He felt his stomach drop,
do
stood elevated her sexual ener-
want.”
to
the subtle change in the way she
as he murmured, “I didn’t say I
anymore.”
like
in her eye was back, even just
“Maybe I’m not interested
I
things my own way.”
her shoulder to turn her around
It’s… It’s okay.
“I’m game.
Whatever you
Gary was fighting to keep
tremor
out
of
his
voice.
He was glad that Catherine was
sick.
It never hurt to try some-
thing new.
Something exciting.
Her lower lip had curled
79
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
“Close your eyes.”
against a wall, starting to un-
He smiled as he did, start-
button his shirt.
ing to speak but he heard the,
“Shhhh,” as she placed a finger on
cally to her blouse.
his lips for a second.
pushed
Then he
pulled back instinctively as the
cloth wound around his head.
She stopped.
you said-“
back,
leaning
in
“Patience,” she said as she
exhaled against his chin.
And
as she undid button after button
“I know, I know.
Sorry.”
He held steady as she tied the
blindfold,
them
But she
against him.
“I thought
His hands rose automati-
catching
the
scent
of something almost floral.
He
couldn’t think of how to describe
he felt her breath against his
chest. Lower and lower, until
she pulled the shirt from his
pants.
Then he felt her hands
grasp the belt.
it but he sure as hell knew the
effect it was having on him as he
the wall as his pants fell down
drew in a deep breath.
around his ankles.
was
If he’d thought his heart
racing
before,
it
was
in
overdrive now. The next few moments were disorienting and exhilarating.
He heard the key
slide into the lock. The door
opened, her hands against his
muscles as she guided him inside
the cabin.
He was aware of the loss
of daylight. The change in the
air as she shut the door on the
fresh breeze and pushed him back
Gary relaxed back against
He moaned
softly as his boxers followed.
Just the idea of her made him
hard, the warmth of her breath
against his calf, his knee and
now along his thigh adding to
his excitement as he clenched
his hands to keep himself from
reaching for her. Those smooth,
silky hands worked their way up
his legs.
It took everything in him
to hold back. He fought the urge
to pull the blindfold off, kick
away his pants and rip off her
80
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
clothes as he pushed her against
again, fighting hard to choke the
a wall.
breath through his throat.
It was making it harder
to hold back, and he could feel
her now, putting the condom on
him as he released his breath.
The blindfold was disori-
enting.
He’d had the sense that
Gary opened his mouth to
call
out,
strangely
aware
of
how jumbled his thoughts were
as he reached out, tripped over
the pants and crashed into the
she’d moved away from him, that
side of the bed.
feeling of space growing around
the frame impacted his stomach,
him, and was just about to reach
which burned worse than the back
up when he felt the soft fabric
of your throat when you swal-
land on his head. Her blouse, he
lowed a half cup of coffee before
guessed as he snatched it away.
you realized it was near boil-
Immediately replaced by another
ing.
item that his hands told him was
a skirt.
He pushed himself up from
the wall, and stumbled.
Damn
pants were still around his ankles.
As Gary reached down to
free his right foot he felt the
urge to scratch.
Aware of how
unappealing it would be for a
woman
cock
to
see
right
him
now
scratch
he
swallowed, tasted metal.
the?
He sucked in and in and
in.
Wheezing and gasping as he
clawed the side of the bed. Trying to pull himself up.
What
The need to itch was grow-
ing, overshadowing his lust for
the woman. What was her name? He
felt a ripple of warmth spreading over his skin as he swallowed
But he
still couldn’t get enough air.
“Help,” he gasped out once
before his knees collapsed and
he slid to the floor.
***
his
resisted,
He grunted as
“You’re fuckin’ with me.”
“I shit you not.
Shows up
with her client and she’s dragging him inside when he gets one
look at the stiff on the floor and
he’s gone.”
“Yeah,”
Parker
said,
81
CRIME FACTORY
chomping
his
gum
noisily
SEPTEMBER 2010
as
he nodded at the blonde staring blankly out the window of
a cruiser.
“And she just tells
you she’s a workin’ girl?”
“Nah.”
“No need.
“Two of them go inside to
get busy. But he forgets to mention his allergy.
Within min-
ness he was gasping for breath.
her
clothes
around.
maid, not dressed like that.”
Parker’s
mouth
cracked
into a wide grin as one of the
uniforms opened the door and the
woman stepped out, being led to
a different vehicle.
Her boots
were long and her skirt was short
and even from where Parker stood
he could tell she was wearing a
thong. “Nope. She’s not getting
paid to clean house.
What’s the
deal with the cabin?”
“Belongs to the company.”
“Convenient.”
Parker
frowned. “So how’d we get called
in?”
“She called us.
No money,
no client-“
The other one, looks
This one can hardly say she’s the
whaddya figure?”
utes of getting ready for busi-
the escort service when she was
“So
Guthrie shrugged.
like she dropped the card for
throwin’
Parker scratched his head.
“No charge. Yeah, yeah.”
Died quick.”
Guthrie tipped his head in
the direction of the bathroom
and Parker followed him to the
door.
“Sure she didn’t know?”
The brunette’s body was in
the tub.
She had nothing but
her underwear on, color matching
the splash of dark red that had
seeped into the bathmat on the
floor, one sliced wrist dangling
over the edge, brushing against
the floor.
“Christ.
“Best we can figure she got
scared,
shot
What a waste.”
up,
slashed
her
wrist.”
“She
was
high?”
Parker
asked.
fits.
Guthrie
shrugged.
“It
Found some cocaine and a
syringe.”
82
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
giving the man a chance to re-
“Straight up accident-sui-
cide.
Twist on the usual mur-
spond.
der-suicide.”
***
“Boss called in already.
One in the tub is Catherine Le
Bon.
Our victim is Gary Ford-
ham, allergic to latex.”
Forty miles away outside a busy
supermarket, Celia Fordham juggled grocery bags as she doubleclicked on the remote lock and
“Some allergy.”
reached for her car door.
“Doubt he was crazy about
the safe sex campaigns,” Guthrie
said.
you dropped this.”
“Huh.
Anything but safe
“Excuse me? Miss? I think
woman
Celia turned slowly.
had
her
chestnut
The
hair
for him.”
Parker reached for
pinned up in a bun, thick black
the
wallet,
medical
frames outlining her blue eyes,
alert card clearly visible oppo-
a smart gray pinstriped business
site the drivers license.
suit
bagged
a
“And
augmented
by
heels
that
he gets so hot and bothered he
gave her a considerable height
forgets to mention it?
advantage.
Jesus.
Should’a stuck to those silver
bracelets.”
his wife.”
garbage bags in her hand.
“We’re supposed to go tell
“Thanks.” Celia tugged the
door open and set the bags in on
the back seat before, removed
Parker glanced at the oth-
er bag his partner held.
The
one that contained a gold band.
a small map book from the side
door pocket and reached for the
item she’d allegedly dropped.
He looked up and saw the way
the color had gone out of Guth-
strength.”
rie’s face. “Good a time as any
for you to handle informing next
of kin.”
She held a box of
He walked away, not
“Jumbo
“Spring
box,
extra
cleaning,”
Celia
said as she took the bag. “I
have a lot of trash to get rid
83
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
of.”
“Not anymore.”
Celia tapped the map and
passed it to her.
for Baltimore.
“You want 140
Just follow the
signs.”
as
“Thanks.” The woman smiled
she
looked
inside
the
map
book at the money in the envelope stuffed inside.
“I took
care of it.”
“Just it?”
“All of it.”
Celia shut the back door.
“Was he… happy?”
brow.
.
The woman arched an eye“Not as happy as he want-
ed to be”
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
far,
Guns Of Brixton
By Paul D. Brazill
far
away
from
him
these
days. And all the better for it.
Her voice was starting to sound
like like a squeaking gate or a
leaky tap dripping throughout a
ONE
‘White
and
red,
Richard!’said
Caroline Sanderson as she lay
on her massive four poster bed
massaging her temples. She did
this at the start of each day,
saying that it helped her focus,
as if White House level decisions awaited her. She propped
herself up on her elbows and exhaled deeply.
‘But,
don’t
buy
know?
whatever
bloody
It’s
you
do,
so
unfashion-
okay?’
Richard resisted the temp-
tation to ask her how, pray tell,
a human’s taste buds could be
affected by the fickle whims of
what was considered fashionable
but he knew from experience that
he’d be pissing in the wind.
Richard was bursting to get
out of the house. His hangover
was surprisingly mild; fighting
the tedium of the night before’s
New Years Eve party at The Oxo
Tower, he’d got sloshed and satisfied himself with a few sneaky
tokes of wacky backy in the toilets with one of the glamorous
Eastern
European
waitresses.
gave him headaches these days.
Chardonnay.
able,’ she continued.‘Remember,
Anyway, it wasn’t the drink that
Everybody hates Chardonnay now,
you
sleepless night.
Caroline was in a planet
***
Richard walked into the migraine
bright
bathroom.
The
face
in
the bathroom mirror wasn’t exactly what you’d call handsome
but neither was it particularly
ugly. A lived in face, perhaps.
With more lines than the London
Underground, though.
Well, he was a kick in the
arse off fifty and teetering on
the precipice of a mid-life crisis. What did he expect?
85
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
He was lucky, though, in
listened to Caroline, the more
that, unlike most of his mates,
he felt as if he was drowning
he hadn’t developed a beer bel-
in a well of disappointment. He
ly.
supposed he should have asked
The fake, black Hugo Boss
suit fit him as well as it had fifteen years ago when he’d bought
it in Bangkok, in fact. The fact
that
he
still
wore
it
pissed
Caroline off no end, which was an
added bonus, of course.
Richard
straightened
his
tie in the bedroom mirror, picked
up his stainless steel briefcase
and
headed
downstairs,
barely
noticing his long neglected guitar that was propped up in the
corner.
‘Oh,
and
Richard.
Could
you pop into Muji and get some
of that string stuff?’ shouted
Caroline as he reached the bottom stair.
her a little more about who was
going to be at the dinner party
but the weight of numb indifference overwhelmed him. Probably
the usual hodgepodge of fourth
tier media tossers and middle
management wankers, he guessed.
Richard got into his Mer-
cedes, threw his briefcase into
the back seat and opened up the
glove compartment. He took out a
fist sized hip flask. Drinking in
the morning – especially when he
had a drive south of the river
to Winopolis – probably wasn’t
the best idea in the world but
it would help him keep his life
at arms length. He thought of
the WC Fields line: ’She drove
me to drink, it’s the one thing
‘Eh?’ said Richard.
I’m indebted to her for.’
‘You know, it was in Aus-
Richard
pushed
the
hip
tralian Elle? To make the plant
flask into his jacket pocket and
pots look more rustic.’
opened
Richard grunted an affirma-
tive but he was already on his
way out of the door; the more he
a
packet
of
L&M
ciga-
rettes. He took a big hit and
gazed up at his six bedroom West
London home. There was only him
86
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and
he drove aimlessly, listening to
it
Caroline living there but
still
felt
claustrophobic,
suffocating.
One of his old mates had
referred to it as Xanadu – like
the
the music.
cavernous
house
in
Ten
years
of
this
he
thought. You’d get less for murder.
Citi-
zen Kane; stuffed with ‘the loot
TWO
of all the world’ but containing nothing Kane’s wife ‘really
‘Learned
cared about.’
books, didn’t I, Ken?’ said Big
Roxy
Music’s
‘In
Every
Dream Home A Heartache’ corkscrewed through Richard’s mind
every night as he walked up the
it
from
Andy
McNab
Jim cleaning the blood from the
dagger. He threw the stainless
steel briefcase into the back
seat of his Red Jag.
garden path after another un-
eventful day at work.
ribcage, see? So the blade isn’t
Richard
buckled
up
and
started the engine. He switched
on the radio and Dexy’s Midnight
‘You
stab
‘em
under
the
deflected by bone and then you
puncture the heart and twist,’
he continued.
Runners were singing ‘Burn It
Down’ as he pulled out of the
lifted
driveway into Sycamore Road. Not
from the ground. Shit, I’m out
a bad idea, he thought. Not bad
of condition, he thought. Once
at all.
a
He turned into Bath Road
and headed south. It was a cold,
granite
coloured
morning.
He
stared out of the car window,
barely focusing on the rows of
Kenny Rogan wheezed as he
Half-Pint
Harry’s
semi-professional
body
footballer
now a full time barfly. He’d even
given up the Blue Anchor’s Sunday league and he got a hot flush
when he bent down to fasten his
shoe laces.
detached houses being smudged by
the January rain.
the legs. Jim was as much use
For a while
Big Jim nodded as he took
87
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
as a condom in a convent most
Jim was a man who didn’t
of the time, thought Kenny, but
like
change.
when it came to the heavy lift-
Boy, his car even had an old
ing he was the man for the job;
eight track cartridge that ex-
built like a brick shithouse and
clusively played the two Eddys
bearing more than a passing re-
– Eddy Cochran and Duane Eddy.
semblance to one too. His face
was so lived-in, even squatters
wouldn’t stay there.
‘Looks a mess, eh Kenny?’
‘Was no oil painting when
a
good
Jackson
Pollock,
though, eh?’ said Kenny. ‘Picasso, even ...’
‘Jackson
annoying
Teddy
fucker,
though, eh? Non stop motormouth.
Jim took the hose pipe and
sprayed it around the lock up.
he were alive, mind you. Would
make
‘Right
ageing
Geordie twat,’ said Jim.
said Big Jim.
An
Bollocks,
more
‘Wasn’t a Geordie,’ said
Kenny.
‘Eh?’ said Jim.
Kenny grinned.
‘Half-Pint Harry. He wasn’t
like it.’ said Jim, with a 5000
from Newcastle. He was from Sun-
watt grin.
derland, James. Was a mackam,’
‘Very droll, James. Very
he said.
sharp. You’ll be cutting your-
self if you’re not too careful,’
when it’s at home?’ said Jim.
said Kenny.’
They stuffed the body in the
boot of the Jaguar and slammed
it shut. The
car was Jim’s
pride and joy. He’d had it since
it was new and he considered it
a classic car from back in the
good old days.
‘What’s a fackin’ mackam
‘A mackam’s...like a decaf-
feinated Geordie,’ said Kenny,
chuckling to himself.
‘The north’s all the same
to me,’ said Big Jim.’
said
black
‘I wholeheartedly agree,’
Kenny.
pudding,
‘Mushy
pease
peas,
pudding,
88
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
fishy-wishy-fuckin-dishy. I usu-
complimentary
ally start to hear the dueling
hill of cocaine. Eight O’ clock
banjos from Deliverance as soon
on
as I get north of Finchley.’
best time for her to start work
Jim
wasn’t
listening,
though. He was rubbing a pair of
New
pen
Year’s
to
Day
snort
wasn’t
a
the
and she knew she’d need a little
lift.
black tights between the fingers
of one hand and scrutinising a
George. It was mass produced shit
pair of black patent leather high
and the Brixton address had be
heels like they were a magic eye
misspelled but then Clarkeson’s
painting.
were cheap bastards. They’d made
‘Not too keen on Plan B,
then?’ said Kenny with a grin as
he dropped his trousers.
‘Do
we
have
to?’
said
Jim.
‘Not much choice now that
Half-Pint
Harry’s
worm
meat.
This clobber is our best front
door key,’ said Kenny.
He clumsily stripped to his
to
pull
a
gold
sequined
dress over his shaven head.
The
Lord
Albert
last
night?’ said Lynne, before using
the
Clarkeson’s
pen
to
few years but still cut costs
wherever they could.
Lynne
has
been
manager
there for four years now and had
only had one pay rise. It was a
trap but there she was in her mid
forties, single and under qualified. She didn’t exactly have a
‘Oh, I did,’ said George,
‘but
it
was
completely
dead.
As much fun as Morissey’s stag
night.’He took a big snort.
THREE
go
the
money hand over fist over the last
‘You
passed
bucket-load of choices.
snowman boxer shorts and struggled
She
Jewellers
Lynne checked her make up
in the mirror and pushed up her
breasts,
her
best
asset,
she
thought.
‘Somewhere
to
park
your
89
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
bike,‘ said George looking at
her cleavage.
ing wheel in his left hand and
Lynne tossed her dyed red
hair back dramatically.
‘Sure you don’t want me to
turn you straight, Georgy Porgy?’ she said, almost rubbing
her breasts in George’s face.
She was only half joking.
George was a good looking lad.
Tall, blond and half her age.
And he was always immaculately
dressed. He was a cut above the
rough and tumble types she met
in the Brixton Hill Arms. However he was as camp as Christmas,
unfortunately.
Kenny
held
the
steer-
checked his make up in the mirror. It was a good job he’d shaved
that morning, he thought. The
stubble still showed, though. He
adjusted his curly blond wig as
he pulled up at a Pelican Crossing and waited for a staggering
smack head to wobble across the
road.
Kenny usually loved driv-
ing in London on a Bank Holiday; there was almost no traffic,
leaving
the
city
to
the
real Londoners. But today was
New Year’s Day and it was like a
scene from Zombies Dawn of the
‘Mmmm,’ said George ‘Well,
Dead with the overspill from the
maybe if I can flip you over and
night before’s parties wander-
play your B- side!’ he guffawed,
ing the streets.
loud and vulgar, as Lynne battered him with a feather duster.
As he raced down Walworth
Road he swerved around the Elephant
and
Castle
roundabout,
narrowly missing a group of ratFOUR
‘There
ain’t
Summertime
no
cure
Blues.’
for
sang
the
Kenny
and Big Jim at the top of their
voices.
boys being chased by a red faced
Santa Clause; he started to feel
nostalgic.
‘Remember
the
sixties,
Jim?’
‘Just
about,’
said
Jim,
90
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
opening up a can of Stella and
Harry doesn’t need them.’
handing one to Kenny who held
the steering wheel with one hand
as he opened it.
‘Won’t
Uncle
Frank
want
this?’ said Jim, an edge in his
voice.
‘August Bank Holiday Mon-
day. Brighton Beach. Mods versus Rockers. Kicking ten bags of
shit out of those little twats
on hair driers.’
Frank, James. He don’t give a
toss as long as he gets that
back,’ said Kenny. He gestured
over
‘Happy days’, said Jim.
Kenny
sipped
his
can
‘It’s a little bonus from
his
shoulder
toward
the
shining metallic briefcase.
of
‘After we get rid of Half-
Stella, gazed at the fading bat-
Pint Harry and do this next lit-
wing tattoos on his hands and
tle job we can head off down the
remembered a drunken night at
Blue for a gargle, eh?’
a Brighton tattoo parlour that
then
segued
into
the
time
he
first met his wife, Deborah. Ex
wife now, of course.
Twenty five years ago now.
There’d been a lot of booze un-
Jim
fiddled
with
his
bra
strap and adjusted his long blond
wig.
‘Great minds drink alike,
Kenny’ he said.
der the bridge since then, he
FIVE
thought
‘Grab
said
Kenny.
a
bunch
He
of
threw
them,’
a
well
stuffed wallet to Big Jim. Jim
opened it up and pulled out a
wad of cash.
‘More leaves than you’d see
in a cabbage patch, eh?’ said
Kenny. ‘Help yourself. Half-Pint
Lynne wiped her nose and looked
up as a black Jaguar pulled up
outside the shop.
‘No
way!
Customer’s
at
this time of the morning?’ said
Lynne, putting on an extra layer
of make-up.
‘It’s New Year’s Day. We’re
91
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
supposed to be shut.’
Lynne grimaced.
‘Metaphorically
‘Now,
you
know
that
Mrs
speak-
Clarkeson says that we have a no
ing, of course,’ said George. He
closing policy. Tight twat, that
wiped the white powder from his
she is,’ said George.
nose, pressed the button to open
‘They’ll have to wait un-
til we’ve finished the stock taking, said Lynne, indignantly.
The car door slammed and
and
two
tall,glittery
blonds
got out, wearing more gold than
you’d find in Fort Knox or on
Jimmy Saville.
‘No!
alert,’
Russian
said
George,
Princess
perking
up.
Russians usually spent a
fortune and he worked on commission. The men – bullet heads
with no necks - terrified him but
the women usually seemed to take
the security door and painted
on a smile as wide as the Grand
Canyon.
‘Morning
ladies,’
he
beamed. Then he saw the Glock
and his jaw dropped so much you
could have scraped carpet fluff
from his bottom lip.
Lynne
screamed
as
glass
from the shattered cabinet showered her and pebble dashed her
face.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ said
Kenny, pressing the gun against
George’s left eye as Jim stuffed
a big black bag with jewels.
a shine to him.
I’m off to Barcelona next weekend.’
‘I’m as happy as pig in shit,’
said Kenny, swigging on his can
Lynne
just
shrugged
and
finished off the cocaine.
SIX
’We’ve got to let them in,
‘Time for some serious rim-
mimg,’ said George.
of Stella and swerving the car
around
the
corner
into
Druid
Lane. He pulled off the wig and
threw it into the back seat.
92
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
New Year’s Day. He felt bloody
‘Let’s have a butchers at
this,’ said Jim, wiping the make
up from his face. He leaned into
the back of the car and pulled
the bag of jewels towards him.
He opened the bag and took a
swig of Stella.
Jim. The beer he’d spilt over
his crotch was cold. He started
rubbing at the wet patch.
He felt the urge for an-
other nip from the hip flask. Resisting the temptation, he fumbled in the back of the Mercedes’
’Shit,’ said Richard. As he
looked up, The Best Of The Undertones in his hand as he saw a
black Jaguar career toward him.
‘Looks like you’re enjoy-
ing that,’ said Kenny.
glove compartment for a CD.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said
good.
‘It’s a one way ...’ Rich-
ard floored the peddle and swerved
‘Sure you’re not shaking
hands with the one eyed milk-
the car away.
Mercedes onto the the pavement.
man?’
***
They
both
howled
with
laughter and then Kenny froze.
He bounced the
‘Bollox!’ said Kenny, as a
white Mercedes hurtled towards
them.
Kenny swerved and slammed into a
wall between a kebab shop and a
Poundshop. The air bag deployed,
punching him in the stomach.
***
Fuck, he was trapped. Tak-
ing a deep breath, he struggled
Richard was feeling pretty smug.
It had been an effort but he’d
managed to find as many bottles
of Chardonnay as his credit card
in his trouser pocket for his
Swiss army knife and punctured
the airbag which deflated with a
wheeze.
would allow. He deliberated over
stopping off for a swifty in one
seat, the radiator hissing like
of
that
a snake as the steam escaped.
were bound to be open, even on
The car alarm was wailing and
the
striptease
pubs
He
struggled
out
of
his
93
CRIME FACTORY
Big Jim didn’t look too good at
all.
***
Richard
staggered
out
of
his
car and saw the Jag: a face was
sliding down passenger door window like a snail leaving a trail
of blood.
‘Christ...’ he said
‘Hey, you.’
He looked up and saw a bald
transvestite stumble out of the
mashed Jag carrying a big black
bag, spilling necklaces and jewels, in one hand and a silver
briefcase in the other.
Richard
fumbled
in
his
pocket for his phone and felt
cold
steel
against
his
fore-
head.
‘I’m taking your car.’ said
Kenny, who looked as dazed and
confused as Robert Plant.
‘And you’re driving.’
Shit, Richard thought, as
he heard the approaching sirens
.
in the distance. Why not. Can’t
be
any
worse
dinner party
than
Caroline’s
SEPTEMBER 2010
CRIME FACTORY
Transportation
Security
Administration
By Calvin Seen
Trent saw the TSA as lawbreakers
that violated their own rules.
People would not get away with
such violations, outside an airport. Travelers had two choices:
to pass through the Full Body
Scanner or be patted down.
As he headed toward air-
port security, he looked at the
screens that displayed the red
terror level. The screens indicated that travelers must report
suspicious luggage or packages
to TSA.
SEPTEMBER 2010
through the conveyor belt and
examined through the X-Ray machine. A girl cried as she passed
through a machine with tubes and
spinning sensors. An agent patted a man down. A woman had her
hand
out
as
a
worker
spilled
powder on to her hand. Her fingers pressed onto the card and
her prints taken. What a bunch
of weaklings who submitted to
such violations.
Not Trent though, when it
was his turn, he pulled out a
pistol and fired at the unarmed
TSA workers, killing three and
wounding many. He ran past airport security, which caused the
metal detector to go off. As he
ran to terminal fifteen, police
To Trent, security did not
fired at him. He took snap shots
justify the violation of rights.
at them as their bullets grazed
He approached the TSA worker as
him in the shoulder. Travelers
she
and
ducked and most ran in the op-
swiped it all over his license,
posite direction as he motioned
passport,
make
them to get out of the way. Trent
sure they were valid. He got in
made it to terminal fifteen and
line and approached airport se-
fired at the passengers as they
curity.
ran into the plane. He shut the
cell
used
an
infrared
and
Shoes,
phones,
ticket
luggage,
and
pen
to
jackets,
belts
went
door to the cockpit, and shot the
co-pilot as the 757 took off.
95
CRIME FACTORY
“Hey buddy. We made it!”
said the pilot.
“TSA is a joke. They should
not be a monopoly. There should
be competition between corporations for maximum security without violating rights.”
“Whatever, you say buddy.
We grew up together and if you
choose to die, then I’m going
with you.”
.
The pilot made a U-turn and
crashed into the airport
SEPTEMBER 2010
CRIME FACTORY
Same Case Every
Time
By Matthew C. Funk
I don’t do missing persons cases. I’m not in this for charity.
SEPTEMBER 2010
Cookin’: Served in an unwashed
skillet. Shrimp bought from a
trash bag out back Big Lots by
the highway. Pepper sauce that
would make the Devil cry. I’m
not crying, though.
A story like this always
I don’t draw breath just so that
comes along.
I can grab ankles. And missing
persons cases only end up one
ther to Angola.” Weezy says, and
way.
of
Then one like this comes
along. One always does.
“She only eight and she got
“I lost her dead-beat facourse
I
remember
Dwayne.
Serving twenty for slinging rock
to kids and getting paid in middle-school poontang.
a blue ribbon in math and she
“Yeah, Weezy.”
likes Little Pony.” One look at
“I lost her brother to the
the picture Weezy’s holding up
dust.” And brother, of course I
and I could have told you that.
remember—Tusken. Gangly fucker.
Of course she likes Little Pony.
Did his dirt with a bat. Tagged
Of course she likes rocky road.
“SLUGGERR.” Shirm head probably
What little girl doesn’t? Then
playing house with his feces in
again, what little girl deserves
an abandoned tenement.
to sleep on less than a warm bed
behind a door that doesn’t need
a lock?
“Alright, Weezy. Alright.”
I itch the scab on my wrist. But
my saying it doesn’t make it so.
Weezy’s crying in our barbeque
shrimp lunch at the Down Home
“Sure, Weezy.”
“I
tired
of
losing
the
youngins.” Weezy wipes her eyes
on her plain white cotton shirt,
adds to the zoo of stains there.
She clutches the plastic crucifix.
She shakes, two hundred pounds
of government cheese in knock-off
97
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Crocs. “They not old enough to
paid enough, on or off the job.
stop dreamin’. Why they got to
live in a nightmare?”
my
“Nah, Jurgis, nah!” Begs
second
informer,
Esteban,
I don’t have an answer to
as I run the fishing wire from
that. Only an answer for Weezy.
his thumbs to his nutsack. “I’m
“I’ll find her.”
“Maybe
her
playing you straight, hermana!”
father
knows
where she is.”
Maybe
he
does.
I
sure
didn’t know Dwayne was out. The
streets will answer for that.
I
leave
the
badge
at
around here. On or off the job.
Police take the money they get
running all-night details after
their three-straight days on acward. The cash goes into body
armor, into Black Beauties, into
barely getting by.
* * *
I leave the badge because when
you’re on a detail, it gets in
the way. You get 20 a year on the
NOPD. Before taxes. After hours,
you’re not in it for charity.
“Weeping
Jeezum,
Jari!”
Says my first informer, Little
Dinky, as I put his hand in the
Truck and Trailer Repair Yard’s
vice. “I don’t know where Dwayne
is! Baby-raping fool’s a ghost
to me!”
Nobody plays it straight
tive duty and they pay it for-
home.
Dinky
barely
keeps
from
being a ghost himself. I’m not
in this for mercy. I don’t get
“He
don’t
play
with
the
grown-up girls,” whines my third
informer, Jeanie, as I dangle
the skag before her like an angler fish’s lure. “How would we
ho’s
know
where
that
skel
be
sleeping?”
New Orleans Police don’t
sleep and we leave the badge at
home. It gets in the way of business, because the streets run
with cash and blood, and there’s
no telling when you’ll find yourself throwing down on another cop
— you have to leave the shield
at home but never, ever forget
98
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
the bullets.
* * *
“Yeah, I know where Dwayney
I find Zim in the third Canal
be lurking.” Zim grins pert as
pipe I check — the one by the
his knotty afro. “Crazy mother-
ruined Desire Projects. By my
fucker be trolling the canals. I
shaking flashlight, I can see why
show you, for a price.”
he didn’t call.
I
agree
and
Zim’s
all
It’s pretty hard to make a
smiles, peddling a little girl’s
phonecall with his junk cut off
life for the crack rock I prom-
and stuffed down his throat. Pret-
ised.
ty hard to text when your fingers
“Tight.” I tell Zim.
“I ain’t seen him come up
for air for a few days.” Zim’s
grin’s getting bigger than his
face. “Guess he lucked out and
found himself a date.”
“Find him by tonight.”
“I ring your digits when I
lay eyes on him.”
I give him a number. Then
are stuffed where your eyes go.
Somehow that all stays shoved
in him even when he’s dangling
upside down by the gray rope of
his guts.
The drain pipe is gray and
red and throbs with stench. The
air’s not fit for burning, let
alone
breathing.
I
stay
long
enough to get a clue who did
this.
it’s back to the apartment for an
overdose of Sudafed and enough
carved into it: “SNITCHERR”
ramen to keep my muscles from
eating themselves for calories.
I plan, too.
I plan on not bringing rock.
I’m bringing a brick for Zim.
He’ll eat that grin in pieces.
Zim never calls.
Zim’s
chest
has
a
word
I remember who Zim used to
kick it with and where, and then
I turn off the shaking light and
let Zim alone with only the Canal barges to moan for him.
* * *
The nearest abandoned tenements
99
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
are Desire Projects. Rat shit
Tusken’s got Bella in a Commu-
walls. Bat shit graffiti. Human
nion dress. He’s got her set on
life, still licking water out
what the cleaver left of Dwayne’s
of drains and cooking up in the
lap. She’s tied up with rope.
piss smell and the shadows.
where
kick
I’m perched over the block
Zim
it.
and
I’m
Tusken
not
cuffs. For a crazy fucker wearing
used
to
a hockey mask and Zim’s slashed
thinking
of
up banger gear, Tusken’s taking
money for once. I’m thinking of
Weezy’s photo. I itch my scab as
I do.
He’s got me in my own hand-
no chances.
“Look, Bella.” Tusken says,
picking up a bone saw from the
I’m
thinking
this
could
tools scattered with a Fisher
work out. I’m watching the mangy
Price tea set before his sister.
grass of Abundance Yard from 360
“I brought lunch.”
degrees. I’ve got total observa-
He points at me.
“Tusk.” I ask him. “Why?”
and Montgomery. I’ve got my eye
I don’t really want to know.
on the rooftop door.
I just want him off his game. The
tion of Desire Parkway’s chopped
up road where it meets Pleasure
I’ve got my back to the
rain
gutter,
though.
I
don’t
hear him climb it like a rat.
I hardly feel the bat across my
head.
eyes he puts on me, even in the
Christmas lights he’s got strung
up, look like pinball machines.
They tilted a long time ago. I
would swear, even with his mask
on, I can see him smiling.
Thump.
Crash.
Out.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
* * *
“Why what, Jari?”
Nice to be remembered.
“Why her?” I take a good
look at Bella. I wish I hadn’t.
She’s
got
blood
running
from
100
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
between her pudgy thighs. Old
wait. My heart’s beating vitri-
blood and fresh.
ol. Tusken’s fingers climb and a
“She gets me.” Tusken gig-
gles.
“And why Dwayne?” I want to
keep the conversation going. It
goes the wrong way: Tusken pets
Bella’s hair and every ounce of
my insides turns to vomit.
“A growing girl’s got to
eat something.”
spark climbs my fuse. I pick at
my wrist’s scab.
I can’t wait
but somehow I do.
“It paid off. I’m all about
love now.”
He tilts the mask up.
“I can see that.” I pick
more.
“You will see.” Tusken has
“So if I’m lunch,” I strug-
done something to his face that
gle out the words. “Why am I
takes a knife, an imagination and
still alive?”
the will to destroy human fac-
“You always kept an eye on
me, Jari.” Tusken whines, hunkering
by
Bella.
He
cups
her
ulty for description. His tongue
slithers out of it. “I’ll show
you how much I love my Bella.”
— her whole white-draped body
— under one vast arm like a flow-
she’s still cringing away. Bel-
er. I’m reminded that magnolias
la’s got eyes like a lab animal
lived in the time of dinosaurs
on its way to the incinerator
and I feel sorry for them. I
but she’s got fight in her. She
feel sorry for the whole fucking
shrinks away and he leans in.
planet. “You always cared for
me, tried to watch after me and
the other kids, no matter how
much dirt we did.”
I’ve got fight in me, too.
The lockpick comes out of the
scab in my wrist. The handcuffs
come off two seconds later.
“Yeah. I did. Oh well.”
Another
giggle,
He puts his tongue out and
and
his
fingers are on her knee. I can’t
The weight in my hand a
second later tells me that Tusken
left my brick on my belt.
101
CRIME FACTORY
I don’t give him a second
to look up.
crying to Weezy. Bella’s not crying either. Her arms are loose,
I bring the brick down and
I just feel sorry for getting all
that blood on Bella’s dress.
SEPTEMBER 2010
Ten seconds of up, down,
up, down, up, down and Tusken’s
laid out on the floor. Bella’s
wailing but I don’t hear it over
the screaming in my skull. I re-
liking a drowning victim about
to slip into brown water.
“We gonna take you home.”
Weezy tells the flotsam in her
arms. “Just right after a little
errand. Momma got to go by Benefit Park, and find the man who
got her medicine.”
fuse to let that scream out. All
I hear is Tusken’s grunting.
don’t bring up that Weezy short-
“Why?” Now he’s asking me
why.
I
answer
with
the
brick
and keep repeating myself until
Bella hugs her mother. I
ed me. She’ll just cry more and
keep shorting us both.
“Jesus loves you, Jari Ju-
rgis.” Weezy promises.
the back of his head looks worse
than the front.
time in this city. I turn away
before I have to see the pinball
* * *
“Oh my baby, sweet baby.” Weezy’s
got a bib of snot coating her
plain white shirt. She saves her
tears for sowing in Bella’s hair.
I watch and count her money.
Just
enough
to
buy
more
Black Beauties and some ramen.
Enough to keep going.
It’s the same case every
Bella hugs her mother and
Weezy hugs back. I leave the
machines Bella’s got for eyes
now. I don’t need another reminder of what charity buys in
this city.
I tell myself I won’t take
another case like this. I mean
it.
along
.
Until the next one comes
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Sparrows &
Crows
He picked me up fifteen min-
utes after the call.
Tyrone was
a tall guy, six foot two, and he
By John Weagly
always looked like he was folded
into his mid-size car.
A knife given as a present cuts
“Where’s Diana?” I asked
the friendship, or so they say.
as I got in the car.
Tyrone didn’t actually give me
“Out with some friends.”
Over the years, we’d both
his knife as a gift, he loaned
it to me and I just never gave
it back, but it still had the
same effect.
had girlfriends.
Tyrone went
through them faster than I did
thanks to his problem with being
“Bored?”
faithful.
“Yeah.”
panions I liked, some I didn’t,
“Let’s go do something.”
We had the same phone con-
versation every night.
Some-
times I had the opening lines,
sometimes he did, but it always
led to one of us picking the
other up and then driving around
until it was time to go home.
That was our lives, a whole
lot of nothing.
notony.
Boredom.
Mo-
A complete absence of
anything inspiring or worthy of
note, every day our lives and
souls growing a little bit more
vacant.
Some of Tyrone’s com-
and it was the same for him with
the women I dated.
We never let
our conquests come between us.
His latest was Diana, a five
foot three inch waitress at the
IHOP on Halsted.
It was amusing
seeing them together, one really
tall, one really short.
They
looked like they could be a comedy team.
When he first intro-
duced me to her, she greeted me
by saying, “What’s your goal?”
I
was
at
a
loss.
“My
goal?”
“Yeah.
You know.
What’s
your goal in life?”
103
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
I didn’t like that ques-
tion,
both
because
I
thought
it was a little abrupt, having
just met her, and also because I
didn’t have a goal.
“I
don’t
know,”
I
said.
“To live,” she said.
She grew on me a little
over time, but not much.
some
bum, who would care?”
It’s funny how inactivity
makes almost any idea seem like
I know the difference be-
good and evil, between amusement
I fig-
ured I’d better get used to her
being around, since Tyrone had
confided in me that she was “The
One”.
“What do you want to do?” I
asked him as he pulled away from
the curb.
“There’s nothing to do.”
“I know.”
He
face me.
Killing
tween right and wrong, between
paused
not?
a good one.
“What’s yours?”
“Why
and cruelty, but I was bored.
Every day and every night it was
the same thing.
out.
Sleep.
Sleep.
turned
to
His response was an
unexpected cliché, an out of the
blue sitcom joke.
“Let’s kill
a drifter and get rid of the
body.”
I looked at him.
“You heard me,” he said.
Hang
Hang out.
Hang out.
Sleep.
This, the endless song of the
world-weary, combined with Tyrone’s question into a spur of
the moment philosophy:
Why not?
If being alive
was this tedious, maybe life had
If life was this
uninteresting, this boring, this
dull, then maybe life wasn’t that
valuable.
For something to have
value, after all, it has to be
rare.
And life is the one thing
on the planet that every living
person has.
Rather than being
valuable, life was the most common, lackluster commodity there
“You up for it?”
could be.
“You’re serious?”
Work.
Work.
no meaning.
and
Work.
“So, are you up for it?”
104
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Tyrone asked again.
Wilson.
but this time as predators.
“Why not,” I said.
* * *
We met in the seventh grade.
We
were both brand new thirteenyear-old
teenagers.
Tyrone’s
older brother, Teddy, had just
died of Leukemia.
Tyrone was
pretty messed up about it.
One
minute he’d be crying quietly to
himself, the next screaming at
the world. I don’t think he ever
got over it.
We were circling again,
When we met, I be-
came the brother he lost and he
became the brother I never had.
We found her on Belmont,
just off of Clark.
Wrigley Field
was only a couple blocks away.
She had filthy clothes and matted
hair and was bothering people
with the customary street line:
“Can you spare any change?” When
her potential benefactors didn’t
respond, she mumbled things at
them as they continued down the
street.
“Hey,”
I
called
out
the
window.
He was my roommate in college
and after graduation we moved
probably used to people yell-
to Chicago together.
ing insults at her as they drove
separate
We took
apartments;
we
were
friends, but we’d had enough of
living with each other.
Usually,
when
we
drove
around, we circled, like we were
looking for parking, but with a
wider radius and lower expectations.
This night, after we
picked up some supplies at the
Osco
we
drugstore
stuck
to
our
near
Addison,
usual
route:
south on Broadway, west on Bel-
She ignored me.
She was
by.
“Hello,” I tried again.
Nothing.
“You hungry?”
This got her attention.
“Yeah.”
“Get in.”
She looked at Tyrone’s car
and had a dialogue with herself
under her breath.
mont, north on Ashland, east on
105
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
“Come on,” I said.
“We’re
let me go because they were cut-
not going to hurt you.
We’re
ting back, whatever that means.
just trying to do a good deed.”
After that, Gary left.”
“You sure?” she asked.
“Gary?”
“We’re
“I don’t blame him, I got
sure.”
Tyrone
smiled as he said it.
She
again,
I
real depressed.
talked
to
herself
suppose
to
convince
herself that we were okay, and
then climbed into the back seat.
Tyrone turned north.
“What’s your name?” Tyrone
asked.
I was a recep-
tionist with a doctor’s office for
fifteen years!
After they let me
go, I woke up every day feeling
awful.
I didn’t feel like find-
ing another job and didn’t feel
like making my marriage work.
don’t blame Gary for leaving,
but I sure do miss him.
“Jamie.”
been gone ten years.”
“I’m Tyrone. This is Josh.
Burger King alright?”
“Fine.”
“What’s
asked.
story?”
I
I wasn’t sure if I re-
She didn’t answer; she just
watched the storefronts pass as
we drove by.
“How did you end up on the
street?” I tried again.
“I
was
can’t
give
you
He’s
any
money,” Tyrone said, “but we can
ally wanted to know.
“We
get you something to eat.
your
I
married,”
we can drive you to a homeless
shelter.”
had
She didn’t respond.
rejoined
the
She
conversation
that only she could hear.
We stopped at a Burger King
on Irving Park and I went inside while Tyrone stayed in the
car with Jamie.
Jamie
And
I bought her a
whopper with cheese and extra
said, still looking out the win-
onions.
I took the food into
dow. “Had a good job, too. They
the men’s room and locked the
106
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
door.
From out of my pocket I
took a bottle of sleeping pills.
“See anybody?” Tyrone asked
as soon as we’d stepped out of
the car.
I opened the sandwich and crum-
bled the pills onto the meat,
were birds hopping around nearby
the extra onions covering their
in the sand.
taste.
seeing birds after dark.
On my way back out, I
caught a glimpse of myself in
the mirror.
me.
It didn’t look like
I looked away and got out
of there before I had to think
about who or what had been staring back from the glass.
“This is really nice,” Ja-
mie said as I handed her the
food.
She was asleep five min-
I
looked
around.
There
It seemed strange,
“Just us and the sparrows
and crows.”
“That’s a good name for a
band,” Tyrone said.
“Sparrows
and Crows.”
I smiled and nodded my head
a little.
I didn’t feel good.
Tyrone dragged Jamie’s un-
utes after we left the parking
conscious body out of the back-
lot.
seat and down to the water.
mie didn’t stir.
* * *
There were whitecaps on the lake.
Lake Michigan is beautiful, and
it’s
even
it’s angry.
more
striking
when
We were at a beach
near Montrose Harbor.
It was
cold, the wind cutting off of the
water.
We’d driven around for
several hours with Jamie passed
out in the back, waiting for the
Ja-
At first I was
a concerned that we’d used too
many sleeping pills and killed
her.
Isn’t that stupid, con-
sidering what we planned to do?
Then I saw Jamie’s chest rising
and falling and I was able to
breathe again.
“Are you sure we want to do
this?” I asked him.
city to go to sleep, and now it
“Look at her. She’s alive.
was well into the middle of the
There’s nothing wrong with her.
night.
She’s
not
blind;
she’s
not
107
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
missing an arm. Why is she home-
of my stomach.
less?
She’s a living, breathing
It wasn’t the world’s greatest
person that has the chance to do
knife, but I knew it meant a
anything, but she’s wasting it.
lot to him.
She’s wasting her life.”
Teddy.
“That
doesn’t
mean
we
should kill her.”
Tyrone smiled.
It had belonged to
“Hold
on
a
minute.”
said it before he could open the
“We’ll be doing her a fa-
blade.
vor,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded.
He pulled Jamie into the
tide and laid her on her back
in ankle deep water.
The cold
spray made her eyes twitch.
followed.
Tiny
waves
I
washed
over my feet while Tyrone pulled
Jamie to her knees.
The cold
water must have penetrated the
fog that enveloped Jamie.
Her
eyes cracked open and her mouth
started to twitch with questions
she was too groggy to ask.
Her
breath smelled like onions.
“Hold on,” I said.
Tyrone
ignored
me.
It
had
a
three-inch
blade that folded into a white
bone handle.
When I saw it, I
felt a burn crawl from the back
of my throat down to the pit
I looked at my feet in the
water.
I couldn’t feel them.
“Just between us,” Tyrone
said again.
I moved around behind Ja-
mie and held her in place. “Just
between us,” I agreed.
“And the
birds.”
blade
He
“This is just
between us.”
took a hunting knife out of his
pocket.
I
Tyrone unfolded the knife
and
held
it
to
Jamie’s
throat.
The wind stopped blowing,
like it was waiting for Tyrone
to start.
I tried to say something,
but couldn’t.
I wanted to pull
Jamie away from the knife, but
108
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
instead I just looked back to-
shocked by what he had seen, by
wards shore.
what he had done.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Just between us.”
I
I heard a sharp intake of
breath that could have been from
either of them and then felt Jamie slip out of my hands with
a splash.
When I looked back,
Jamie was flopping on her back in
the water.
I don’t know if
she couldn’t, or just didn’t.
I
wanted to, I wanted to scream,
but something held me back.
I
tasted
salt-water
and
realized I was crying.
Jamie’s
body
trembled,
her hands clenched and her eyes
frantically searched the sky for
some kind of help.
After what
seemed like hours, she flipped
over onto her stomach, her face
reaching through the water to the
sandy bottom.
Lake water filled
Jamie’s mouth.
She drowned in
the ankle-deep surf.
My
heart
adrenaline
was
through
hammering
my
system.
I wanted to throw up.
When I
looked at Tyrone, his face was
white
and
forehead.
sweat
shone
on
his
He looked like he was
his
arm
and
dragged him toward the car.
“Let’s go.”
She didn’t shriek or
yell or cry.
grabbed
* * *
We went on with our lives.
That
seems astounding now, but it’s
what we did.
After we left the beach,
Tyrone dropped me off and I took
a scalding shower that lasted
for over an hour.
I couldn’t
seem to get my feet warm.
Then
I went to bed.
The next morning I got up
and went to work like everything
was normal.
I stumbled my way
through my job, thinking about
how Jamie didn’t scream, about
how none of us had screamed.
Tyrone and I called each
other throughout the day, asking
if the cops had shown up.
That
night, we didn’t go out driving.
We had enough to keep us occupied.
We bought the Sun Times
109
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and the Tribune and watched the
“Why?”
“We
local news.
Our crime didn’t
go unmentioned, but it wasn’t
at the top of anybody’s list of
priorities.
The press never mentioned
it again after that first day.
We hung out and went to
work and lived our lives.
The
cops never knocked on either of
our doors.
We went back to our
humdrum routines.
Jamie really
was our little secret, just be-
were
talking
about
you.”
One of the things I didn’t
like about Diana was that she
couldn’t just say what was on
her mind, every conversation had
to be a guessing game.
“What did the two of you
say?”
“I
know
what
you
guys
did.”
tween us and the sparrows and
the crows.
shoes. “Some old college thing?”
I asked, knowing it wasn’t like-
* * *
Three months later, our secret
shifted.
We had picked up Diana from
work and were headed to Tyrone’s
place to watch a movie.
Ice slithered through my
We were
ly.
“No.
You
know
what
I
mean.”
“The beach?”
She nodded.
“Don’t wor-
parked at the 7-Eleven on Ros-
ry, Tyrone means the world to
coe Street, right in the heart
me.
of Boys Town.
are.”
Tyrone was inside
buying soda and Diana and I were
sitting in the car.
“Have your ears been burn-
ing?” Diana asked from the backseat.
eye.
She had a twinkle in her
He’s just as guilty as you
“You won’t tell anybody?”
“Of course not,” she said.
“This is just between us.”
***
Six weeks after that, Tyrone and
110
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Diana broke up.
He said that the memory of that
“What happened?” I asked.
“I was at Schuba’s.
I met
this
girl.
talk-
We
started
ing…”
“You
bought
her
drinks
and she bought you drinks and
afternoon, the memory of being
surrounded by diamonds, made him
feel ashamed.
After he calmed down, he
added one more thought.
going to tell.”
I looked at him.
the same thing that always hap-
“She’s
pens.”
me.
you went home together.
“No,
thing!
it
wasn’t
the
It’s
same
Diana meant more than
that!”
If she was more than that,
I wanted to say, why did you
cheat on her?
while. He was mad at her, mad at
himself, mad at the girl in the
bar, mad at me, pretty much mad
He wouldn’t let
his eyes meet mine.
One minute
he said he loved Diana, the next
that he hated her.
He told me
that one afternoon he went into
a jewelry store in Water Tower Place and looked at diamond
rings.
really
pissed
at
She threatened to go to the
cops.”
“The cops?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Why did you have to tell
her?” I asked, trying to keep my
voice steady.
He ranted and raved for a
at everyone.
“She’s
He didn’t try to buy
anything, he didn’t even talk
to the clerk, he just looked.
“I couldn’t help it.”
“You couldn’t help it?
It
was supposed to be a secret, but
you had to tell her because you
couldn’t help it?”
“Sorry.”
“That makes it all better.
We’re screwed, but you’re sorry.
Now everything’s fine.”
“I thought I’d be with her
forever.”
I didn’t have anything left
111
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
to say.
anything.
He looked at me.
made contact.
Our eyes
“We have to take
care of her.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t let her go to the
cops.”
“What do you mean?” I re-
peated.
didn’t care.
I was beginning to
believe you could get away with
* * *
We
took
her
to
an
abandoned
storefront on Buckingham.
An
actor friend once told me that
it was a place where small the-
“We have no choice.”
ater
groups
hearse.
* * *
would
go
to
re-
The lock on the back
entrance didn’t work, so they
We waited.
they just didn’t see us or just
anything in the Windy City.
I couldn’t tell if
would
We parked in an alley next
let
themselves
in
when
they didn’t have the money to
to Diana’s apartment building.
rent rehearsal space.
Tyrone said she usually got home
no electricity, but there was a
from work around eleven.
We got
little light from a streetlamp
there at ten forty-five, got out
shining through an alley window.
of the car and waited.
I didn’t mind the darkness.
There
There was
I
were people here and there on
didn’t really want to see what
the street.
we were doing.
She walked past at five til.
Diana was duct-taped to a
Tyrone rushed out of the alley,
chair.
put his hand over her mouth and
utes, nobody saying much.
dragged her back to where we’d
was upset, Tyrone was upset, I
parked.
was upset.
I
opened
the
trunk.
Tyrone threw her in and I closed
the lid.
Then we drove away.
Nobody on the street yelled, nobody pointed at us, nobody did
We’d been there ten minDiana
I wasn’t sure how we
were supposed to handle this.
Tyrone stepped behind Di-
ana’s chair and took his brother’s knife out of his pocket. He
112
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
stood there and looked down at
felt the weight of it.
her.
around the shabby room.
After a moment, he stepped
away and looked at me.
“You
have to do it,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“What makes you think it’ll
in the corners, old newspapers,
beer bottles and fast food bags.
The
air
be any easier for me?”
ions.
“I thought you were ‘The
One’,” he said to Diana.
He
looked like he was going to start
crying.
walked
over
to
him.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“This is as much your prob-
lem as it is mine.”
He was right.
I didn’t
want to do to jail.
“Give it to me.”
He pressed the knife into
my hand.
“Just between us.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll call
you when it’s done.”
Tyrone took one last look
at Diana.
“We have no choice,”
he said, more to himself than to
either of us.
In the
dim light, I could see garbage
“No,” I said.
I
Appar-
ently, the theater groups didn’t
keep their secret clean.
I looked
Then he left.
I held the knife in my hand,
smelled
of
stale
on-
“Why did you do it?” Diana
asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on.”
“It seemed like the thing
to do at the time.”
“You were just bored?”
A
chill
crawled
the souls of my feet.
ded.
across
I nod-
One of the newspapers in
the corner shifted in a breeze
that wasn’t there.
I felt eyes
watching me, even though I knew
we were alone.
I’d wasted enough time.
I
stepped behind the chair and unfolded Tyrone’s blade.
I knew
that didn’t change the weight of
the knife, but it felt heavier.
“Sorry,” I said.
113
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
blade
place.
Tyrone
chair.
I
put
the
knife
against Diana’s throat.
was my best friend.
I’d do any-
thing for him and he’d do anything for me.
I couldn’t move my hand.
I kept hearing the newspa-
pers shifting, fluttering, trembling.
They sounded like the
flapping of a bird’s wings.
I pushed the steel against
I cut her free from the
The flapping stopped.
“Get
out
of
here,”
said.
She looked at me, her eyes
red, her face wet.
“Go on!”
She stood and walked out
of the building.
Diana’s skin, but my hand would
only let it press so far.
stuck it in my pocket.
The
flapping grew louder, much too
I
folded
I shook my head,
trying to escape the sound.
Diana
started
sobbing.
She took huge, wracking breaths
that, when exhaled, smelled of
stagnant water and onions.
My
feet felt frozen, like they were
cold enough to crack.
My arm flexed.
Diana closed her eyes.
I listened to the birds,
I never
After
that,
one
thing
led
to
another, which led to another.
Diana made good on the threat
she made to punctuate her and
Tyrone’s breakup.
Police came
to my door as well as Tyrone’s,
there was a trial and now I’m
in
a
detention
cell
of Corrections, waiting to be
I moved the blade over the
duct
tape
held
and
in the Cook County Department
to the music of their wings.
that
knife
* * *
sitting
the
gave it back to Tyrone.
loud to be a newspaper caught
in the wind.
I
Diana
in
shipped out to Joliet.
Our
It’s
to
funny,
avoid
many
trial
I
going
shoppers
was
downtown.
always
tried
downtown;
and
too
tourists.
114
CRIME FACTORY
But, there’s a lot Tyrone and
I could’ve checked out.
Pier.
The Sears Tower.
seeing tours.
.
Navy
Sight-
At least it would have been
something to do
SEPTEMBER 2010
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Face Off
The boys were tooled up and
touring the city looking for him,
Mack with the heart of concrete
By Richard Godwin
and they found him. Muscled in
on his boys and used their dusters. Left them so cut up no one
Ever see someone dethroned?
recognised them when they final-
Bloodshed in the Kingdom,
ly took them away in body bags.
the usurper clutching his weap-
Some of the sacks were tiny, if
on?
you know what I mean. That was
Joey’s doing, he liked cutting
Mack was the Boss.
But Hank knew better, like
a coiled rattlesnake that’s just
about as pissed of as he gets,
mouth full of venom, fangs running with it like hot come.
I’ll tell you how the trou-
ble started.
them up after he beat them to
seven shades of shit. How big’s
a foot? Their mammas wouldn’t
have recognised them.
And that was something Hank
never had, a mamma. You could
see it in his eyes. Dead as marble.
Money.
It’s all about respect.
people. Surrounded himself with
You grow up hard you get
this empire. He got people in-
hungry
and
that
appetite
ex-
tends to the blood of your fel-
Mack
liked
to
volved in deals he thought were
over their heads. Hooked em in
low man.
and screwed em over.
This all happened in South
Jersey.
The hard streets where the
stains won’t wash away, no matter how much rain falls.
distract
He’d been doing the dirty
and doing it for years. Taking on
deals and creaming off the profit.
He took more and more until Hank
decided to stop him.
And there was only one way
116
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
of doing that.
He was down in his basement
No, Big Mack was never go-
ing to forget that day.
counting money when we caught up
with him.
the fellows involved.
He loved the dark. Loved
And neither were most of
As he clocked what was go-
sitting in the windowless rooms
ing down he reached a hand into
that housed him at his clubs,
a drawer.
glass of vintage cognac in one
hand, money in the other. His
face
looked
as
though
it
was
made of leather, a map of lines
like a history of all his lies
and double-crossings.
He
stormed
turned
into
to
his
us
as
office,
we
the
trademark smirk on his face. He
wore it so frequently that you
expected to see it there, it was
as if he was saying look I’m one
step ahead of you. But he never
saw what was coming to him.
A blonde hooker in a G-
string barely covered her ass as
he motioned to her to get out of
there.
Incongruous
female
flesh
down there in that electric atmosphere of
testosterone and
hatred, she moved quickly, all
staring eyes and false lashes.
Hank lifted up one foot and
slammed it shut with a crunch so
loud you could hear the bones
breaking.
‘You
looking
for
your
piece?’, he said.
Mack kept the stare, con-
trolling the pain, maintaining
poise.
‘What’s this, a face off?’
‘Interesting question.’
‘Whatchoo boys want?’
‘Our money’, Hank said.
‘Money?’
‘Yeah, what you owe us.’
‘Forgive
aware
I
owe
me
you
but
I’m
anything
not
at
all.’
Hank
leant
across
the
desk.
117
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and pulling his stiletto cut away
‘You been cutting us out
of deals for years, think we’re
stupid?’
‘That’s not a word I would
use.’
his ear and held it to him.
‘See
this?
‘So where is it?’
does this to me.’
‘Show me your invoice.’
Bad choice of words.
As Mack put down his glass
desk, spilling the heavy aroma
of booze into the airless room
keep
‘No one comes in here and
smashed it on the edge of the
to
your other one?’
of cognac Hank picked it up and
Want
He
was
reaching
for
his
button, getting ready to call
his boys but they were already
dead and we watched as he waited,
tying a towel round his face.
‘OK, what’s the deal?’, he
finally said.
and taking the edge of the shard
of broken glass he dragged it
cobra eyes, like they were on
down Mack’s cheek, cutting a run
fire.
into it so deep you could have
pressed an entire finger into the
hole and watched it disappear.
Mack just sat there with
outrage and shock on his face,
a heavy trickle of blood running
from his cheek and splashing his
shirt collar, landing like wax
Hank
looked
at
him
with
‘The deal is you give us
our money.’
‘There’s nothing to give.
Not that I owe you anything.’
‘Are you going to make me
hurt you? Hurt you worse than
you are already?’
on his desk top.
‘Is that a threat?’
‘It’s a promise. And I’ll
‘You’ll regret that’, he
said, rising.
enjoy it.’
But Hank was too quick and
he just reached into his pocket
‘You
think
you
can
come
in here with some shit brained
118
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
notion about business and threat-
‘What proof do you want?’
‘What have you got?’
‘How’s this?’
And
en me like this?’
‘Nothing shit brained about
it’, Hank said, throwing Mack’s
ear at him.
a
It stuck to his suit for
moment
then
plopped
to
the
floor.
The blood was coursing down
Mack’s face and he was trying to
remain composed.
‘So
you
have
any
paper-
work?’, he said.
Hank pulled it out of his
case.
Neat papers piled together
and he read him deal after deal
where he’d cut us out and given
us next to nothing for our time
and effort.
Mack
just
sat
there
and
waited until he finished.
‘There’s
nothing
reached
into
his
coat and pulled out the other
knife he liked to cut with.
It did well on fish, making
a nice fillet, and now he demonstrated what else it could do.
Hank had a flair for steel.
Knew the butcher’s art.
‘What the fuck you doing?’,
Mack said.
‘Proving to you who’s in
charge here.’
The wound on his face was
nasty, welling with blood that
was turning black now and Hank
inserted the blade deep into it
and you could hear the sound of
tearing cloth and he peeled away
a good section of his skin and
there’,
he said.
let the mangled hole beneath drip
and splatter the carpet like rain
‘What do you mean?’
‘It
doesn’t
prove
thing.’
he
Hank leant over him.
and he stood there with the blade
any-
awash with it, the skin hanging
off its edge like fish scales and
then he did it.
The scream almost blasted
119
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
the eardrums.
his chin.
He
turned
and
drove
the
knife right through his cheek
and said ‘listen fucker’, then
he squeezed his cheeks together
until the blade was poking out
the other end, his face pinned
together by the steel.
‘We’re here to collect the
debt’, Hank said.
Mack tried to speak, but no
‘How much?’
‘What you owe us plus in-
terest.’
‘Interest?’
‘That’s right.’
I could see the conflict in
a man who would endure great pain
just to keep hold of his money
and I saw that Hank had won.
words came from him, he looked
like some caricature, an import-
the end of it?’
ed gargoyle from a trauma.
Some of the boys wanted to
pull Hank away but no one would
mess with him.
Not when he had that look
on his face.
He slipped the knife back
out again, pulling and turning
it so it mashed Mack’s mouth up,
then he flicked the flesh that adhered to it on the floor.
‘Now listen and listen real
good. Pay us.’
The first time Mack tried
to speak he just spat blood and
watched it run and drool down
‘Do you think this will be
‘If you don’t pay us it
will be the end of you.’
Mack put his hand up.
He must have known his boys
weren’t going to come and rescue
him because he got up and walked
over to his safe.
He
pulled
out
the
cash
which he placed in neat piles on
his desk, moving his head from
time to time to avoid turning
the money red.
Hank counted it and put it
in the bag.
As
he
door
Mack
moved
motioned
towards
to
him
the
to
120
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
stop.
in the eye.
‘What is it Mack? You look
a little cut up’, Hank said, ‘you
got something to say? Say it.’
‘You boys want to work for
me?’
Mack was holding his hand
to his face and as he removed it
a wash of blood swept down to
the carpet in a curtain.
‘You got the job if you
want it.’
‘You
fucking
serious?’,
Hank said.
‘Not at all, I think yous
good at what you does. I could
them?’
‘Who knows?’
‘You take care of them?’
‘What you think?’
‘You did a good job.’
‘We
‘Sure.’
‘Why the fuck would we work
always
do
a
good
job.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, I
could use boys like you.’
for you?’
‘We come in here and al-
most kill you and you want to
‘Yous good.’
The
silence
hire us?’
in
the
room
was palpable as Hank turned and
shrugging his shoulders gave out
a loud raucous laugh.
we’re fucking stupid?’
the fuck were mine when I needed
‘What?’
‘Excuse me but you think
use boys like you, heck where
‘What the fuck! Guy’s cra-
zy.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
‘You
think
we
don’t
see
through that?’
‘It ain’t a trick.’
other and then back to Hank who
‘Like shit. Like fucking
turned and looked Mack squarely
shit asshole.’
The boys looked at one an-
121
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
‘Straight up.’
‘How?’
‘There’s
‘Well, yous hot on proof
no
straight
up
about you Mack.’
‘I
Mack.’
ain’t
shitting
with
you.’
‘What if I showed you the
money?’
‘So you hire us and lead us
straight into a trap.’
‘No way.’
‘I ain’t falling for it.’
‘There’s
‘What if?’
Mack opened another safe
and brought out piles of notes,
more
of
that’,
Mack said, motioning to the money.
much more than he’d already produced, in fact he must have almost emptied it.
He laid them on the desk
away from the pool of blood and
Hank looked at us.
He scratched his chin.
eye.
‘How much?’
‘It’s all yours.’
‘As much as you want.’
‘For what?’
‘And what’s the job?’
‘For working for me.’
‘Sorting
‘Why would we want to work
a
few
looked
people
out.’
straight
in
the
for you?’
‘Like who?’
‘Like
assholes
who’ve
fucked with me.’
Hank
‘You
mean
‘Money.’
‘Gotta be more than that,
you screwed us over remember?
while
you
get
your boys ready to do us.’
‘No way.’
‘Prove you’re serious.’
That’s why we’re here.’
‘A
mistake
on
my
part,
now I’ve got the measure of you
boys.’
‘Why
would
we
wanna
do
122
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
anything for you?’
‘Ain’t this about money?’
‘It’s about what you owe
us.’
‘Yeah. You do more jobs for
‘I ain’t afraid of noth-
in.’
‘So take the job.’
‘Us work for you.’
There was a pause and then
me and I’ll owe you more.’
he did it.
‘Like we trust you.’
Delayed response.
‘I’m no match for you, you
And
it
was
particularly
boys have showed that.’
violent.
Hank scraped his chin.
Mack never saw it coming.
Now
He reached across the emp-
anyone
who
knew
him
also knew that was not a good
ty space between them and taking
sign for whoever he was looking
the stiletto drove it straight
at when he did it. It was usu-
through the side of his head.
ally accompanied by a lethal act
of violence and we waited for it
to happen.
But instead he just stood
there looking at Mack.
‘So what you think?’, Mack
said.
‘I think you’re setting us
‘No way.’
‘You expect us to believe
it just like that?’
‘Yous tough boys, what are
you afraid of?’
Mack was shaking and blood
was running off his face and Hank
lifted him off the ground with
the handle, his feet dangling as
his flesh ripped until his face
was unrecognisable.
up.’
‘Listen you fuck, your days
are over, we call the shots, you
don’t hire us.’
Mack’s face came away and
he fell to the ground and lay
there shaking until there was no
movement left.
‘I
think
he
got
the
123
CRIME FACTORY
message’, Hank said.
We knew who was boss and we
got rid of Mack, dumped him in
the river in a plastic sheet with
a couple of weights attached to
his feet. We took all the money
from his safes and changed the
locks to his clubs.
Before we knew it, we were
running a good business, good
turnover and no trouble if you
know what I mean.
Mack had a reputation for
setting people up, that was the
way he got started. And we knew
how he worked. Hank was never
going to fall for that.
We found a stash of money
at one of his clubs that we used
to set up business interests all
over town and we did good.
up,
Mack’s boys never showed
the
ones
we
hadn’t
taken
take care of.
ing
Hank made a good boss.
.
Business
is
just
thriv-
SEPTEMBER 2010
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
a house, a nice one with a pool
Take This Job
By Chad Rohrbacher
and a deck and a fenced in yard
for her dogs. Then he’d swing by
Dino’s Liberty Motors and buy
himself a nice Ford F150 extend-
Normally JT could hear a mosquito in cotton at a thousand yards
away, but right now the dozen or
so dogs going crazy in the woods
didn’t bother his sensitive ears
at all. Those yowls barely even
registered.
They had been con-
stant for just over a day now
and they would come forward and
back, much like the pumping of a
piston he thought.
Even though he was tired,
had this giddiness, like anything could happen, anything was
possible. The world opened up
for him. He locked his fingers
together and rested his head in
his hands.
was
whistles.
He’d
pay
cash.
He’d smile while the faces of
men in town contorted like dogs
that just licked some Dave’s Insanity Sauce. Oh boy, he could
die a happy man right then and
there. With all that money, he’d
be sure to find love. A lot of
it. It’d roll off him like gravy
off a biscuit. And it was always
up into the slightest smile you
ever saw.
He was born in the foot-
hills of Virginia and for one
reason
self
or
in
another
the
found
no-name
him-
part
of
West Virginia scrambling to find
work anywhere he could get it.
He imagined this feeling
like
and
about this time his lips curled
he didn’t feel like sleeping. He
ed cab, long bed, all the bells
winning
the
When he landed at Dino’s Freedom
lottery
Agriprocessor Plant, Inc. which
but possibly better. Of course
was essentially a cattle slaugh-
then he believed he could win
terhouse, he finally felt like
the lottery: why not? Boy, what
he was a real man in the world.
he’d do with that cash. First
Dino owned just about everything
thing he’d do is buy his momma
in town and everyone had some
125
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
connection to his businesses.
is right there.”
JT
figured
the
job
would
The office was painted flag-
be solid pay, benefits, he’d be
red and it made JT slightly un-
able to go get a good fried cat-
comfortable. Two plush leather
fish dinner sometimes and to send
chairs faced the massive desk
mama money every month so she
and he wasn’t quite sure what
wouldn’t need no Meals on Wheels
to do with himself, so he stood
folks coming to her house ev-
there shifting foot to foot till
ery weekend like she were some
Dino
no good beggar. He might even
little.
be able to get enough money to
bring her here to this house,
take care of her, show her he is
not like his daddy.
* * *
entered
wheezing
just
a
“Shit, boy, pop a squat,”
he said pointing at the chairs.
When JT sat down he knew
Dino
wasn’t
anything
special,
but he was the fat bastard with
On the way to his way to his
a job to offer so that made him
interview with Dino, JT popped
important.
a little tobacco behind his lip
to try and calm his nerves. His
palms were sweating a bit, and he
couldn’t help but thinking this
was just one more dead-end and
all them people who said “like
father like son” were right on
the money.
Once there, Dino met him at
the door and showed him in. He
was a small man, pear shaped with
a double chin and fat cheeks.
Pushing JT toward the stairs,
Dino said, “Go on up, boy. Office
The
office
had
two
large
windows on either side of the
room. One overlooked the parking
lot and the other the warehouse.
The smell of the place was awful, and the sounds worse.
Dino seemed to study JT’s
application for a moment then
looked up and said, “Well, JT.”
He paused, fixed his comb-over,
and stated “that’s a nasty habit
you got there.”
JT’s stomach felt like a
126
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
rock.
machinery’s thump and grind. The
putrid air made his eyes water.
“Sir?”
“That awful stuff you stuff
in your mouth.”
JT shifted in his seat as
his fingers immediately reached
for his lip. There it was, bulging and it was at that moment he
realized he needed to spit. He
stood up, fixed his jeans, and
started out the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Figured we was through.”
“I’ll
you
what
twisted smile.
“Shit, boy, I’ll pay you
enough to get used to it,” then
laughed.
door
Dino led JT out the back
and
into
the
sunlight.
The smell was worse, making JT
scrunch up his face in a twist
that, oddly enough, looked like
tell
Dino looked back at him with a
beef jerkey. The smoke belched
to
up from the factory’s stacks as
cows nosed the iron gates.
‘figure’ alright, boy? Now sit
down.”
tall, 5 yards long, and 10 yards
JT started for the chair
when Dino said, “Aw, forget it.
The bathroom is over there.”
JT
went
in
and
took care of business. When JT
opened the bathroom door, dip
flushed and mouth rinsed, Dino
was standing there.
“Now
let’s
go
see
the
plant.”
deep. Currently there were only
5 cows in the pen.
quickly
Dino took JT straight to
the back of the warehouse. JT
The gates were about 6 feet
“When we get a shipment in
the thing will be full of 1500
pound creatures,” he said jutting a fat thumb in its direction. “They’ll be easier to get
in the chute then. Now watch,
because I only show people once.
If you can’t get it with one
demonstration, I’m thinking you
need more help than just a job.”
JT clenched his jaw.
could hear the cattle and the
127
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Dino unhooked the cattle
what it tried to do, Dino was
prod hanging from a wood peg on
there to shepherd it. He shocked
the outside of the fence. It was
it again and laughed. “You ever
about two and a half feet long,
see something jump like that?”
had a plastic handle, and two
large prongs jutted out of the
tip.
tried
JT shook his head no and
to
look
away,
but
was
afraid to lose his job before he
“You
your
finger
can
zap
like
them
a
using
trigger
or
by pushing your thumb down on
this button,” Dino showed him
the handle, “but only women use
their thumb. You aren’t a woman,
are you?”
Dino
even started.
Once the cow was through
the
chute,
a
narrow
walkway
consisting of 8 foot concrete
walls that allowed very little
room for the cow to maneuver, it
pushed it’s rear-end against the
an
chute door. The cow could only
the
move forward and back and it was
pen holding the cattle, opened
clear to JT which way that cow
the chute door, and went for one
wanted to go.
answer.
He
didn’t
strode
wait
for
inside
of the cows. The cow tried to
move away, but Dino cornered it
and jabbed it with the prod. JT
heard the connection and watched
the cow jump straight up, then
back down, her muscles twitching with voltage and her voice a
deep rumbling of pain.
“Look, if it screams like
it hurts, don’t believe a word
of it. It’s a stupid creature.”
He jabbed it again and moved the
cow toward the chute. No matter
Dino climbed out of the pen
and waved for JT to follow. Dino
stood on the top of the concrete
wall, bent down a little, and
prodded the cow quickly down the
chute and into an open door on
the other side.
“Now
when
you
run
them
down, you’ll have to push this
button to open the door and close
it behind them. The boys inside
will take care of the rest.”
128
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Nodding, JT heard the cow
his throat down and grabbed the
mooing, one long, drawn out wail
prod off of the peg. It was heavi-
after another until a loud pop
er than he imagined, was well
and then a deep silence.
balanced and comfortable like a
“We get a shipment tomor-
baseball bat.
row morning. See you at 6:30.”
And with that Dino walked away.
dom. She had brown markings on
one eye and long lashes. He had
* * *
The first day on the job, JT just
stared into the pen which was
just about near capacity with
the large animals. As they milled
about, they called out, stuck
their noses up in the air, and
called out again.
When he opened the chute
far fence. It was one coordinated wave of blood and flesh and
bone. JT imagined the pressure,
difficulty
to
breathe
for
those caught between the fence
and the other heifers, the heat
and cries moving between them.
He tried to push the thought out
of his head.
would
JT had really wished one
have
just
no idea they had lashes, but he
supposed he had just never given
it any thought. The cow seemed
to know that it was chosen. It
scrambled,
desperately
pushing
against the others, it’s hooves
slipping in the loose dirt and
mud.
gate, all the cows moved to the
the
He picked one out at ran-
run
down
the
chute, but of course that didn’t
happen. He pushed the bile in
JT wiped his forehead with
the back of his hand almost hitting himself in the eye with the
prod. ‘That would’ve been great.
Knock himself out on the first
day. Dino would never have left
him alone.’
Shakily JT leaned over the
fence and swung at the cow, but
his hand was so sweaty he lost
his grip and he watched it fall
to the ground. His heart flipped
as he imagined it getting crushed
under the weight of one of the
creatures and jumped into the
129
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
pen before he knew what he was
to press the trigger. Glancing
doing.
up he saw Dino putting his hand
With a rush of noise, the
cows spread out away from him as
much as the pen would allow. He
snatched up the rod and turned
to climb out of the pen when he
over his eyes and shaking his
head in exasperation. JT got it
and the cow jumped; he got it
again and it scurried into the
chute where Dino shut the door.
glimpsed Dino coming out of the
warehouse door.
go,
“Jesus, H. Christ, JT what
in your cabbage head makes you
think jumping in there with all
“Go get another ready to
I’ll
started
get
this
prodding
one.”
it
down
Dino
the
chute, into the open door, then
slammed it in.
that cattle ok? Do I have to
draw you pictures so they don’t
tions, then the pop and silence.
crush your country body like a
JT swore the cows in the pen
potato
laughed,
looked toward the chute and went
“You like picture books, don’t
quiet for a moment before mooing
you? I bet you do. I’ll get one
again.
pancake?”
He
of the girls in the office to do
that for you. Ok?”
JT felt his face flush with
my. “Sir, I, uh, just thought.”
er
“Don’t ever try to be smartthan
toilet
paper,
you’ll
hurt yourself. Just push it on
through and I’ll shut it in the
chute.”
heard
the
protesta-
Dino opened the door to the
chute, and JT moved one in.
blood while his body went clam
JT
JT nodded. He sheepishly
struck out at the cow forgetting
“You got this one?”
JT climbed out and marched
to
the
chute
wall.
The
cow
screamed against the back door
of the chute. Tentatively the
cow moved forward then stopped
dead in its tracks. It tried to
turn, but there was no room in
the chute. It backed up, went
forward
again,
tried
to
turn
130
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
away. JT was sure it knew what
inside, heard the chorus behind
was coming. His stomach turned
him, heard Dino laughing, and the
over and over.
world started to spin. His heart
As
Dino
watch,
JT
swung
the prod onto the cow’s rump.
It
cried
out,
but
stood
its
ground.
“Don’t be a pussy, JT. Hit
it good.”
JT jabbed it again and it
jumped
forward
stopping
about
mid-way down the chute. Then it
tried to twist again, contorting its body almost in half to
get away, its nose sniffing the
fluttered, his nose tingled, he
felt his eyes swelling, and when
the pop came and the silence expanded outward like a ripple in
water, JT felt his stomach let
loose of itself.
right at that time that Dino had
walked up, put his arm around
JT, and said, “That a boy.” Puke
covered
He caught up with it and
mented approvingly. The cow tried
to climb the wall. It literally lifted its front hooves and
reared up like a horse, scratching at the walls and crying. JT
bit his tongue.
When the door opened, the
fast
toward
the
and
black
* * *
of the mountain toward the plant,
JT thought about the last few
days. He had begged for his job.
He knew he could do it. Get used
to it. But Dino would have none
of it. Said he was some kind of
stupid in a state of stupid.
cow looked forward and JT pushed
it
slacks
While he drove around the curves
jabbed at it again and Dino com-
his
shoes.
air, its cries mixing in with
the rest in the pen.
It just so happened it was
room.
It
walked forward and the door shut
behind it. JT heard the sounds
JT thought about his mom-
ma. JT thought about his daddy.
JT got drunk. JT’s binge lasted
three days and he had to drink
alone in his remote house because the remarks the men in the
local bar made about his chunks
131
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
were just too much.
under the fleshy thing and lifted
at
Then one night he looked
the
clear
sky,
the
stars,
the trees reaching up, and the
it up. It had tears running down
its cheeks and blood dripping
from a cut above its eye.
beautiful country side rolling
around him. He smiled.
free,
When he got to the plant he
parked close to the pen and left
his lights on. There were just a
few cows inside and they called
their curiosity.
JT got out, walked to his
the
Cutting the things hands
JT
watched
tape
from
blubbered
as
its
simple
it
mouth
tore
and
pleadings.
“Please,” it said. “I’m begging
you,” it cried. “We can work all
this out.” JT pushed it into the
chute.
“Oh God.”
was a heap of flesh struggling
“That’s the first intelli-
against duct tape that circled
gent thing I’ve heard you say
its ankles, wrists, and over its
all night,” JT said grabbing the
mouth. Its eyes were wide open.
cattle prod off of the peg.
trunk and popped it open. Inside
JT pulled it out and dropped it
to the ground with a thud.
It ran down the chute, cir-
cled, jumped up, fingers scratch-
“Jesus you weigh something
ing at the concrete wall, feet
awful,” JT said pulling out a
looking for any type of grip,
small hunting knife from its hol-
then sliding down again. It cried
ster on his belt. He cut through
louder.
the tape around its ankles and
lifted it up to its feet. It
took off, waddling as fast as it
could with its arms taped behind
its back. It went past the pen
then fell onto its chest.
JT laughed. He put his arms
JT
pushed
the
prod
for-
ward and it wailed. It spun and
ran further down the chute then
hopped and hopped and tore at
the wall. His fingers started to
bleed as fingernails broke off and
it moaned.
132
CRIME FACTORY
“If it screams, don’t be-
SEPTEMBER 2010
“Fellas, maybe he found a
lieve a word of it,” JT said as
girlfriend. Maybe he needed a
he jabbed it again over and over
vacation. How should I know?”
until it collapsed in a pile of
moaning flesh by the warehouse
door.
JT opened the door, drug
it inside and listened to its
moans mix with the cows in the
pen. After the pop, the silence
was as pure as JT had ever experienced it.
* * *
JT listened to the dogs outside.
The dogs brought the men and the
men brought the flashlights. Soon
about a dozen former employees
of Dino’s were standing in JT’s
front yard. JT put a T-shirt on,
got a fresh dip, and went outside.
“Hey, fellas, what’s going
on?”
One of the men flashed JT in
the eyes and growled, “What’d you
do to Dino, you sum’ bitch?”
Covering his eyes with his
hand, he peered into the crowd
of men then spit in their general direction.
“You had a bone to pick
with him. What did you do?”
“You really think a stupid
man like me could do anything to
.
a man like him?” And with that JT
spit again, turned his back, and
went into his quiet house
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
would run your package around
“We Be Cool”
the corner. Ralph liked the way
we worked the customers, kept
By Jim Winter
them white boys coming down from
the university, kept the broth-
Yeah, we be cool, alright. Shooting pool at The Phoenix Café on
Lake, we’re thumbing our noses
at the school, at the police, at
the system. No one messes with
us. No one. We’re like in that
movie, Goodfellas. We can fuck
with anyone we want, but no one
can fuck with us.
That’s how it is when Ralph
Smithers taps you on the shoulder. Ralph owns this whole city.
Well, maybe not the Island. Nobody owns the Island. It might
be in the city limits, but it’s
a whole different planet from the
city proper. The rest belongs to
Ralph.
From downtown to the Milan
line, from Vermillion to Sandusky, if you want product, you
don’t get it but if Ralph gets
it first. We work for Ralph. We
started
ners.
after
You
school
drive
up,
as
run-
pay
the
corner boy your money, and we
ers in the hood, all buying what
Ralph had.
Yeah, we cool. When Ralph
said, “Come with me, and I’ll
show
you
what
no
college
or
trade school can teach you,” we
listened. Ralph drives a ‘Slade.
He wears a Rolex and gold. He has
a different woman on his arm every day, sometimes white, sometimes black, sometimes Latina.
When the Man comes and offers you
the keys to his kingdom, how can
you say no? So we left school
behind.
Or we said we did. I knew
better. My father, never met the
man, was a dropout and a corner
boy, just like me and Monk. He
ditched on my mom about an hour
ahead of Five-Oh breaking our
door down. Mama said he was no
good, said he couldn’t hold an
honest job. She said she should
have listened to her mother and
become a teacher. I listened to
134
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Mama.
thugs.
Behind Ralph’s back, I went
ahead and got my GED. Ralph may
drive a Slade and wear gold and
have a different woman on his arm
each day, but guys like him get
shot every day. They go to prison every day. So do guys like me
and Monk. I wanted to be prepared in case I didn’t get shot.
They send felons to college, you
know. All that money? Someone
has to manage it.
Why not me?
We shoot straight. I don’t
just
mean
on
the
pool
table,
though it seems like all we do
lately.
We drift into the Phoe-
nix, this rat hole near the port,
and wait for Ralph. If money comes
What
else
do
you
call
us? Are we any different than Al
Capone or Lucky Luciano? Only
that we’re not Italian. This is
the
seen
twenty-first
Italian
century.
gangsters,
I’ve
those
old Cosa Nostra guys. The older
ones don’t seem to care; they
had their day and are debating
whether to take their haul and
head for Florida or just die here
in the frozen north. The younger
ones look pathetic. Posers. Wannabes. Monk and I, we shook a
couple of them down, made them
cry. The Mexicans, they’ll shoot
them for sport. The Columbians?
The
Columbians
will
eat
Columbians
and
them for breakfast.
in, we count it. If police show
up, we warn Ralph. Lately, we’ve
Mexicans that worry Ralph. He
been carrying guns. Ralph’s been
smells
taking us to the abandoned piers
war. It’ll be a race war be-
at night for target practice.
tween gangsters.
Says the older cops get sloppy
boys involved will wear badges
about that, says we should be
and carry tasers. By the time
able to outshoot an old cop.
So
they respond, all the soldiers
far, we haven’t had to use our
will have left the battlefield,
gats. We carry Glock Nines.
leaving only the dead behind.
Any
self-respecting thug does.
That’s
right.
I
call
It’s
a
the
war
coming,
a
race
The only white
That’s the game. And for that
us
game, we wait.
135
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
While
we
wait,
we
fuck.
We
drink
is a fringe benefit. He
runs
And whiskey sours like all the
whores out of Caanan, the yup-
tough-guy detectives Ralph reads
piefied former ghetto down East-
about.
ern Avenue from where Monk and I
Ralph. He reads. He has a brain.
are playing pool. I can tell when
He’s smart. Sometimes, I think
Ralph’s expecting something big
Monk’s not all that smart. He
because he always sends Monk and
doesn’t read. He spends his days
me down there to pick out a girl
listening to hip hop and playing
for the afternoon.
Pretty cool,
Xbox on a console he stole from
I thought at first, but then I
some fat cat’s place up in the
met a girl of my own. Somehow,
Heights.
I don’t like getting any off a
that or shooting pool with me,
girl I know Ralph’s paying. I
waiting for Ralph to send us on
like the girl I met. She likes
a job, he’s down at that whore-
to talk about babies and a house
house in Caanan, using one of
and becoming a teacher like Mama
Ralph’s girls. Me, I just sip my
wanted. I don’t tell Ralph about
vodka real slow. Not too much. A
her.
shooter’s gotta shoot straight,
Ralph’s
gonna
make me and Monk rich, but he
spoils anything good I have when
he touches it. So I don’t let
him near my girl. I still go to
Caanan once in awhile to keep
Ralph from getting suspicious.
Ralph is The Man, after all. We
all want to be The Man, but until you get your turn, you gotta
keep him from knowing all your
business.
power.
Gives
him
too
much
James
vod-
ka
can’t.
like
And
When you run with Ralph, pussy
I
martinis
gin.
Bond.
That’s what I like about
When he’s not doing
after all.
Ralph
says
it’s
all
go-
ing to go down soon. He’s going to take out this big Mexican
across the river. When I say he,
I mean we. We’re going to do it.
Me and Monk. We just don’t know
when. Ralph keeps these things
to himself. But this is going to
make us. What did those Italians
call
it
before
them down?
the
feds
shut
They said you became
136
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
a “wiseguy” when you “made your
bones.”
Me
and
Monk,
we
been
carrying since we dropped out of
school, but we never killed anyone. The Mexican, I think, will
be it.
Today.
drops.
That’s
when
it
Today, Ralph comes up to
me in the middle of a game and
pulls me back into his office.
“Rufus,” he says, “you want
to move up? You want to be a big
man?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“You ready to draw blood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He pushes the menu to a
Mexican place in Huron Junction
toward me. “See that address?
Ramon Posada is having a sweet
sixteen for his niece today.”
He reaches in the desk and takes
out two pistols, tiny .22’s good
only for close up work. “The manager is expecting you and Monk.
Go in, wait tables. When you get
a chance, put two behind Ramon’s
ear. Then run. Run like hell.
Don’t stop until you get back
here.”
We die soon
.
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Thirty pounds underweight.
Rosalie’s Big
Day
so brittle it snaps if you give
By Stephen Blackmoore
it a tug. Heroin’ll do that if
you let it get out of control.
Wishes she’d learned that
Cash up front. Stay away from
rule before the others.
vans.
“Hey, Rose.”
She
Fuck
with
your
clothes
on.
Hair
There are other rules, but
her
lifts
knees.
her
Sleeps
head
from
sitting
up
those are the three Rosalie re-
now. Easier to get up and run
members the most. They’re the
when
first ones she learned when she
arms over her knees and tucks
started turning tricks out in
her head under. Somebody told
Phoenix more than ten years ago.
her she looked like a bird when
Hard to believe that much time
she does it.
has gone by.
Feels like twenty. Looks
she
has
to.
Crosses
her
She got hold of some Per-
cocet the other day.
Took three
like fifty.
of them an hour ago. Drifting off
nicely.
Used to be beautiful. Long
haired brunette with green eyes
itch
Makes her needle tracks
something
fierce,
but
it
and mocha skin. Pearly whites
dulls everything else.
that would blind you when she
smiled.
world
places go. Plenty of people down
mother.
here under the freeway to watch
Irish father. The mix was stun-
out for each other. Except when
ning.
they don’t and somebody steals
Like
lighting
But
up.
the
whole
Mexican
beautiful
went
to
She’s in a safe place. As
your shit and knifes you in your
pretty, went to plain, went to
sleep.
downright
homely.
Creases
wrinkles.
Missing
two
and
molars.
“Hey,
Officer
Obie,”
she
says.
138
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
His real name is Dave. Big
guy. Bald.
Works out. Tattoos
up and down his arms.
Got a
“Oh, you know,” she says.
“Busy day at the country club.
Gettin’ the Rolls washed.”
She
smile that reminds her of her
gives him a closed mouth grin
dad.
back.
And he’s not a real police
officer.
Says he’s a private in-
As much as she can, any-
way. Doesn’t want him seeing her
vestigator. She just calls him
devastated teeth.
that because she’d had Alice’s
looks like shit, but his smile
Restaurant running through her
makes her feel like maybe she’s
head when she met him and she
not almost thirty looking like a
thought he was a cop.
washed out prune.
Came down a few months ago
She knows she
He squats down in front of
looking for some girl. Said she
her. Slings a backpack off his
ran away and her parents were
shoulder.
paying good money to find her.
you,” he says.
Gave her twenty bucks for a name.
Came back a week later with fifty.
Said the name turned out good.
Been down every couple weeks
since.
“Got
some
stuff
for
He opens up the pack, shows
her the contents as he hands it
to her.
Spam, canned fruit with
pull-top tabs, a carton of Mar-
Sometimes he has grocer-
lboros, couple rolls of toilet
ies, sometimes he has clothes.
paper in Zip-Loc bags, condoms,
Brings her medicine when she’s
Maxi pads. Some other stuff she
sick.
can use.
But not the kind of med-
icine she really needs. Keeps
trying to get her into a program.
She just laughs and tells
him to fuck off.
But he never does.
“How you doin’?” he asks.
Flashes her that smile.
Or sell.
She pulls out an unopened
box of syringes, cocks her head
at him. “I thought you were trying to get me off the shit.”
He shrugs. “Figured this
was better than being a judgmental prick,” he says.
139
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
“It is.” She pulls the pack
She
thinks.
Hard
to
do
up between her legs. She doesn’t
through the perc, but she does
want to get up.
it, anyway. “Got a beard? Glass-
She’ll stash it
with the rest of her stuff later.
She takes a close look at
him. Something’s different today.
She can tell by his face.
“You want something,” she
“That’s not why I brought
yeah.”
“You want a blowjob? There
are some porta-potties over there
I take johns to, sometimes.”
His
smile
grows
wider.
Like he’s really thinking about
it. “Tempting, but that’s not
what I’m looking for.”
She didn’t think so, but
she’s
a
little
disappointed,
anyway.
“Last I heard, yeah.”
“Seen a guy like that down
in the Nickel. Sells weed for
Never
bought from him.” Rosalie goes
down to Fifth Street to pick up
you this stuff,” he says. “But
some Mexicans, sometimes.
says.
es?”
“I’m
looking
for
a
guy.
Heard he hangs out down here every once in a while.
Name’s Na-
than. About six foot. Thin.”
“Thin like me, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
a fix when she can. There’s a
guy comes down to the camp every
once in a while, but the heroin
he sells is so cut she might as
well be mainlining baking powder. Easier and cheaper to get
it Downtown. Skid Row’s got everything.
“When’s the last time you
saw him?”
“Week ago, maybe. I don’t
think I’ve seen him down here,
though.”
He nods like he was expect-
ing it. “Okay. Do me a favor and
if you see him, stay clear.”
“He bad?”
“Yeah,
he’s
bad.”
Rosa-
lie’s never seen him this concerned
before.
“There’s
a
140
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
prepaid cell phone in the bag.
You see him, turn it on and hit
the address book.
Big button on
the front. Can’t miss it. I’m
the only number in there.”
she
worry
face.
The
panic
down,
creasing
Percocet
but
keeps
only
He
stands
can.
You’re
my
She’s made enough giving
handjobs to pick up some smack.
she likes Downtown on Crocker.
Maybe head over to URM.
the
shower.
I’m an
addict. You can’t trust me.”
later.
her
barely.
“What if I just sell it?
The percs run out a couple days
Enough to eat at a burger joint
“You can’t give me that,”
says,
***
Grab a
She heads down Seventh and
up San Pedro. It’s a half hour
walk past brownstones and ware-
up.
“Sure,
eyes
and
I
ears
houses. Over the river, past the
train tracks.
But it’s cheaper
out here.” Again with that safe,
than grabbing the bus on Whitti-
strong smile that makes every-
er.
thing better. “You see him, you
with the pass for the disabled
stay clear and give me a call.
she’s got.
There’s
some
cash
in
it
for
you.”
Her eyes light up at that.
“Only thing any of us can
do. Take care of yourself, Rosalie.”
“You too, Officer Obie.”
She watches him walk away.
Not sure how she feels.
Skid Row’s a weird place.
Guys hawking every kind of drug
“I’ll try,” she says.
Too fucking expensive, even
Nobody’s ever trusted her
before.
on street corners. Folks like
her in doorways and alleys and
cardboard
boxes.
Shooting
up,
trying to sleep, ranting at the
sky
because
they’re
off
their
meds or never had any to begin
with.
And then you look up and
there’s
City
fucking
Hall.
White and gleaming and shiny in
the sun. Power and money just a
few blocks away.
Hock a loogie,
141
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
you’ll hit the mayor.
Light day today. Cops have
been pushing on the market, trying to clean it up.
of
the
years
homeless
ago.
Too
Hauled most
out
a
many
couple
hipsters
moving in to the lofts. Nobody
Maybe
somebody’s
holding
back at the camp. She’s still
got some cash. Made some more
off the cigarettes she bought.
Could
sell
that
Obie gave her.
phone
Officer
That’s got to be
worth something.
wants to see people like Rosalie
when they’re shelling out 5K a
guy Officer Obie’s looking for.
month.
Nathan
She
hits
up
her
usuals.
Hops from one guy to the next,
but
they’ve
smack,
fuck
crack’s
all.
not
No
he
said
his
name
was.
With the glasses and the beard
and rail thin.
She watches him across the
worth
street. Faded Cramps t-shirt un-
the time to talk about and the
der a thrift store leather jack-
weed’s all stems and seeds. Get
et with worn elbows.
He’s wait-
a better high off Benadryl.
ing
Customers,
the
got
And then she sees him. The
Two hours chasing down a
for
something.
probably.
fix, avoiding cops, selling ciga-
rettes from the backpack Officer
phone. Call Officer Obie, tell
Obie gave her, before she says
him to get his ass down here and
fuck it and starts heading back.
he’s got his guy. Said there was
She knows she’ll find somebody
money in it for her. Maybe he’ll
before the day’s over.
give her a fifty like last time.
She’s sitting on the wall
of a parking lot on Crocker when
She thinks about the cell
It won’t buy a lot of horse, but
it’ll buy enough.
her stomach knots up. It’s not
But it’s already late in
much, but it’s a sure sign she
the day. If Nathan packs it in,
needs a fix sooner rather than
Officer Obie’s not going to catch
later.
him. And then no fifty bucks for
Rosalie.
142
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
getting ready to tussle.
Worse, Officer Obie might be
upset with her. More than any-
from
thing she doesn’t want to disap-
fucking fire demon. And he’s get-
point him. He trusts her.
ting the point. Like every other
She can do better than just
call him.
She can find out where
where
she’s
at,
But
she’s
a
bully out there, he’ll dish it
out, but can’t take it.
this guy goes, where he stays.
Then Officer Obie can scoop him
you want?” He pauses and Rosalie
up whenever he wants.
lets the silence drag. “I’m not
He’ll give her more than a
fifty for sure.
as Rosalie walks up.
“The fuck
you watching me for?”
you,”
she
says.
She’ll take a lot of shit, but
nobody calls her a crack whore.
He looms up at her. Tall,
but not big. Got ten pounds on
her at most. “Bitch. I asked you
a fucking question. I seen you
sitting there. Watchin’ me.”
She ignores that last bit.
“What do you got?”
“Hey, crack whore,” Nathan says
“Fuck
an asshole.”
***
“Oh,” he says. “So. What do
“And I said fuck you.” She
hitches herself up. “Was gonna
“You a cop?”
She stares at him.
“Yeah,
I
guess
not,”
he
says. “Got some Ecstasy. Little
Ambien.”
“Not
what
I’m
looking
for.”
says.
“I
got
some
heroin,”
he
“But not with me.”
“Where?”
“Bitch,
I’m
not
telling
you.”
buy from you, but I don’t give
assholes my money,” she says.
you my money and let you go fuck
like
From
the
watching
outside
it’s
Chihuahuas
“You think I’m gonna give
off, you’re crazy.”
He
chews
his
lip.
143
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Scratches his beard. “Fine. I
better have the shit.
got
a
place
over
on
Gladys.”
He looks from right to left and
back again like he’s in a spy
thriller. There’s nobody on the
street but the two of them. Rosalie gets it. You can never be
too paranoid.
Rosalie’s
heart
beats
a
prospect of being able to tell
Officer Obie where this guy lives
getting
her
fix
she’s
not
sure.
room’s
on
the
third
floor. Dirty mattress in the corner with a filthy blanket bunched
up at one end.
Couple roaches
run across the rancid carpet.
Fast food wrappers, newspapers,
dle of the floor. Pages from porn
mags taped to the wall.
“How much?” she asks.
“Twenty bucks a balloon.
Going rate.”
the bathroom. Comes out with an
to a flophouse hotel. Four stories. Bars on the windows. Gated front entrance with a busted
lock. Bullet holes surrounded by
XV3 in giant bold letters spraypainted on the brickwork.
Rosalie’s
getting
antsy.
Her stomach’s knotting up more.
She’s starting to sweat. Another
couple hours and she’s really
going to be hurting. This guy
ammunition
case.
loon.
him.
He takes her a couple blocks over
surplus
Pops it open, pulls out a bal
***
He takes her cash, tells
her to wait while he heads into
Army
His
enormous scorch mark in the mid-
little faster. Whether at the
or
Rosalie snatches it from
Rolls the balloon around
in her fingers. She nods toward
the bathroom. “Mind?” She has
her works in the backpack. And
Officer Obie’s cell. Two birds
with one stone.
“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t
puke in there. Or if you do,
fuck, use the toilet.”
She
pulls
out
her
works
in the bathroom. Takes out the
cell phone. Looks from one to
the other, figuring out which to
144
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
do first. It’s no contest.
voice far away and under water.
She shakes her fix out onto
the spoon, adds some water, heats
it up. Uses one of the clean sy-
Takes her a couple tries to pick
up the phone and get it to her
ear.
ringes from her backpack.
“Rose?”
“Hey,” she says. Her voice
Long time ago she’d make
this a ritual. Take her time.
Make it mean something. Try to
make it like it was her first time.
Like she was kissing God.
Not anymore.
But
not
a slow drawl.
“You okay, Rose?”
“I’m
good,”
she
Good enough at least.
says.
Her body
doesn’t care if it’s a good high.
quite
She
It just wants the shit in her.
fumbles one handed with the cell
“Found that guy you were looking
phone, turning it on.
for.”
the address book.
yet.
Goes into
Sees “OFFICER
OBIE :-)” on the screen, pushes the button. She finishes up
with the needle while the phone
rings.
The rush hits her the sec-
ond she pops the vein and hits
the plunger. It’s weak. She wants
it to grab her, fold her up in
“Yeah?
Where at?”
She gives him the address.
“Hey,” she says. “You think maybe I could get fifty bucks like
last time?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says.
then some.
Just remember.
“And
Stay
away from him.”
a warm haze. Drag her down into
the dark.
pers into the phone. “He’s in
But it’s more of a light
She giggles. Stage whis-
the next room.”
drift. Cut so much it’s got no
kick. But she’ll take what she
Yells on the other side of it,
can get.
“Who
She
hears
Officer
Obie’s
Nathan bangs on the door.
the
ing to?
fuck
are
you
talk-
Who the fuck are you
145
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
talking to?”
her to stay there and let nobody
The door rattles.
Shakes.
Breaks open.
Nathan kicks at her, scat-
tering her works and the cell
in but him. So that’s what she
did.
She
was
too
scared
leave, anyway.
phone across the bathroom floor.
Rosalie flails, hands up to pro-
bucks?” Rosalie says.
tect her face.
Nathan’s kicks
are off the mark.
Like watching
a golfer who can’t connect with
the ball.
Rosalie grabs his ankle on
goes
down
like
a
drunk
prom date. His head slams on the
linoleum with a loud crack.
She climbs over him, knees
him in the balls, slaps at his
face. She grasps around for something, anything, she can beat
him with. Finds the syringe.
Lifts it up and stabs him
in the eyeball.
***
Rosalie is shaking.
“Can I still get that fifty
“Huh?
Oh.
Yeah,”
Officer
Obie says. He’s looking at Nathan’s body on the bathroom floor.
Syringe crammed through his eye
an upswing. Yanks. Nathan totters,
to
The heroin’s helping keep
the panic at bay, but it’s seeping through, anyway. Officer Obie
found her an hour later. He told
socket so deep only the head of
the plunger sticks out.
“I’m
sorry.
I
screwed
up.”
“You did fine. Yeah, I would
have liked to find him alive, but
if it’s him or you?
I’ll pick
you any day.”
“I’m going to jail, aren’t
I?”
“Not if I can help it.
Can
you walk okay?”
“I think so, yeah.”
He hands her a bunch of
tens and singles.
here.
“Get out of
Go down a few blocks.
Grab a cab.”
She nods. “Can I - can I
146
CRIME FACTORY
take some of his stash?”
SEPTEMBER 2010
really go to some of the plac-
He looks at her the way
her dad would when he she got a
wrong answer at math. Then the
es you can. But really, I don’t
know.
I
just
like
you.
Isn’t
that enough?”
smile’s back and it’s all good.
“Yeah,” he says. “Just a couple.
Wants
We need most of it here for the
doesn’t.
cops to find.”
him, she closes the door behind
She grabs three balloons,
careful not to touch the ammo
box. Scurries back like it’s a
rattlesnake.
“Now get going.
I’ll give
you half an hour then I’ll call
the cops. You weren’t here. Got
that?”
She
nods,
picks
up
her
backpack, opens the door with
the hem of her shirt.
“Officer Obie?”
“You
can
call
Stops.
me
Dave,
Rose.”
She’d rather call him Of-
ficer Obie.
“Why are you doing
this?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure.
You’re a good kid.
things.
You notice
And I can use a hand
like that sometimes.
I can’t
She wants to understand.
to
ask
more.
Instead
of
But
she
.
answering
her and doesn’t look back
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Magazine;
http://www.crimefac-
toryzine.com;
Needle
Magazine;
Powder Burn Flash; Pulp Metal
Magazine
and
Thrillers;
Kill-
ers ‘n’ Chillers; as well as in
anthologies such as Caught By
Darkness and RADGEPACKET Volume
SANDRA RUTTAN is the co-founder
and editor-in-chief of Spinetingler Magazine.
A published
author
story
and
short
writ-
er, some of her works have been
translated into Japanese.
For
more information, visit her web-
Four.
Guns Of Brixton will appear in
The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime Fiction 2011, edited
by Maxim Jakubowski & his story
The Tut was nominated for a 2010
Spinetingler Award.
site www.sandraruttan.com
CALVIN SEEN doesn’t need to pass
through the full body scanner
PAUL D. BRAZILL was born in Eng-
at airport security because he
land and is on the lam in Po-
doesn’t believe in a higher pow-
land. He started writing at the
er. He resides and works at a
end of 2008 and seems to be get-
fast food joint in Urbana, MD,
ting away with it.
USA. If he’s not writing, he is
His stories have appeared in a
hacking cell phones so carriers
number of online and print maga-
can’t locate him. Some of his
zines including A Twist Of Noir;
stories can be found at: http://
Beat To A Pulp; Dark Valentine
calvinseen.wordpress.com
148
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
nominee with over 30 plays produced
by
theaters
around
the
world and over 50 short stories
and poems published in a variety
of mediums.
His fiction has ap-
peared in such publications as
The Back Alley; Plots With Guns;
MATTHEW C. FUNK is a professional marketing copywriter and social media consultant, a writing
mentor and the author of several manuscripts that illuminate
the beauty of human extremes.
Hardluck Stories; Blue Murder;
Crimespree;
Bullet;
Demolition
and Book of Dead Things.
more
information
about
For
John,
check out his website at www.
johnweagly.com.
A graduate of the Professional
Writing MFA at USC, his online
work is featured at sites such
as ThugLit; Powder Burn Flash;
Thrillers, Killers and Chillers;
Twist of Noir; Pulp Metal Magazine; Flash Fiction Offensive;
Six Sentences Volume 3 and his
Web domain www.matthewfunk.net/
RICHARD
GODWIN
is
a
produced
playwright who writes crime andhorror fiction and whose stories
can
be
found
at
many
vibrant
magazines such as Disenthralled;
Danse
Macabre;
Word
Catalyst
and A Twist Of Noir. His first
novel, a dark crime story, will
be
published
later
this
year
with Pegasus Publishers and you
JOHN WEAGLY is a Derringer Award
winner
and
Spintingler
Award
can find his full portfolio at
http://rgodwin.wordpress.com/
149
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
online novel Road Rules (http://
www.roadrulesnovel.com).
CHAD ROHRBACHER lives and writes
in North Carolina. he’s published
work in a number of journals and
magazines
including
Twist
of
Noir; Powder Burn Flash; Thrillers
Killers
Needle
N’
Magazine
Chillers;
among
and
others.
You can follow him on twitters
at @chadrohrbacher or check his
website
at
http://rohrbacher.
wordpress.com/
STEPHEN BLACKMOORE writes stories
about
bad
people
doing
bad things. His short stories
and poetry have appeared in numerous
publications
including
Needle; Plots With Guns; Spinetingler;
and Shots.
ed
to
the
Thrilling
Detective
He has contributprint
anthologies,
UNCAGE ME through Bleak House
Books
and
DEADLY
TREATS
com-
ing out in September 2011. His
debut novel, CITY OF THE LOST,
will be published by DAW books
in 2011. You can find him online
at
http://la-noir.blogspot.com
JIM WINTER is a writer and reviewer from Cincinnati, where he
works in IT and lives with his
wife, Juanita, and stepson AJ.
He is also the author of the
150
“Everything
has got
to do
with everyone.”
-Michod
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
PERFORMANCE
EVALUATION
Performance Evaluation is a necessary and benefical process, which
provides bi-monthly feedback to investors about job effectiveness
and career guidance. The performance review is intended to be a
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forms and procedures for use in this official periodical.
TOP SHELF
Featured Book
MEMORY
Donald E. Westlake
Hard Case Crime
$7.99 (US)
From what I could gather, Memory, Donald Westlake’s posthumous
novel, threw a lot of people for
a bit of a loop.
Known largely
for his comic caper series featuring
beleaguered
thief
John
Dortmunder or for the series of
152
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
hardest-boiled
starring
describes Cole trying to gain
godfather of bad-asses Parker,
his memory back or, at best, some
Westlake was a legend in his own
semblance of his life back.
time, producing over a hundred
the hands of a less capable writ-
novels in his life and forever
er, I think I would be bored to
cementing his place in crime fic-
tears within pages.
tion as one of the greats.
I could not put this book down.
novels
And while it is true that
Memory is more of a psychological novel, and the crime bits
are largely peripheral, the book
is undeniably Westlake, and in
my opinion, possibly the finest
work he ever did (which is saying quite a bit, given my bot-
In
As it was,
Unless you’re Camus, you’re not
really going to be able to get
so deeply into the mind of a main
character that I’m going to care
really how he manages to get to
work every day.
But obviously,
Westlake is a much more capable
writer, more than Camus even.
tomless appetite for all things
Parker).
he’ll be fine, his memory will be
The book starts with the
protagonist, Paul Cole, taking a
beating from a husband he’s been
cuckolding.
So far, so good:
a fairly typical noir opener.
Next thing he knows, Cole is in
the hospital with partial amnesia.
And this is pretty much
it, for him and for us.
At
almost
four
hundred
pages, this is the longest novel
I
can
ever
by Westlake.
recall
reading
And the majority
of the narrative painstakingly
The
doctors
tell
Cole
back to normal within days. The
small-town sheriff is anxious to
get this immoral New York actor
fella out of his nice small town.
Thing of it is, Cole barely has
two nickels to rub together, so
he takes a bus as far to New
York as he can get, ending up in
another small town, working at
the local mill.
book
This first section of the
details
Cole’s
attempts
to earn enough money home, but
without
realizing
it
himself,
153
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
he begins to put down roots in
Memory: it’s all bullshit. Shook
Anytown, U.S.A.
His co-workers
to the core by all of the events
enjoy his company, the nice mar-
of the last month or so, Cole
ried couple he rents a room from
decides
begins to treat him like a son,
to New York, back to his life.
and he begins keeping company
Things may be just fine where he
with sweet little Edna.
He al-
is, but Cole feels this drive to
most abandons all plans to get
define himself, to achieve the
back to his old life.
goals he had once set for him-
But
cops
show
then
up.
of
course,
Captain
the
Cart-
he
needs
to
get
back
self, even if he can’t remember
what those goals are.
wright wants to know just what
the hell a big-time Broadway ac-
deal, Cole finally arrives back
tor like Paul Cole is doing in
at his Greenwich Village apart-
his town.
They haul him in and
ment, hoping the flood of famil-
read him the riot act, but since
iar sights and sounds will revive
Cole can barely remember how to
his recollection, his life.
tie his shoes, he can’t help them
not only fails, he fails spec-
with any possible criminal ac-
tacularly.
tivities.
Cartwright hands him
a large sheet of metal, a piece
of evidence, and asks if Cole
recognizes it.
Of course, Cole
doesn’t, but now he is so filled
with doubt, that this run-in with
the cops and this chunk of metal
loom large in his nightmares for
the rest of the novel.
And
of
course,
He
Crime fiction is ripe for
existential
discussion:
hell,
the central action in the aforementioned Camus’ The Stranger is
a murder.
And though Memory is
longer on the ennui than it is
on the body count, that veneer
of noir, that ever threatening
shape lurking in the shadows,
it’s
all
bullshit.
Through ordeal after or-
That’s the true theme of
provides Westlake an opportunity to delve into the meaningless that is life and rag us
154
CRIME FACTORY
along with him.
SEPTEMBER 2010
Perhaps it’s
not beach-reading, or even the
sort of good-time pulp fiction
we all have come to expect from
publisher Hard Case Crime. But
for my money, this is the sort
of crime fiction we should all
aspire to, the kind that hooks
you in with the trappings—the
booze, the broads, the bullets—
and then transcends all of that
to tell a real story about the
human condition.
I can’t remember reading
anything like it before.
--Jimmy Callaway
155
CRIME FACTORY
GET GARRITY
SEPTEMBER 2010
COLD CASES
so he can afford another bottle.
Allan Nixon
much.
Avon Books
1969
Tony Garrity is a drunk, a homophobe
and
the
worst
P.I.
working the Golden Age of Hollywood,
especially
consider-
ing that, back cover blurb bedamned, he’s not actually a P.I.
He’s just disbarred lawyer who
shot
the
You’re not gonna like him
guys
who
killed
his
wife, and he’s only taking cases on a trial, cash-only basis
And you won’t be alone: his
clients hate him and the cops
pity him. The ladies like him
okay, except he keeps getting
them killed.
So when Garrity stumbles
across the dead body of his latest client, the publisher of a
vicious gossip sheet, he does
the only sensible thing: drinks
the rest of the man’s scotch and
steals the salacious contents of
156
CRIME FACTORY
his filing cabinet. Cue the mayhem.
A detailed and atmospheric
picture of Golden Age Hollywood,
the power of celebrity gossip
and the threat of being blacklisted, this book is also fantastically cheesy:
SEPTEMBER 2010
delights.”
Yeah.
It’s
unfortunate
that
there’s so much to mock about
the language in this book because the story does one thing
very, very well: it knows addiction. Knows it intimately. Knows
“Somewhere nearby a clock
what it’s like to be unable to
chimed eight times. I knew I was
face a client without two shots
a little late. Earl Lewan had
of whiskey, even if it is nine in
had another visitor before me...
the morning. Knows the shame of
death!”
knowing you’re the worst detec-
That’s the opening line,
and it’s all downhill from there.
Seriously, if it wasn’t so wildly
tive in the Valley, and the relief of letting the bottle cure
your pain.
inappropriate, this book should
be a drinking game:
story of one man’s ark, alcohol-
--“When
I
kidded
about
the pad, I referred to it as a
‘place to lay my hat and a few
friends’.”
--”Hurrying down the hall,
At its heart, this is the
fueled spiral of self-loathing,
.
regret and failure, and in that
sense alone, Garrity is indeed
every inch a classic P.I
--Audrey Homan
I’d expected him to be alone-not just because everyone dies
alone, but because they’d told
me he had no servants.”
--”Entering her was like
returning
to
some
furnished
palace
exquisitely
of
exquisite
157
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
BOOKS
Through Eddie, Clark takes
us on a particularly dark journey through the city. We’re all
observers, us readers, to a certain extent, we all soak up the
details of place whether urban
or rural and we’re all journey-
NOBODY’S ANGEL
ing with protagonists and an-
Jack Clarke
Hard
Case
ti-heroes into murky territory.
Crime
(distributed
through Scribo in Australia)
$7.99 (US)
The best scenes in Nobody’s Angel are essentially the plotless ones as we ride with Eddie
and his fares, poke our noses
into dim little corners, drink
The disaffected urban loner, observing humanity at its worst, is
about as prevalent a noir character as you’re likely to get.
In Jack Clark’s hands, we find
him sitting behind the wheel of
a cab. Eddie Miles slugs his way
through
Chicago
night-shifts,
navigating between the safe areas of town and the dangerous,
the gentrified and upmarket and
in hole-in-the-wall bars, hang
with his cabbie mates and get to
know the city so evocatively, I
feel like I’ve just returned home
from a
with
trip there. It’s armed
wonderful
insider
slang and lore, no doubt culled
from Jack Clark’s own experience
as a “hack,” and is just loaded
to the brim with view-from-thegutter Chicago observations and
the run-down and desolate. He’s
historical titbits.
mostly professional and pretty
straight, doing his best to not
let racial stereotypes
and the
paranoia of being either stiffed
on a fare or assaulted influence
his choice of customer.
taxi-
This is no mere bum-in-a-
cab travelogue, however, as Nobody’s Angel also has two main
plot-threads that weave in and
out of the book.
Some psycho
is murdering taxi drivers, which
158
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
inevitably provides some extra
tension in sequences where Ed-
done it again.
Nice
one,
Ardai,
you’ve
die’s on the job, and following his discovery of a mutilated
teen prostitute, Eddie is com-
--Cameron Ashley
pelled to find her attacker, a
man who is beginning to strike
with some regularity. This is no
Taxi Driver though – there is no
armed vigilantism or streak of
mental instability in Eddie. He
may have seen it all and driven
it all, but his innate decency
REDBACK
Lindy Cameron
Clan Destine Press
$29.95 (AUS)
frequently cuts through his jadedness as he goes to seed behind
the wheel.
Redback is the third book from
one of the newest players on the
Eddie’s armed with a load
Australian
publishing
scene,
of typical noir protagonist per-
Clan Destine Press. True to the
sonal-life problems, and Clark’s
author and Clan Destine founder,
smart
ex-
Lindy Cameron’s commitment to be
tremely likeable Eddie a ray of
all about genre fiction in all its
hope at the book’s end without
myriad forms, it’s a fast paced
shattering
action thriller with a distinct
enough
to
the
offer
bleak
the
realism
of his seedy blue-collar world
with its casual racism, its lost
souls and it’s general unfairness and ugliness.
Nobody’s An-
gel is a clever tweaking of the
PI archetype and, at a slim 220
pages, is a brilliant slice of
downtrodden life.
pulp spy fiction feel.
It opens on a small Pacific
island, where ex-Australian army
commander Bryn Gideon and her
team of retrieval agents, known
as the Redbacks, are attempting
to rescue hostages being held
by local rebels. It’s the first
159
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
but by no means the last time in
of characters, including right-
the book that things don’t go as
wing
planned with bloody results.
mysterious terrorists cum crim-
The story moves to Tokyo
where
American
investigative
journalist Scott Dreher thinks
he is onto the story of his life
American
inals.
There’s
extremists
high-level
and
in-
trigue in the halls of power and
some good, gritty on the ground
action.
about a revolutionary manga com-
bat
game
as through there is a bit too
that has been pirated and is be-
much going on – the reader defi-
ing used to train terrorists.
nitely needs to pay attention –
This quickly takes a turn for
but Cameron manages to stay on
the worse when its creator is
top of things and deliver a cliff
killed, turning Dreher into a
hanger of a conclusion.
simulation
computer
fugitive from the knife-wielding assassin.
At times, it almost feels
Whether it was self con-
scious on the part of Cameron or
What follows is a sequence
not, one of my favourite aspects
of apparently unrelated events,
of Redback is its liberal use
including bombings in Europe and
of high-tech spy gadgets, which
America and an assassination in
give the book a great pulpy spy
Sydney. Gideon, her Redbacks and
fiction feel. I particularly liked
Dreher soon find themselves in a
the Redbacks with their roof-
common quest to unmask a larg-
top apartment headquarters and
er conspiracy on the part of a
operations centre and the two-
shadowy
way communication devices sur-
international
criminal
mastermind.
Without
gically implanted in their ear
giving
too
much
away, the plot of Redback bounces
between a number of locations,
including Pakistan, France and
Thailand, and introduces a host
lobes. The idea of a crack team
of private soldiers whose job is
to get people out of difficult
situations is a great invention
that offers plenty of room for a
160
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
sequel.
describes as a couple of “gritty
This is the second outing
for Redback, which was origi-
crime novels” and an urban fantasy, amongst others.
nally published by Mira Books
Clan Destine Press books
in 2008. If Cameron, the author
are available from all indepen-
of several works of crime fiction
dent bookstores and Borders and
and true crime gets her way, this
(for overseas readers) on-line
is exactly the type of material
at
Clan Destine will be publishing,
www.clandestinepress.com.au
the
Clan
Destine
website:
“the best of Australian genre
fiction I can find by new writers
and some older hands who are out
--Andrew Nette
of print or want to try something new.”
“I established Clan Destine
Press because I wanted to take
control of things for myself:
and to ensure that my authors
feel they have control too. I
am prepared to take risks on new
UNNATURAL CAUSE
P.D. James
Faber & Faber
£7.99 (UK)
authors; on inventive genre fiction of any kind.”
As a school kid, I developed a
Clan Destine’s first book
was an historical novel set in
Ancient
Egypt
bourne’s
most
writers,
Kerry
by
one
of
prolific
Melcrime
Greenwood,
and
healthy loathing for the novels
of Jane Austen or the wretched
Bronte sisters. This book is the
crime fiction equivalent.
P.D. James is just about
RedBack is out in early Octo-
the most famous crime novelist
ber.
alive. Into her 90th year and
up
The plan is to follow these
in
2011
with
what
Cameron
still going strong, has won just
about
every
award
going.
Her
161
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
crime fiction character creation
never really asks them.
Adam Dalgliesh has featured in
14 novels to date, and 13 of
these have been made into movies or TV specials. Her novel
Children Of Men was the inspiration for the Clive Owen movie of
the same name, even though the
script was substantially changed
from the novel’s original premise. A British institution to
be sure. Just not one I’m in a
hurry to read more of.
Unnatural
Causes
The novel is simply a se-
ries of set-pieces, with a pace
so slow I’d have thought most
readers
they
would
died
of
give
up
natural
before
causes.
I know this style of crime fiction is extremely popular but I
hate it with a passion. It is so
sanitized and unreal, everyone
has the manners of the Secret
Seven, there’s no grit or dirt
under the fingernails. I had no
is
es-
desire to learn whodunit because
sentially one of those classic
I couldn’t stand anyone in the
“proper English” murder myster-
book anyway. The corpse had the
ies – a cosy/domestic type of
most convincing character of the
setting – in this case the remote
entire cast.
Suffolk coast. The entire cast of
characters are themselves literary types who live in this clos-
--Andrew Prentice
eted community, and say things
like “Terribly sorry, old chap.”
No-one swears, and everyone is
frightfully helpful, especially
when local crime writer Maurice
Seaton floats ashore in his own
dinghy, dead, with his hands cut
off at the wrist. The whole rabble
THE LONG GLASGOW KISS
Craig Russell
Allen & Unwin
$29.99 (AUS)
fall over themselves to prove
their innocence to the holidaying Dalgliesh, even though he
Lennox,
Craig
Russell’s
acid-
162
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
tongued
re-
action all held together by Rus-
turns to the grimy rain drenched
sell’s delicious turn of phrase.
streets of 1950’s Glasgow for
The humour’s still as dark as a
another investigation into the
pint of stout and the charac-
city’s seedy underworld.
ters are still all well-round-
name
‘Enquiry
Agent’,
When a local bookie by the
of
Small-change
MacFar-
lane gets his ticket punched by
having his dome staved in Lennox is brought in to solve the
crime. This is partly because
he’s sleeping with the stiff’s
daughter but mainly because local crime-boss, Willie Sneddon,
is paying him to find the killer.
As the case unfolds Lennox
uncovers a plot involving murder, bare-knuckle gypsy boxing,
a shonky foot-fighting French importer, a freelance FBI agent,
a couple of two-bit hustlers in
over their heads
and a singer
with a great pair of gams looking for her lost brother who may
or may not be involved in it
all.
The first Lennox book was
a dark, humorous journey into a
post-war underworld filled with
stand-out characters and great
ed
gems.
My
favourite
‘Twin-
kle-toes’ McBride, the huge and
genial goon who likes to trim
toenails and the toes they’re
attached to with a pair of boltcutters while trying to expand
his vocabulary via the Reader’s
Digest, is back this time joined
by Singer; a mute psychopath who
has a panache for cutting out
peoples
tongues.
Also
Russell
ups the cosh action with Lennox
looking for any excuse to clock
someone’s dial with his leather
bound spring steel sap.
The story is an enjoyable
and gripping read yet unfortunately Russell takes a strange
turn with Lennox and is seemingly
determined to undermine the elements which made the detective
such a great character in the
first novel. Lennox’s emotional
distance and moral ambiguity in
relation to himself and others
and his awareness and fear of
his potential for violence made
163
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
him a compelling and intrigu-
So the 2009 Edgar winner for Best
ing protagonist. This was tem-
Novel gets an English (and thus
pered by an underlying longing
Australian)
and poignant inability to re-
armed with a publisher’s warn-
establish himself as the man he
ing that it will keep you up all
was before the traumatic events
night presumably due to the un-
of the war.
bearable suspense within. Hav-
In his follow up novel Rus-
sell, in an effort to forge a heart
release.
was hoping this was true.
too hard with heavy hands. His
comfortably, thanks.
more likeable sadly leaves the
character less opaque. It seems
too early to make such a drastic
upbeat turn in what was a fantastically dark and gritty new
crime series. Hopefully Russell
is building it up to tear it
down in true noir fashion.
It wasn’t. I slept pretty
This is not to say that
Blue Heaven is a bad book – it’s
not. It’s far slicker than we
grubby mugs pulling shifts at
the Factory normally take to,
but that in and of itself does
not make for a shitty book, just
let’s have a little truth in advertising, eh?
--Addam Duke
comes
ing never read CJ box before, I
of gold for Lennox, has laboured
obvious attempt to make Lennox
It
Set in a beautiful slice
of rural Iowa, Blue Heaven sees
twelve-year-old
Annie
try
and
cheer her younger brother William up by taking him on the
BLUE HEAVEN
CJ Box
Corvus
$29.99 (AUS)
fishing trip their mum’s new boyfriend won’t. It’s on this trip
that the kids witness a group
of men basically execute one of
their own. The kids are spotted, and they tear through off
164
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
the woods trying to escape their
that, I dig Crais, and perhaps the
armed,
pursuers.
disappointment is my own fault.
It’s a pretty fantastic open-
I never believed the publish-
ing, the setting is evocatively
er’s promise, but I did expect
described, and the tension vir-
a little bit more from an Edgar
tually immediate. The kids make
winner.
their way to Jess Rawlins’ prop-
ing something with a little less
erty, and the kindly old tough-
moral ambiguity and something a
guy rancher decides to protect
little more feel-good than the
them. Only problem is, there’s a
existential horrors normally on
conspiracy at play and a lot of
display in these pages could do
connected people are involved.
far worse.
fully-grown
Still,
readers
desir-
Box creates strong char-
acters and a fairly compelling
plot but, for me, the true money
--Cameron Ashley
is in the opening third. Once
the kids find their way to Rawlins’ ranch, Blue Heaven becomes
a fairly by the numbers thriller not helped by a slightly generic popular fiction sheen to
Box’s prose. The end is never
in any real doubt and although
KING OF THE CROSS
Mark Dapin
Pan MacMillan
$22.99 (AUS)
there are some great passages
scattered throughout, Box lacks
Author Mark Dapin writes a large-
the gift with language of a Wil-
ly self-deprecating and humorous
liam Gay or a Daniel Woodrell
column for the Good Weekend in-
or the storytelling genius of
sert in The Sydney Morning Her-
Joe Lansdale to make this book
ald. Who would have thought that
truly special. Blue Heaven feels
out of that weekly scribe would
like Robert Crais writing rural.
spring one of the most outrageous
There’s nothing at all wrong with
crime books ever written about
165
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Sydney? Possibly the success of
moved to Wednesday.”
the novel comes from borrowing
rather heavily from “the truth”
(not the Communist rag) in order
to produce a sparkling, at times
enormously funny work of, ahem,
fiction.
Mendoza’s influence gets An-
thony fired, but the old gangster
makes up for it by offering Klein
the chance to continue writing
the biography, though as Mendoza
soon discovers, Klein is neither
The central character is
Jewish nor a writer. “Offering”
the memorable Jacob Mendoza, an
being perhaps a loose term, as
80 year old Jewish gangster who
Mendoza sets up Klein and films
has lorded over the clubs and
him in what could best be de-
porn shops of Kings Cross since
scribed as an “immoral” act with
the Sinatra era. Jacob has de-
an underage barmaid. The King Of
cided
his
The Cross reveals his story in
memoirs, or as the back blurb
the style of an interview, where
puts it, “record his epic life
Mendoza’s secrets and opinions
story.”
He turns to the Jewish
on such diverse topics as pro
Times writer Anthony Klein to do
wrestling and transvestites had
the job.
me
it’s
time
to
write
It doesn’t go well, ini-
laughing
out
loud,
in
all
their totally un-PC glory.
tially, as Mendoza objects to
early
ful shows at this time was at the
probing
questions
and
“One of the most success-
forces Anthony to eat the tape
Roundabout
recording of their initial con-
Girls Girls.’ This was a glar-
versation. It gets worse when
ing misnomer if ever there was
Anthony’s editor Spiegeleier re-
one, since there wasn’t a single
acts with some consternation to
fucking Sheila on stage. It was
Anthony’s approach.
just a night of transvestites
“Jesus Christ, Tony, Men-
doza’s an influential voice in the
community. He could get Shabbos
Club
called
‘Girls
dancing, and it should have been
called ‘Dogs Dogs Dogs.’”
As Jake’s memoirs unfold,
166
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
so too do Anthony’s, and skele-
corporate
tons from both men’s closets ap-
Mafioso
pear. Anthony’s Northern Irish
cials unfolds with such a de-
past catches up with him and he
liberate inevitability that it
finds himself in the middle of
should have been called “Expo-
a bikie war which has links to
sition in Dubai”. The protago-
many of Mendoza’s old enemies.
nist, Sam Keller, is an accoun-
The plot gets a bit tangled to-
tant and auditor whose life is
wards the end, and Anthony’s back
boring
story delves into clichéd ter-
this book. Alright, that’s not
ritory. But it matters little;
entirely fair but Fesperman is
this is Mendoza’s story and he
definitely from the ‘tell don’t
is the most original and funni-
show’ school of writing.
est character Australian crime
fiction has unearthed in years.
And all this got released before
“Underbelly – The Golden Mile”
was but a blip on the prime time
TV radar. Brilliant.
espionage,
and
corrupt
and
Russian
Arab
offi-
predictable...like
The gist of the story is
that ‘average-man’ Sam is supposed to chaperone another employee
of
the
pharmaceutical
company he works for on a business
trip
to
Dubai.
When
the
other employee gets blown away
in a seedy sex club Sam soon
--Andrew Prentice
finds himself on the run from the
Russian mafia and the Dubai police in a fairly standard fishout-of-water thriller.
LAYOVER IN DUBAI
Dan Fesperman
their time explaining their ac-
Knopf Publishing Group
tions
$35.95 (AUS)
Fesperman’s
to
one
another
and
how
these actions are going to affect
Dan
Characters spend most of
story
of
ry;
the
all
course
done
of
the
through
sto-
clunky,
167
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
unconvincing
te-
skyscrapers, each one more ar-
mono-
chitecturally ambitious than the
logues. Any plot points and po-
last, emerge from the concrete
tential twists are established
faster than they can be sold.
without any subtlety so that the
Cultural differences are also ex-
eventual ‘surprises’ are glar-
plored providing an intriguing,
ingly obvious. This is compound-
though decidedly Western, look
ed by some far too easily re-
into the world of the United Arab
solved conflicts and some overly
Emirates. But all in all Layover
convenient coincidences. So if
in Dubai is nothing special and
you’re wondering whether or not
why read something just for the
that
scenery when there are so many
dious,
dialogue
frequent
pass-code
and
inner
Sam
just
hap-
pens to memorize in chapter six
other great books out there?
pays off in chapter twenty-nine?
Well...it does.
There are a couple of de-
--Addam Duke
cent action sequences, one at a
construction site is particularly good and the character of the
Arab
detective,
Anwar
Sharaf,
provides some relief from all
the
other
cardboard
cut-outs
that populate the story.
Surprisingly,
the
portray the excessive extravagance of this money-drenched city
where shopping malls have enough
air conditioning to let you ski
slopes
and
Text Publishing
best
self, as Fesperman manages to
man-made
Adrian Hyland
$32.95 (AUS)
part of the book is Dubai it-
on
GUNSHOT ROAD
where
In 2007, Adrian Hyland hit the
crime fiction world running when
his debut novel Diamond Dove won
the
Ned
Kelly
award
for
best
first crime novel. Readers were
introduced
to
and
pulled
Hyland
Emily
off
Tempest,
the
not
168
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
inconsiderable feat of being a
‘Join the cops, Emily!’ But as
white man giving a convincing
Emily puts it, not real cops.
portrayal of the life of an Ab-
She could arrest someone but she
original woman in Northern Aus-
couldn’t shoot them.
tralia.
Emily
Of course, the creation of
wasn’t
something
Based
in
the
frontier,
wild west-style, socially mori-
Hyland
bund mining town of Bluebush,
concocted from his imagination.
Emily’s first sniff of action is
The author spent many years in
helping investigate the death of
the Northern Territory, living
an old geologist at the Green
and working in and among Indig-
Swamp Well Roadhouse. It turns
enous communities. That experi-
out she knows both the victim,
ence adds grit and believability
Albert “Doc” Ozolins, and the
to his prose.
prime suspect, Wireless Pether-
I have to admit, Diamond
Dove
didn’t
work
for
me.
Too
much of it seemed to be an earnest attempt by Hyland to prove
his credentials and knowledge of
Indigenous Australia, and it detracted from the story and the
development of the characters.
Happily, his second attempt
has got it dead right. Gunshot
Road is a rollicking, down-anddirty yarn and Emily quickly becomes a character you love for
all the wrong reasons. She becomes the Aboriginal Community
Police Officer, much to the distress of her best friend, Hazel.
bridge.
To
the
regular
cops,
it’s an open and shut case: two
old deros who got into a drunken brawl, one ended up with a
geological
hammer
embedded
in
his throat. But Emily isn’t convinced, and she knows that Doc
was more than just a crazy prospector thanks to her previous
association
with
him,
through
her dad Motor Jack. It turns out
Doc had been working on something called his Snowball theory
for years, and the result of his
geological
investigations
have
upset a whole cast of desperate
bastards with reasons for wanting both the old bloke’s secrets
169
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
and his silence.
COMICS
With the reluctant assent
of her superior Cockburn, Emily
throws herself into her first investigation with the energy of
her surname. Her dogged, high
energy character gives the reader a lot of laugh-out-loud moments and the list of support
characters is stupendous. Chief
among them is Wishy Ozolins, the
PUNISHER
DEATH
MAX:
HOT
RODS
OF
Charlie Huston & Shawn Martinbrough
dead man’s brother, and his com-
Marvel Comics
pletely unhinged family of ter-
$4.99 (US)
rors who are the closest thing to
scene-stealers a book can have.
There’s a huge amount to
like in this novel, and Hyland
has got the balance of issues
between racism, Indigenous issues, ignorance and black-white
relations
pretty
much
spot-on
this time. Humour and tragedy
co-exist in Emily’s life and the
book leaps off the page, takes
the reader by the throat, and
throttles them. Can’t wait for
Emily to do it all over again.
There are very few things that
will make a single-issue comic book a must-buy these days.
Even with the Aussie dollar approaching parity (go you good
thing!), the idea of paying double US cover price (thanks to
the super-fast freight charge)
makes the floppy, unfortunately,
unaffordable.
Then
starts
Shawn
posting
Martinbrough
fucking
pages
from a book called HOT RODS OF
DEATH on his facebook page. They
--Andrew Prentice
are
gorgeous.
Martinbrough,
who’s worked on Batman: Detective
Comics
with
Greg
Rucka,
170
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Angeltown with Gary Phillips and
other half of the fun comes from
Luke Cage: Noir with Benson &
Martinbrough’s
Glass, loves drawing crime and
There’s seemingly a Sean Phil-
loves drawing noir. He loves it
lips influence creeping into his
so much he even made his own
inks, giving his stylised, angu-
book, How To Draw Noir Comics.
lar figures a heightened sense of
Then
it’s
revealed
that
Charlie Huston scripted for Martinbrough. Bam. Where do I pay?
Punisher: Hot Rods of Death
sees Frank Castle go to the aid
of an old ‘Nam buddy and subsequently end up at war with a
bikie gang. It’s all hot rods
and choppers, crippled war veterans, hairy bikers and the Punisher. Huston basically strips
the Punisher of everything the
reader might find familiar: the
city and the firearms, and off he
goes in his War Wagon, duelling
with villains out on the high-
incredible
art.
realism from his days on ‘Tec.
His
perspective
his
cars
and
is
bikes
fantastic,
super-de-
tailed, his action flowing.
The only real problem with
this comic is that it feels a
little cramped. An extra ten or
so pages for the story to unfold and for the cars to burn
a little more rubber and this
would’ve been perfect. As is,
though, it’s a pretty great little Punisher story and, hopefully, the first in a long, long
line of comics from the team of
Huston and Martinbrough.
ways like it’s Mad Max all over
again. Half the fun of this book
comes from the fact that Hus-
--Cameron Ashley
ton’s plot is cobbled together
from a million different action
stories. You’ll pick them all
as you’re reading and then smile
as Huston gives a shout-out to
them all on the last page. The
171
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
Blaxsploitation,
MOVIES
the
classic
Western-women-in-third-worldprison films (such as Big Dolls
House), and a whole lot more,
blurring
all
the
lines
and
genres. They did a version of
MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED!
Dir&Scrn: Mark Hartley
Australian
Broadcasting
Jaws. They even ripped off James
Bond in a low-budget cult classic called For Your Height Only,
Corpo-
staring an 83cm Filipino dwarf
called Weng Weng.
ration
I love documentaries about filmmaking. Every now and again one
of comes along that gives you
a particularly fascinating insight into part of the world of
cinema you never knew existed.
Machete Maidens Unleashed,
the latest effort from the director of Not Quite Hollywood
Mark Hartley, is one of these
films. From the beginning of the
seventies well into the early
nineties,
the
Philippines
was
the location of choice for every
American B movie hack (or visionary, take your pick) wanting
to make a movie.
They
churned
out
hor-
ror, action, and kung fu pics,
It is this largely unknown
world of Filipino genre films that
Hartley has turned his attention
to in Machete Maidens Unleashed,
which had its world premier in
late July at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
of
Hartley traces the origins
this
wave
of
movies,
from
the first B-monster pics such as
Brides of Blood to the arrival
in the early seventies of independent cinema greats like Roger
Corman, Joe Dante and John Landis, to Francis Ford Coppola’s
bloated Vietnam era pic, Apocalypse Now. When Coppola departed he literally left the country littered with disused sets
and props, which were quickly
172
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
swooped on by local moviemak-
opportunity.
ers.
Philippines
these
people
go
overboard in talking about how
ery thing a low-budget filmmaker
radical many of the films were
could ask for: exotic locations,
and the breaks they gave to lo-
cheap
English-speaking
cal and American actress that
crews, and absolutely no labour
wouldn’t have been possible in
laws or health and safety regu-
the States. Pam Grier got her
lations.
big break in these movies but
labour,
The
movies
were
had
of
ev-
The
Some
largely
ignored by the US ratings agency
because they mainly played in
drive-ins,
meaning
there
were
few limits on how much violence
and sex they could contain. And
they contained a lot. Minimum
script and maximum blood and nu-
I didn’t count too many others.
The film is upfront about one of
the unique subsidy schemes the
Philippines government had for
foreign film makers who were prepared to pay under the table for
it, seemingly unlimited use of
the local military.
dity were the rule or, as one
of
it,
the US government’s more ruth-
the 3 Bs: ‘Blood, Breasts and
less cold war allies, had taken
Beasts’.
power in 1972 and ran the coun-
the
interviewees
put
Hartley gathers an amazing
cast of American and Filipino
directors
and
producers,
ac-
tors and assembled hangers-on to
tell their stories. You get the
feeling a lot of them have been
waiting decades for the chance
to talk about their role in this
Ferdinand E Marcos, one of
try as a dictator until he was
eventually ousted in the mideighties. Bizarrely, the export
of films for the US grind-house
circuit seems to have been one
of the few economic activities
where the local authorities were
relatively hands off.
otherwise obscure cultural move-
One
of
the
reasons
many
ment and they don’t waste the
of the films come across as so
173
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
gritty and powerful, even to-
--Andrew Nette
day, is because they were partly
mirroring what was going on the
ground though out the Philippines, the massive corruption,
political oppression and a simmering
anti-government
insur-
gency.
In addition to the death
THE KILLER INSIDE ME
Dir: Michael Winterbottom
Scrn: John Curran
IFC Films
of the grind houses and driveins and the advent of VHS, the
insurgency
and
the
ferocious
military response to it was one
of the main reasons behind the
gradual winding up of American
independent
film
production
in
the Philippines. It was simply
too dangerous to work there.
Machete Maidens Unleashed
is not only a fascinating film
in its own right, it leaves you
thinking what other hidden corners of the film world have yet to
be discovered; Hong Kong martial
arts, Indian crime films, perhaps
the
‘bomb-the-mountains-burn-
the-huts’ Thai action films of
the late sixties.
Whatever it is, I’m look-
ing forward to it.
Michael
Winterbottom’s
adapta-
tion of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me is a troubled little film. It features impressive
performances, beautiful cinematography, great design and is
tonally fabulous. But something
about
the
movie
just
doesn’t
connect.
For those of you in the
dark, the plot centres on a small
town police officer, Lou (Casey
Affleck), who covers his dark,
murderous impulses through his
calm,
reserved
demeanour.
The
film works best when it pushes
the audience further and further
into
a
sense
of
unease,
letting Lou’s detachement feel
at
once
removed
and
distant,
while at the same time allowing
174
CRIME FACTORY
disturbing
Lou’s
actions
SEPTEMBER 2010
to
shock.
The Killer Inside Me cer-
tainly isn’t for everyone – the
It is almost impossible to
review the film without addressing the completely clinical way
in which the film presents some
rather intense violence, which
is probably the smartest move of
the film, and also the one that
has cause it to attract a lot of
aforementioned violence that has
outraged so many people can certainly be off-putting, but it is
certainly necessary. As Stephen
Dalton said, it seems that people have, as always, just mistaken the film’s content for its
intent.
controversy. If the film condemned
the violence, it would miss the
of violence is largely a smart
point; if the film stylised the
move, it has the double-edged
violence to make it more palat-
sword
able, it would be doing exactly
largely uninvolved with any of
what its critics have accused it
the characters. As much as Af-
of; if the film kept the violence
fleck
largely off-screen, there’d be no
was hard to care much or invest
point - so, while controversial,
in anything his character did,
Winterbottom’s approach is re-
not because of his character’s
ally
makes
reptilian nature, but more be-
sense. A lot of people seem to
cause the film is so interested
subscribe to the idea that vio-
in building to these great cre-
lence is better when it is in-
scendos of violence and trying
ferred, that imagination is more
to force a certain mood over the
powerful than what can actually
rest of the film, that it forgets
be presented to us. And that can
it needs to make the rest of the
be true, depending on what a film
film engaging.
the
only
one
that
is trying to achieve. But to use
that as a blanket rule for all
film is misguided.
And while the presentation
of
acted
making
his
the
heart
Winterbottom
is
audience
out,
a
it
great
experimenter in film, he’s fearless
and
uncompromising,
all
175
CRIME FACTORY
SEPTEMBER 2010
wonderful qualities, but he often becomes so obsessed with the
formal
qualities
of
his
films
that he neglects the content, as
is the case here.
The final product just fails
to connect, and ends up a mess
of a film that should be better
than it is. It contains a wonderful, weird mixture of great
parts, but also things like (and
it must be brought up) perhaps
the
most
laughably
atrocious
(and unnecessary) CGI fire in recent memory.
For a film that has already
become
infamous
and
attracted
such passionate debate on both
sides of the critical divide,
the last thing I expected was
that I’d be bored.
--Liam José
176
“And
when I
get to
heaven,
I’ll tell
them
‘fuck
you,
too.’”
-Ennis