She was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, chewing the nails off the fingers of her left hand. I came out of the room and closed the door softly behind me. “What do you want to do with the body? I asked.
“What do you usually do?” she said.
“Most people call a doctor. Or the police.”
“What do you usually do?” she said again, as though I hadn’t responded, more emphasis on the you this time.
Her pupils were wide, her eyes shifting back and forth in an edgy fashion, left to right and then back left again, as though she was reading. Her eyes never left my body. I looked at her. “I don’t usually murder people,” I said.
***
The above scene, dialogue and all, has been drifting around in my mind the past three days or so. What does it mean? Am I going to start a hardboiled bit of pulp fiction? Will it be a short story or a novel?
Who knows? Who ever knows? Maybe. I only know I might continue it this way:
I started down the stairs. She met me halfway. There was an urgency to her movements. She was in my arms. “Oh, baby,” she said, “you did it for me, for us!.” She trembled slightly, just a tiny shiver. Her eyes were glossy pools, soft brown irises floating. I dived in, our lips meeting. As I floated downward, the last few air bubbles rose, thoughts drifting up out of the depths, from some small dark corner of my mind. One thought in particular sent a chill through me: I hope to God she’s not setting me up. I hoped it with every inch of my body . . .
She brought her left hand up, grazing my cheek with her fingers. I could feel the moisture from the tips of her fingers, and imagined a streak of blood smearing across my cheek from where she had chewed her nails down to the quick.
We both have blood on our hands. Both of us. We’re in this together, up to our necks. All the way–all the way to the end.
***
Okay, so that’s it. I really don’t know. All I know is that I’ve been waist deep in pulp/noir fiction for the past week or so. Since I haven’t been writing, as you can tell from my last post.
There’s a story in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (shown above, of course), called “Flight to Nowhere.” It’s by Charles Williams. I was reading it and it hit me that I had read bits of it online just an hour or so earlier. But what I read online, even though it was the same prose, was called something different. And the online passages where longer. In the Mammoth book the paragraphs were edited, apparently, or maybe it had all started as a long short story or novella (around 30 thousand words).
I found it again online. It was the novel, Scorpion Reef. I hadn’t read but just a chapter or two of the novel online. It’s listed in/on google books. Looks like the whole book is laid out there. In any case, who can forget lines like the following:
It was a couple of tons of shining Cadillac, and there was a girl in it. She got out and closed the door and walked over to the edge of the pier with the unhurried smoothness of poured honey.
I mean, honestly, who can forget prose like that
. . . with the unhurried smoothness of poured honey.
I love it! It won’t win any literary praise, or awards, of course. We all know the stigma attached to pulp. But it is a style that is purely, exquisitely noir! Charles Williams is a master, an auteur (if I can borrow the term from film). Or, perhaps ‘auteur’ is too high-brow. Pulp fiction, after all, is supposed to be down and dirty (I refuse to use the word trash when talking about it), and dark. And Williams definitely goes dark.
Someone mentioned in a review (I think it was for Scorpion Reef) how Charles Williams was a big influence on John D. MacDonald. I don’t know if this is true or not. But I do know that the writing is spookily similar. I would say that this, at least in Williams’s book, Scorpion Reef, is the case. If I wasn’t familiar with the book and someone had me read it and told me it was MacDonald who wrote it, I would believe it. Style wise, it is perhaps 85 to 90% MacDonald, with the other 10 to 15% being made up mostly of James M. Cain with a touch of Raymond Chandler. Story, plotline, etc. It just is.
So why is Charles Williams so underrated? I mean, he is in the mix, usually listed, and hard core pulp aficionados know of him. So why isn’t he as well known generally? Or maybe I’m wrong, and he is? It just seems to me like he might not be as appreciated as the rest. Of course, one could say that about Jim Thompson also, and probably a couple more . . .
Now, I’ve only read some of Williams’s stuff. People are familiar with some of the works: The Hot Spot, and Dead Calm come to mind. People are probably at least familiar with the movies. But, I’m guessing, most people couldn’t tell you who wrote the books. I’ve read The Hot Spot (years ago), and Dead Calm is on my list. And in fact, I’m only about 40% through with Scorpion Reef. I think there were a few not-so-great reviews. But unless there is something really drastic coming up that I’m not aware of, and it will have to be something really bad, then my mind is made up! Charles Williams should be in the top tier with the rest.
I’m a huge John D. MacDonald fan, and have all the old paperbacks (just about everything he put out). I’ve read all but the last four of the Travis McGee’s, plus a number of his other works. I have my favorites, of course, Bordertown Girl being right up there. Everyone knows that JDM was a huge influence on a whole slew of writers, like Stephen King (JDM even wrote the introduction for King’s book, Night Shift, I believe), Lee Child, and perhaps Lawrence Block and John Lutz (who are, and rightly so, at least compared to JDM often enough).
So was Williams a big influence on MacDonald? I couldn’t say. The writing is definitely similar enough that I would say YES. Or maybe the two influenced each other. I’d have to check my dates, but they were both kind of, maybe, of the same time period, with JDM gaining popularity a little later. Like I said, I’ll have to check dates. I’m not going to rush out and do it, however. I’m, for now, just gonna kick back and enjoy the ride. I’m gonna finish reading Scorpion Reef, letting the words move like the girl walking over to the edge of the pier, flowing, well . . .
with the unhurried smoothness of poured honey.
Well, I guess the line doesn’t really have the same impact as when used in reference to the girl, but you catch my drift.
And I’m going to have to save my discussion of the Hard Case Crime imprint/series till next time. It’s going to be a long discussion also.
I might even take time out to finish whatever I started above and see where it leads. It can only lead to a conviction at this point–or more murder! Haha!