You’re a great guy, and she’s the finest broad in all the world
Take it easy, partner, death is not such a bad chaser
And you didn’t mix this one anyway
They were all right, the lot of them, it wasn’t up to them
And they knew it; if somebody had come along and said,
I’ve got a spot for a two-legged animal in the world I’m working on,
They wouldn’t have made anything like they had been made.
They were wise that this man-business was just a matter
Of putting it in and taking it out; and that went all the way
From throwing up cathedrals to getting hot pants over Kathy.
Maybe there was something to get steamed about, maybe it was
Baseball to grow a beard and end up on a cross so that a lot
Of hysteria cases could have something to slap around;
Maybe the old Greek boy knew what he was doing when he hemlocked
It out, loving the heels who hobbled him; maybe little French Joan
Got a kick out of the English hot-foot; the boys at the corner bar
Were willing to believe it. No skin off their noses. But what was hard
Was when you get a snoot full and all you can think to say starts with s
And you know damn well you’re a good guy and you’ll never meet a dame
Who really has your address, who can really dot your t’s or cross your i’s
Come back when it’s old home week in this particular hell
And you can bum enough nickels to take the fallen angels out
I sat down and said beer thinking Scotch and there by God
Was my woman just as I had always known she would be
And I went over to her and she said come home with me
Like that, raining a bit, will you get wet? no, let’s hurry,
Climbing the stairs behind her, watching; what’s your name?
Lorraine, don’t make so much noise, the landlady; buzz her, I said,
Wondering how God would have gotten it all into this little tail;
Key in the lock, light; hello, you’re lovely did you know that?
She was all right, all of her, it was up to me and I knew it; let’s
Talk first, do you mind? I said no and she said some female stuff
Husband on the lam and I’ve never done this before tonight; me, I
Put all my cards on the table and dealt myself five aces, great God
I was wanting it then but she said some more things and started
To cry and I slammed on my coat and said you lousy bitch which shut
Her up and I put my key in the lock
And when it’s open, when you’ve got it, when it’s all yours,
When nobody else in all the world is where you are,
When your arms have really gone around something,
When your thighs know all the answers to all the questions,
Why is there always one bead of sweat that doesn’t come from either of your faces?
Come back when sleep drifts out over the city
And the good God puts His hands on all these poor devils.
A Biography of Larry Beinhart
Larry Beinhart (b. 1947) is an award-winning author of mysteries, nonfiction, and political essays. He is best known for his novel Wag the Dog (originally titled American Hero), which inspired the blockbuster film of the same name.
Raised in New York City, Beinhart published his first book, No One Rides for Free, in 1986. A mystery about corporate corruption, it introduced the private investigator Tony Cassella, and won Beinhart an Edgar Award for best first novel. He returned to Cassella in You Get What You Pay For (1988) and Foreign Exchange (1991), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
The book Wag the Dog was listed as one of the seven best modern political novels by the Christian Science Monitor, one of the five best books on public relations by the Wall Street Journal, and one of the thousand great books of the millennium by Capital Magazine. Barry Levinson directed the book’s film adaptation, titled Wag the Dog, in 1997. The movie starred Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, garnered much critical acclaim, and was nominated for two Academy Awards.
Beinhart’s next novel was The Librarian (2004), a comic thriller about an archivist caught in a national conspiracy to re-elect a dimwitted president. He then published Salvation Boulevard (2008), a sharp-witted satire of murder and mega-churches, where the real mystery is the nature of God. A film adaptation starring Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan was released in 2011.
In 1996, Beinhart published How to Write a Mystery, a well-reviewed guide for would-be Raymond Chandlers, and in 2005 he wrote Fog Facts, a nonfiction examination of information in the age of spin. Beinhart spent two years lecturing at Oxford University as a Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Scholar.
Beinhart has won many awards, including an Emmy and a Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, but has still not gotten over the joy he felt when No One Rides for Free was first published. He lives, writes, and works as a ski instructor in Woodstock, New York.
Beinhart in 1951, at age four. His grandparents, Ephraim and Selde, look on while his father helps him ride his first bike.
In his early twenties, Beinhart was a professional photographer in New York City. He honed his craft by sneaking into the darkroom at New York University to develop his photos.
Beinhart and his wife, Gil, during their wedding in February, 1988.
Beinhart in Aspen in 1989 with his wife, Gillian; sister-in-law, Kathy; and his baby daughter, Ana. During this trip, Beinhart developed the idea for his book Foreign Exchange, which is set in a ski town in the Austrian Alps.
During a family visit, Beinhart sits with wife Gil (far left), his mother, his two-year-old son, James, and Ana, his four-year-old daughter.
Beinhart and his son, James, in 1993. When he was young, James’s motto was “Why walk when you can ride?”
Beinhart’s family at Oxford University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, in 1995: Gil, friend Betty, daughter Ana, Beinhart’s mother Ann, Larry, and son James. When his family first entered the centuries-old university, Ana, aged six, took a look at the medieval architecture and asked, “Daddy, is the king of this castle dead?”
Beinhart in Woodstock, New York, in spring 2002.
Beinhart in Spain, preparing to speak at the Semana Negra conference for mystery writers.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following:
An excerpt from page 58 of the book Practical Aspects of Homicide Investigation by Vernon J. Geberth, copyright © 1983. Reprinted by permission of Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.
The poem “He Was Alone” from Collected Poems by Kenneth Patchen. Copyright 1939 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
copyright © 1986 by Larry Beinhart
cover design by Brenden Hitt
978-1-4532-5926-9
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No One Rides for Free Page 24