Great Noir Fiction

by Ed Gorman (ed)

  The project was a disaster from the beginning. He had long, violent telephonic clashes with the book’s editor that eventually, after months of labor and psychic drain, forced him off the job with only nominal payment. As if this bitter pill wasn’t enough to swallow, Harlequin rejected The Skeleton portion, after holding it for several months, because although they felt it read entertainingly and “would surely make a good mystery novel,” the bisexual/homosexual content was deemed unacceptable. Jackdaw was not bought either, for more obscure reasons.

  These, combined with continuing frustrations with Anarcosis, were the final straws.

  By mid-1979 Brewer was again drowning in booze. In 1980 one of his writer friends wrote sadly to another, “ . . . Gil has drunk the tops off all the vodka bottles and is writing very little, alas.” Brewer’s redescent into the depths of alcohol and despair continued into 1981, when he nearly died of several different ailments. Then, with Verlaine’s help, he managed to lift himself out of the pit for the final time. He rejoined AA; he tried once more to put his life back together.

  I no longer drink and attend AA meetings regularly. Last eve a head cheese in the organization suggested I’d be a good speaker. I told him he’d have to wait till I have some front teeth replaced—three have fallen out, God help me [and] I can’t afford to go to a dentist.

  In late April of 1982 he wrote an abject, rambling, five-page letter to his agent.

  I’m hanging by a thread and practically living on noodles and rice with the way things are. The bloody Social Security disability pension and the VA disability pension could give out any time, and I’d be on the streets. I just skin by each month as it is, living like a hermit. Maybe grass, good green grass, I mean, would be a treat . . .

  All I know is, I must write. I love to write. I can sit at the mill again, and I can write the stuff . . . I’ve got to make money, but in return I’ll deliver better goods than ever . . . I have so many terrific books in me! And I no longer drink, nor do I take any drug that would disrupt the scene. I’m sober and ready for work.

  But it was too late. Over the previous several years there had been too much conflict, too many failures and missed assignments; and during the dark, alcoholic years of 1979-1981 there had been too many incoherent, angry, pleading letters, too many drunken phone calls. The agent said that his agency and Brewer were “moving in different directions” and wished him well; their thirty-year professional marriage was finished.

  In August Brewer wrote Mike Avallone, asking Mike to help him find new representation.

  . . . Could you write a brief note to your agent and see if he’d be willing to take me on as a client? I must still have some rep: I’ve sold over 50 novels . . . about four hundred short stories and novelettes . . . have been published in 26 countries. . . . I have some new, fresh material at hand, and would dearly love an assignment. . . . All I need and want now is an agent, a good one, and a word processor. But at the moment I feel terribly lost and in limbo.

  Nothing positive came of this, despite Avallone’s efforts. And so, inevitably, Brewer plummeted into the pit for the final time. In December, shortly before Christmas, he placed one last telephone call to his former agent. He was so drunkenly incoherent that the agent had no idea of what he was saying or why he called.

  Two weeks later, on the morning of the second day of the new year, Verlaine entered his apartment and found him dead.

  That is not quite the end of the Gil Brewer story, however. The gods can be perverse sometimes—damned perverse. This is one bitter instance.

  In the years since January 2, 1983, a French film company paid a five-figure advance for film rights to A Killer Is Loose and produced it in 1987. Two other early GM novels, 13 French Street and The Red Scarf, were bought for reissue by Zomba Books in England; those two and a number of others were also reissued in France. Black Lizard has expressed interest in reprinting several Brewer titles here. And a number of his short stories were purchased for anthologies edited by the writer of these words. Gil Brewer is dead, but his career, by God, is not; new life has been breathed into it, and it is still on life-support at the time of this writing.

  . . . I’m encouraged by how I feel toward really good stuff. It turns me on, as it always has—but I’ve always denied myself the pleasure of [such] work; forever tied up with one project after the other, facing the stricture of money needed. . . . Everything in my plans hinges on money as a support; I’m tortured out of my skull when the gelt is low . . .

  And the drinking . . . I always imagined it a necessity for my work. I am a terrible fool.

  Afterword

  The italicized passages in this piece were taken verbatim from letters written in 1977, 1978, and 1982 by Brewer to a number of individuals, primarily his agent and Mike Avallone. None of the letters were addressed to me personally; I had no correspondence with Gil Brewer, did not know him at all.

  In retrospect I find this strange, discomfiting, because on numerous occasions from the late 60s to the early 80s I intended to write Brewer a letter; to tell him that I grew up reading his work, admired it, was in fact influenced by it in certain small ways. I did write similar letters to such other writers as Evan Hunter, Robert Martin, Jay Flynn, Talmage Powell—but never one to Brewer. In the mid-70s I went so far as to track down his address and type it on an envelope, yet no farther than that. I don’t know why.

  I wish I had written to him, established a correspondence, gotten to know him a little. I might have been able to help him in some small way—bought some of his old stories for anthologies while he was still alive, maybe, or given him an assignment to write an original . . . something. It would have made absolutely no difference in the long run, of course. Just the same, I can’t help feeling a bit guilty for my silence.

  Maybe I’m a fool, too, in my own way.

  Maybe we all are, us real-life working mystery writers . . .

  The Red Scarf

  Gil Brewer

  First published in 1958.

  Chapter 1

  About eight-thirty that night, the driver of the big trailer truck let me out in the middle of nowhere. I had stacked in with a load of furniture all the way from Chicago and I should have slept, too. I couldn’t even close my eyes. Brother Albert had turned me down on the loan, and all I could think of was Bess holding the fort in St. Pete, and us standing to lose the motel. How could I tell her my own brother backed down on me? The dream. So the driver said if I could make it to Valdosta, then Route 19, the rest down through Florida would be pie. He gave me what was left of the lunch he’d bought in Macon. I stood there under a beardy-looking oak tree and watched him rumble off, backfiring.

  It was raining and snowing at the same time; you know, just hard enough to make it real nasty. The road was rutted with slush, and the wind was like cold hands poking through my topcoat. I had to hang onto my hat. I ate the half piece of chocolate cake he’d left, and the bacon and cheese sandwich. I saved the apple.

  A couple of cars roared by, fanning the road slop clear up to my knees. I didn’t even have a cigarette. I figured this was as broke and low-down as I’d ever be.

  My feet were already soaked, so I started walking. I came around a sharp curve in the road and crossed a short wooden bridge. Then I saw the sign.

  ALF’S BAR-B-Q

  Drinks Sandwiches

  The sign was done in blue lights and it kind of hung like a ghost there in the dripping trees. It swung and you could hear it creak. Just the sign, nothing else.

  I kept walking, feeling the change in my pocket, thinking about a cup of hot coffee and some smokes and maybe it would stop raining. Or maybe I could hit somebody for a ride.

  Then I saw how I wasn’t going to hit anybody for any ride. Not here. Not at Alf’s. If a car stopped at this place, they’d either be crazy, or worse off than I was. There was this bent-looking shed with a drunken gas pump standing out front in a mess of mud, and Alf’s place itself was a sick wreck of an old one-room house, with the fro
nt porch ripped off. You could still see the outline of the porch in the dim light from the fly-freckled bulb hanging over the door. Tin and cardboard signs were plastered all over the front of the place.

  I went inside, and it was like being hit across the face with the mixed-up smells of all the food Alf’s place had served for the past ten years.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ a guy said. He was a big, red-faced drunk, parked on an upturned apple crate beside a small potbellied stove. He looked at me, then at the thin man behind the counter. ‘Ho, ho, ho!’

  ‘You best git on along home,’ the man behind the counter said to the laughing one. ‘Come on, Jo-Jo—you got enough of a one on to hold you the rest of this week and half of next.’

  ‘Ho, ho, ho!’Jo-Jo said.

  I brushed some crumbs off one of the wooden stools by the counter and sat down. Alf’s place was a compact fermentation of all the bad wayside lunchrooms on the Eastern seaboard. With some additions. He had a coffee urn, a battered juke-box, two stick-looking booths, a chipped marble counter, and a greasy stove. The ceiling was low; the stove was hot.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ the counterman said. ‘I’m Alf. We got some fine barbecue.’ His hair was pink and sparse across a freckled skull. He wore a very clean white shirt and freshly ironed white duck trousers.

  ‘Cup of coffee, I guess.’

  ‘No barbecue?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Alf shook his head. I turned and glanced at Jo-Jo. He was wearing overalls with shoulder straps. He was a young, rough, country lush. His eyes had that slitted hard-boiled egg look, his mouth broad and loose and his black hair straight and dank, down over his ears. Combed, it would be one of these duck cuts. He was a big guy.

  I heard a car draw up outside. Jo-Jo took a fifth of whiskey from his back pocket, uncapped it, drank squinting, and put it away. He stood up, stretched, touching his hands to the ceiling, reeled a little and sat down again. ‘Son of a gun,’ he said. ‘Dirty son of a gun.’

  Alf put the thick mug of coffee on the counter. ‘Cigarettes?’ I said. ‘Any kind.’

  He flipped me a pack of Camels. I heard a man and woman arguing outside, their voices rising above the sound of a car’s engine. A door slammed. The engine gunned, then shut off.

  ‘Damn it!’ a man said outside.

  The door opened and this girl walked in. She hesitated a moment, watching Jo-Jo, then she grinned and stepped over toward the counter, letting the door slap.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ Jo-Jo said. Then he whistled. The girl didn’t pay any attention. Jo-Jo looked her up and down, grinning loosely, his eyes like rivets. Then the door opened again and a man came in. He stood staring at the girl’s back.

  ‘Viv,’ he said. ‘Please, come on, for cripe’s sake.’

  She didn’t say anything. She was a long-legged one, all right, with lots of shape, wearing a tight blue flannel dress with bunches of white lace at the throat and cuffs. She was something to see. There were sparkles of rain like diamonds on the dress and in her thick dark hair. She half-sat on the stool next to me, and looked at me sideways with one big brown eye.

  ‘You hear me, Viv?’ the man said.

  ‘I’m going to eat something, Noel. That’s all there is to it. I’m starved.’

  ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ Jo-Jo said. I heard him uncap the bottle and drink noisily. He coughed, cleared his throat and said, ‘I reckon your woman wants some barbecue, mister.’

  The guy breathed heavily, stepped over behind the girl, and just stood there. He was a big-shouldered guy, wearing a double-breasted dark-blue suit, with a zigzag pin stripe. His white shirt was starched. He wore a gray Homburg tilted to the left and slightly down on the forehead.

  ‘Come on, Viv,’ he said. He laid one hand on her right arm. ‘Please come on, will you?’

  ‘Nuts. I’m hungry, I told you.’

  She haunched around on the stool and smiled at Alf. ‘I’ll try the barbecue. And some coffee.’

  ‘Sure,’ Alf said. ‘You won’t be sorry.’

  The guy sighed and sat down on a stool beside her. Alf looked at him, and the guy shook his head.

  ‘You better eat something,’ the girl said.

  The guy looked at her. She turned front again. I could smell whiskey, but it wasn’t from Jo-Jo. They’d both been drinking and driving for quite a while. They had that unstretched, half-eyed look that comes from miles and miles on the highway.

  I sat there with my coffee and a cigarette, nursing the coffee, waiting. They were headed in the same direction as I was. I’d heard them come in.

  After Alf served her a plate of barbecue, with some bread and coffee, the guy spoke up. He’d been sitting there, fuming. ‘You got gas in that pump outside?’

  ‘Sure,’ Alf said. ‘Absolutely we got gas.’

  ‘How’s about filling her up?’

  Alf started around the counter, nodding.

  ‘Now, aren’t you glad we stopped?’ the girl said. ‘We won’t have to stop later on.’

  ‘Just hurry it up,’ the guy said without looking at her. ‘Feed your face.’

  Alf was at the door. ‘You’ll have to drive your car over to the pump,’ he said.

  I looked at him. The guy started toward the door. Jo-Jo was trying to get up off the apple crate. He was grinning like crazy, staring straight at the girl. I looked and she had her skirt up a little over her knees, banging her knees together. You could hear it, like clapping your hands softly.

  Neither Alf nor the guy noticed. They went on outside and the door slapped shut. I could feel it; as if everything was getting a little tight. The girl felt it, too, because she paused in her eating and Jo-Jo made it off the apple crate and started across the room. ‘Say!’ Jo-Jo said. ‘You’re pretty as a pitcher.’

  She took the mouthful of barbecue and began to chew. Jo-Jo sprawled over against the counter, with his hair hanging down one side of his face, and that bottle sticking out, and he was grinning that way. ‘Gee!’ Jo-Jo said. ‘Cripes in the foothills!’

  I got off my stool and walked around to him. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Go back and sit down. You’re kind of tight.’

  He looked at me and gave me a hard shove. I went back across the room and slammed against the wall.

  ‘You?’ Jo-Jo said to the girl. He held up two fingers and wrapped them around each other. He had fingers like midget bananas. ‘Me?’ he said.

  The girl went on eating. She pulled her skirt down over her knees and chewed.

  He reached over and took hold of her arm and pulled her half off the stool toward him, like she was a rag doll.

  ‘Girly,’ he said. ‘I could make your soul sing.’

  I nearly burst out laughing. But it wasn’t funny. He was all jammed up.

  ‘You wanna drink?’ he asked her.

  She was struggling. He got up close to her and started trying to paw her. She had a mouthful of barbecue and he started to kiss her and she let him have it, spraying the barbecue all over his face.

  He grabbed her off the stool and went to work.

  She wasn’t doing anything but grunt. He got hold of her skirt and tried to rip it. I was there by then, and I got one hand on his shoulder and turned him and aimed for his chin. It was all in slow motion, and my fist connected. He windmilled back against the counter.

  ‘That dirty ape!’ the girl said.

  The barbecue was still on his face. When he hit against the counter, the bottle broke. He stood there watching me, with this funny expression on his face and the whiskey running down his leg and puddling on the floor. Then he charged, head down, his hair flopping.

  I grabbed his head as he came in, brought it down as I brought my knee up. It made a thick sound. I let him go. He sat down on the floor, came out straight and lay there.

  ‘They grow all kinds, I guess,’ the girl said. ‘I sure thank you,’ she said. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  She kept looking at me. She kind of grinned and lifted one hand and looked at the door. Then sh
e turned and went over to the stool and sat down with her barbecue again.

  The door opened, and the guy came in. He saw Jo-Jo. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A little trouble,’ I told him. ‘It’s all right now.’

  Alf came in and closed the door. He saw Jo-Jo. His face got red. ‘What happened?’

  I told them. The girl was eating again. Then I noticed she stopped and just sat there, staring at her plate. She turned on the stool and looked at the guy. ‘Pay the man,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  I looked at her, then at the guy. I had to nick them for a ride. I had to.

  ‘I’m awful sorry, miss,’ Alf said. ‘He don’t really mean no harm. It’s just his way.’

  Nobody said anything. This guy pulled out his wallet and looked at Alf.

  ‘The gas was six, even,’ Alf said. ‘The barbecue’s a dollar. That’s seven. Even.’

  The guy counted out a five and two ones. He handed the bills to Alf and Alf took them and stood there with them hanging limply from his hand. Jo-Jo moved and groaned on the floor. ‘Come on,’ the guy said to the girl.

  ‘Listen,’ I said to him. ‘How’s chances for a lift? I’m going the same way you are. South. There’s no—’

  ‘No dice. Come on, Viv.’

  I looked at her. She looked at me. ‘Oh, let’s give him a lift,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, Noel.’

  He gave her a real bad look. ‘No.’

  She bent a little at the waist and brushed at some crumbs. She looked at the guy again. Then she looked at me and winked. ‘Come on,’ she said to me. ‘We’ll take you as far as we can.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I really—’

  ‘You heard me, Viv,’ the guy said. ‘I told you, no!’

  I figured, the hell. If I could get the ride, that’s all I cared about. I didn’t care about what the guy wanted. Then I saw the way his face was.