Paul Cain: The Paul Cain Omnibus

Ballard, Todhunter. “Writing for the Pulps.” In Hollywood Troubleshooter: W. T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox Stories , edited and introduced by James L. Traylor. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1985. Pp. 8-18.

Bogdanovich, Peter. “Edgar G. Ulmer.” In Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors . New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1997. Pp. 558–604.

Bowman, David A. “Cold Trail: The Life of Paul Cain.” In Fast One . Berkeley, CA: Black Lizard, 1987.

Brandon, William. “Back in the Old Black Mask .” The Massachusetts Review 28, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 706-16.

Carr, Larry. “Myrna Loy.” In More Fabulous Faces: The Evolution and Metamorphosis of Dolores Del Rio, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn . Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979. Pp. 53-108.

Duhamel, Marcel. Raconte pas ta vie . Paris: Mercure de France, 1972.

Faust, Irvin. “Afterword.” In Fast One . Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Pp. 305-16.

Fischer, Dennis. “The Black Cat.” In Boris Karloff . Edited by Gary J. Svehla and Susan Svehla. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee, 1996. Pp. 91-113.

Gunn, Peter. “Paul Cain, 1902–1966.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 306: American Mystery and Detective Writers . Edited by George Parker Anderson. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2005. Pp. 35–43.

Hagemann, E. R. “Introducing Paul Cain and His Fast One: A Forgotten Hard-Boiled Writer, a Forgotten Gangster Novel.” Armchair Detective 12, no. 1 (January 1979): 72–76.

Haut, Woody. “The Postman Rings Twice but the Iceman Walks Right in: Paul Cain and James. M. Cain.” In Heartbreak and Vine: The Fate of Hardboiled Writers in Hollywood . London: Serpent’s Tail, 2002. Pp. 76-101.

Loy, Myrna, and James Kotsilibas-Davis. Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming . New York: Knopf, 1987.

MacShane, Frank. The Life of Raymond Chandler . New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976.

Myers, Lynn F., Jr. and Max Allan Collins. “Chasing Shadows: The Life of Paul Cain.” In The Complete Slayers . Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2011. Pp. 9-32. This volume also carries introductions to individual stories by Ed Gorman, Joe Gores, Edward D. Hoch, John Lutz, and Bill Pronzini, Robert Randisi, and others.

Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis: An American Life . New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.

Shaw, Joseph. “Greed, Crime, and Politics.” Black Mask (March 1931).

Stein, Gertrude. Everybody’s Autobiography . New York: Random House, 1937.

—. “What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them.” In What are Masterpieces (Los Angeles, CA: The Conference Press, 1940). Pp. 83–95.

Weaver, Tom. “Shirley Ulmer.” In I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror Filmmakers . Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Pp. 227-49.

Wilt, David E. “Paul Cain.” In Hardboiled in Hollywood . Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991. 97-120.

The man said: “McCary.”

“No.” I shook my head and started to push past him, and he said: “McCary,” again thickly, and then he crumpled into a heap on the wet sidewalk.

It was dark there, there wasn’t anyone on the street — I could have walked away. I started to walk away and then the sucker instinct got the best of me and I went back and bent over him.

I shook him and said: “Come on, chump — get up out of the puddle.”

A cab came around the corner and its headlights shone on me — and there I was, stooping over a drunk whom I’d never seen before, who thought my name was McCary. Any big-town driver would have pegged it for a stickup, would have shoved off or sat still. That wasn’t a big town — the cab slid alongside the curb and a fresh-faced kid stuck his face into the light from the meter and said: “Where to?”

I said: “No place.” I ducked my head at the man on the sidewalk. “Maybe this one’ll ride — he’s paralyzed.”

The kid clucked: “Tch, tch.”

He opened the door and I stooped over and took hold of the drunk under his armpits and jerked him up and across the sidewalk and into the cab. He was heavy in a funny limp way. There was a hard bulge on his left side, under the arm.

I had an idea. I asked the kid: “Who’s McCary?”

He looked self-consciously blank for a minute and then he said: “There’s two — Luke and Ben. Luke’s the old man — owns a lot of real estate. Ben runs a poolhall.”

“Let’s go see Ben.” I said. I got into the cab.

We went several blocks down the dark street and then I tapped on the glass and motioned to the kid to pull over to the curb. He stopped and slid the glass and I said: “Who’s McCary?”

The kid made the kind of movement with his shoulders that would pass for a shrug in the sticks. “I told you — he runs a poolhall.”

I said: “Listen. This guy came up to me a few minutes ago and said ‘McCary’ — this guy is very dead.”

The kid looked like he was going to jump out of the cab. His eyes were hanging out.

I waited.

The kid swallowed. He said: “Let’s dump him.”

I shook my head slightly and waited.

“Ben and the old man don’t get along — they’ve been raising hell the last couple of weeks. This is the fourth,” he jerked his head towards the corpse beside me.

“Know him?”

He shook his head and then — to be sure — took a flashlight out of the sidepocket and stuck it back through the opening and looked at the man’s dead face.

He shook his head again.

I said: “Let’s go see Ben.”

“You’re crazy, Mister. If this is one of Ben’s boys he’ll tie you up to it, and if it ain’t...”

“Let’s go see Ben.”

Ben McCary was a blond fat man, about forty — he smiled a great deal.

We sat in a little office above his poolhall and he smiled heartily across all his face and said: “Well, sir — what can I do for you?”

“My name is Black. I came over from St Paul — got in about a half hour ago.”

He nodded, still with the wide hearty smile; stared at me cordially out of his wide-set blue eyes.

I went on: “I heard there was a lot of noise over here and I thought I might make a connection — pick up some change.”

McCary juggled his big facial muscles into something resembling innocence.

“I don’t know just what you mean, Buddy,” he said. “What’s your best game?”

“What’s yours?”

He grinned again. “Well,” he said, “you can get plenty of action up in the front room.”

I said: “Don’t kid me, Mister McCary. I didn’t come over here to play marbles.”

He looked pleasantly blank.

“I used to work for Dickie Johnson down in KC,” I went on.

“Who sent you to me?”

“Man named Lowry — that’s the name on the label of his coat. He’s dead.”

McCary moved a little in his chair but didn’t change his expression.

“I came in on the nine-fifty train,” I went on, “and started walking uptown to a hotel. Lowry came up to me over on Dell Street and said ‘McCary,’ and fell down. He’s outside in a cab — stiff.”

McCary looked up at the ceiling and then down at the desk. He said: “Well, well” — and took a skinny little cigar out of a box in one of the desk drawers and lighted it. He finally got around to looking at me again and said: “Well, well,” again.

I didn’t say anything.

After he’d got the cigar going he turned another of his big smiles on and said: “How am I supposed to know you’re on the level?”