Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

Jerry reached over the backrest to put his hand on Booker’s shoulder. ‘You better wait. I don’t think you can make it.’

‘I’ll tell you what I have to make. I mean it.’

Jerry said, over Booker to Chris, ‘The boy looks fast.’

‘Used to run from the Narcs in his Pony joggers, one of those Pony Down delivery boys,’ Chris said. ‘Yeah, I imagine he’s fast.’

Booker was still upright with his head raised. ‘Wait now. What’re we saying here if I’m fast? Bet to it, man, I’m fast.’

Chris said, ‘We don’t want you to get the idea you can dive out of your chair into your little swimming-pool and make it.’

Booker said, ‘In the Jacuzzi? I get in there I be safe?’

‘I doubt it,’ Chris said. ‘If what you’re sitting on there, if it’s wired and it’s not one of your friends being funny...’

Jerry said, ‘Or if it’s not a dud.’

Booker said, ‘Yeah, what?’

Chris said, ‘If it’s a practical joke — you know, or some kind of warning — then there’s nothing to worry about. But if it’s wired, you raise up and it goes...’

‘I couldn’t get in the Jacuzzi quick enough, huh?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘His feet might stay on the floor,’ Jerry said, ‘remain in the house.’

Chris agreed, nodding. ‘Yeah, but his ass’d be sailing over Ohio.’

Jerry moved from behind the chair to the French doors. ‘We better talk about it some more.’

Booker’s head turned to follow Chris. ‘Where you going? Hey, motherfucker, I’m talking to you!’

Chris stepped out and closed the door. He moved with Jerry to the far edge of the slate patio before looking back at the French doors in the afternoon sunlight. They could hear Booker in there, faintly. They crossed the yard, Jerry offering Chris a cigarette. He took one and Jerry gave him a light once they reached the driveway and were standing by the three-car garage, alone in the backyard. Jerry looked up at the elm trees. He said, ‘Well, they’re finally starting to bud. I thought winter was gonna run through May.’

Chris said, ‘That’s my favourite kind of house. Sort of an English Tudor, before Booker got hold of it.’

Jerry said, ‘Why don’t you and Phyllis buy one?’

‘She likes apartments. Goes with her career image.’

‘She must be jumping up and down, finally got her way.’

Chris didn’t say anything.

‘I’m talking about your leaving the squad.’

‘I know what you meant. I haven’t told her yet. I’m waiting till I get reassigned.’

‘Maybe Homicide, huh?’

‘I wouldn’t mind it.’

‘Yeah, but would Phyllis?’

Chris didn’t answer. They smoked their cigarettes and could hear fire equipment arriving. Jerry said, ‘Hey, I was kidding. Don’t be so serious.’

‘I know what you’re saying,’ Chris said. ‘Phyllis is the kind of person that speaks out. Something bothers her, she tells you about it.’

‘I know,’ Jerry said.

‘There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’

‘I’m not saying anything against her.’

‘What it is, Phyllis says things even some guys would like to but don’t have the nerve.’

‘Yeah, ’cause she’s a woman,’ Jerry said, ‘she doesn’t have to worry about getting hit in the mouth.’

Chris shook his head. ‘I don’t mean putting anybody down or being insulting. Like we’re at a restaurant, one of those trendy places the waiter introduces himself? This twinkie comes up to the table, he goes, “Hi, I’m Wally, I’m gonna be your waitperson this evening. Can I get you a cocktail?” Phyllis goes, “Wally, when we’ve finished dinner, you gonna take us out and introduce us to the dishwasher?” She goes, “We really don’t care what your name is as long as you’re here when we want something.” ’

Jerry grinned, adjusting his Tiger baseball cap. ‘That’s good, I can appreciate that. Those guys kill me.’

They drew on their cigarettes. Chris looked at his, about to say something, working the butt between his thumb and second finger to flick it away, and the French doors and some of the windows on this side of the house exploded out in a billow of grey smoke tinged yellow. They stood looking at the shattered doorway, at the smoke and dust thinning, settling over the glass and wood fragments, shreds of blackened green-and-white debris on the patio, silence ringing in their ears now. After a few moments they started down the drive, let the people waiting in front know they were okay.

Chris said, ‘Yeah, the twink comes up to the table, says he’s gonna be our waitperson. But you have to understand, Phyllis wasn’t trying to be funny, she was serious. That’s the way she is.’

The first and arguably still best-known gangster in hardboiled fiction was Cesare Bandello, known as Rico, the tough little Chicago hood whose profound influence on the grime genre and movies was apparent for many years after he first appeared in 1929, in W. R. Burnett’s novel Little Caesar. The book itself was also the first important piece of fiction about the power of the underworld, and has been described as one of the most famous of all realistic crime novels. In Rico, the small-time crook who ruthlessly gains control of the Chicago underworld by eliminating all his rivals, writers everywhere were provided with the prototype gangster, and his shade is much in evidence in later hardboiled fiction. Although Little Caesar was an immediate best-seller, it was the film made the following year, with Edward G. Robinson as Rico, that established both the star’s name and the novel’s legendary status. The story, which provided a wholly convincing picture of gangster life, marked another milestone in that it was told largely from the point of view of the criminal. This was a device that many other writers would copy.

The success of Little Caesar had been hard-earned by William Riley Burnett (1899–1982) who had written five novels, several plays and a large number of short stories during the late Twenties, all of which he had tried unsuccessfully to get published before moving from his home town of Springfield, Ohio, to Chicago. It was here, in the era of Al Capone, that he found the inspiration for his hardboiled gangster novel and the genre which would make him famous. Following this success, he wrote several more crime novels and short stories, most of which were also filmed — Scarface (based on the life of Capone and made in 1932 with Paul Muni), High Sierra (starring Humphrey Bogart in 1941) and The Asphalt Jungle (first filmed in 1950 with Sterling Hayden and Marilyn Monroe and later adapted for a very popular TV series with Jack Warden). For twenty years Burnett was also one of the highest-paid scriptwriters in Hollywood, working on productions such as This Gun for Hire, based on Graham Greene’s story, The Racket (1951) and Sergeants Three (1962). He received several Oscar nominations for this work and was awarded the O. Henry Memorial prize in 1930 for his short story ‘Dressing Up’. In 1980 the Mystery Writers of America made him a Grand Master.

‘Travelling Light’, his story reprinted here, was first published in 1935 and, because of its storyline of a young man who falls into the company of two bank robbers on the run from the law, may just have been a trial run for his famous novel High Sierra, written five years later, in which a former convict, also heading west, becomes involved in an abortive robbery and finds himself trapped by the police.