Denise Hamilton - Los Angeles Noir 2

This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books

©2010 Akashic Books

Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple

Los Angeles map by Sohrab Habibion

ISBN-13: 978-1-936070-02-2

e-ISBN: 9781617752209

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009911099

All rights reserved | First printing

Akashic Books | PO Box 1456 | New York, NY 10009

info@akashicbooks.com | www.akashicbooks.com

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the stories in this anthology. “Murder in Blue” by Paul Cain was originally published in Black Mask (June 1933) as “Murder Done in Blue,” © 1933 by Pro-Distributors Publishing Co., Inc., renewed © 1961 by Popular Publications, Inc., assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch, publisher and proprietor of Black Mask Magazine ; “I Feel Bad Killing You” by Leigh Brackett was originally published in New Detective Magazine (November 1944), © 1944 by Leigh Brackett, reprinted by permission of the Huntington National Bank for the Estate of Leigh Brackett, c/o Spectrum Literary Agency; “Dead Man” by James M. Cain was originally published in the American Mercury (March 1936), © 1963 by James M. Cain, reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.; “The Night’s for Cryin’” by Chester Himes was originally published in Esquire (January 1937), licensed here from The Collected Stories of Chester Himes , © 1990 by Lesley Himes, reprinted by permission of Da Capo/Thunder’s Mouth, a member of Perseus Book Group; “Find the Woman” by Ross Macdonald was originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (June 1946), © 1973 by the Margaret Millar Charitable Remainder Unitrust u/a 12 April 1982, reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.; “The Chirashi Covenant” by Naomi Hirahara was originally published in A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir (Houston: Busted Flush Press, 2007), © 2007 by Naomi Hirahara; “High Darktown” by James Ellroy was originally published in The New Black Mask No. 5 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), © 1986 by James Ellroy; “The People Across the Canyon” by Margaret Millar was originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (October 1962), © 1990 by the Margaret Millar Charitable Remainder Unitrust u/a 12 April 1982, reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.; “Surf” by Joseph Hansen was originally published in Playguy (January 1976), © 1976 by Joseph Hansen, reprinted by permission of Johnson & Alcock Literary Agency; “The Kerman Kill” by William Campbell Gault was originally published in Murder in Los Angeles (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1987), © 1987 by William Campbell Gault, reprinted by permission of Shelley Gault; “Crimson Shadow” by Walter Mosley was originally published in Edward Hopper and the American Imagination (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995), © 1995 by Walter Mosley, reprinted by permission of the Watkins/Loomis Agency, Inc.; “Rika” (excerpted from the novel Understand This ) by Jervey Tervalon was originally published by William Morrow & Co., in 1994, © 1994 by Jervey Tervalon; “Lucía” (excerpted from the novel Locas ) by Yxta Maya Murray was originally published by Grove Press, in 1997, © 1997 by Yxta Maya Murray, reprinted by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.; “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta” by Kate Braverman was originally published in Squandering the Blue: Stories (New York: Fawcett, 1990), © 1990 by Kate Braverman.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

PART I: KISS KISS BANG BANG

PAUL CAIN

Downtown

Murder in Blue

1933

LEIGH BRACKETT

Santa Monica

I Feel Bad Killing You

1944

JAMES M. CAIN

San Fernando

Dead Man

1936

CHESTER HIMES

South Los Angeles

The Night’s for Cryin’

1937

PART II: AFTER THE WAR

ROSS MACDONALD

Beverly Hills

Find the Woman

1946

NAOMI HIRAHARA

Terminal Island

The Chirashi Covenant

2007

JAMES ELLROY

West Adams

High Darktown

1986

PART III: KILLER VIEWS

MARGARET MILLAR

L.A. Canyon

The People Across the Canyon

1962

JOSEPH HANSEN

Venice

Surf

1976

WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT

Pacific Palisades

The Kerman Kill

1987

PART IV: MODERN CLASICS

WALTER MOSLEY

Watts

Crimson Shadow

1995

JERVEY TERVALON

Baldwin Hills

Rika

1994

YXTA MAYA MURRAY

Echo Park

Lucía

1997

KATE BRAVERMAN

Bel Air

Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta

1990

Acknowledgments

About the Contributors

INTRODUCTION

TOILING IN THE DREAM FACTORY

Los Angeles is a young city. As recently as the 1860s, it was still a dusty Spanish pueblo where the Zanjero who regulated the water flow from the L.A. River earned more than the mayor.

Unlike the eastern seaboard, whose world of arts and letters predates the American Revolution, Los Angeles literature bloomed late. But our scant history and tradition freed us up to create new myths. We made it up as we went along.

Visiting writers were both intrigued and appalled. They praised the city’s golden light and stunning landscapes while damning its vulgarity, hedonism, and the surreal spectacle of Hollywood.

But love it or hate it, they came to toil in the Dream Factory.

Los Angeles was the most alluring femme fatale imaginable, dangling glittering wealth and reinvention. In return, all she wanted was a little wordsmithing. How difficult could it be?

And so they came—Cornell Woolrich, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer, James M. Cain, Chester Himes, Horace McCoy, Paul Cain, Dorothy Parker, and Ernest Hemingway. They were miserable, of course, punching studio clocks and having their work rewritten by less talented writers.

Luckily for us, many used their sunny new digs as settings for fiction. Some of what they wrote, including Fitzgerald’s nuanced Hollywood stories, aren’t noir enough for this anthology. Others are too long, such as McCoy’s dark masterpiece “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” set amidst a 1930s dance marathon on the Santa Monica pier.

But many of the genre’s masters have sidled into this anthology. Perhaps the hardest-boiled of them all is Paul Cain, whose prose explodes like a bullet from a bootlegger’s gun. When not scripting for Hollywood under the name Peter Ruric, Cain wrote stories for trailblazing noir showcase Black Mask magazine and a novel, Fast One , before fading into alcoholic obscurity and dying forgotten in a shabby Hollywood apartment in 1966.