by Colin Deerwood
Her eyes never left me as she steered the old gent to a chair alongside Soloman’s desk. They were blue shiny pools and I was drowning in them. She stood behind him once he was seated. Gramps had perked up since the fainting episode, his cheeks had a little color and he was focused, attentive. He pointed a gnarled finger in my direction. “You have more of these documents?”
I drew myself up to my entire height, pulled in my gut, and put as much authority as I could in my stance. It was all an act. I was wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. “Yeah, I do. It’s an address book.”
Soloman threw old Joe a look and then said, “You can read the Cyrillic?”
“Ixnay, Doc, I’m just guessing from the way some of it was arranged. Plus there were street names in American I could figure out.”
Now it was Rabbi Joe’s turn. “You are in possession of this dress book?” There was a fierce gleam in his eye as he leaned forward.
“Yeah, yeah, I just brought that page to see what it might be worth. I coulda brought the whole works but you guys mighta said it was nertz and I woulda never known the diff.” As it was the book was digging into my backbone just about the beltline.
Soloman and Joe looked puzzled. Finally the old rabbi asked, “What is this ‘nertz’?”
Soloman shrugged. “It is not Yiddish to my knowledge. And this ‘diff’ I do not know also.”
The tailor’s daughter smiled and I about swooned. She spoke and I felt my knees turn to Jell-O. “I think I know, zayde. I have been studying my American. Nertz is a Brooklyn pronunciation of the expression ‘nuts,’ maybe meaning crazy or perhaps nonsense, also a negative term for bankrupt or no good.”
Even I didn’t know that and I used the word all the time. This frail would be a smash on Information Please.
Soloman looked surprised and the old guy beamed a prideful smile at his granddaughter.
“Also,” she continued, “I believe that ‘diff’ is a shortened form of the word ‘difference.’ Americans speak like telegrams I have learned.”
Just like that I was laid bare by some Jane who just got off the boat.
Soloman harrumphed to get the conversation back on track. “I would say that if the rest of the book is similar to what you have shown us, we could come to a lucrative arrangement.” He smiled what wasn’t really a smile.
I figured when he said ‘we’ he meant more than just those present in the room. I had to be extra cautious around these jokers. There was a whole dining room full of tough kikes on the other side of the door. And once the dolly had opened her yap instead of flapping her lashes some of her glow had dimmed for me. She was out of my league, besides. “Yeah, doc, what you got to offer? I’m all ears.”
Rabbi Joe gave a knowing nod and Soloman went to the wall of books, moved a couple aside to reveal a tiny wall safe. He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was peeking and then spun the dial. When he rejoined us he had a tiny cloth bag in his mitt like a miniature Bull Durham pouch. He loosened the ties and poured the contents into the palm of his hand and held it out for me to take a gander.
I looked at him and back at the hand and then at the rabbi and his granddaughter who all seemed very pleased by what was being offered.
“You’re offering me pebbles? Little gray rocks?”
It took a while to register and then Soloman almost choked on his goatee laughing. Rabbi Joe’s laugh was wheezy squeak. The girl held her hand over her mouth but her eyes were yukking it up. When Soloman finally caught his breath he intoned, with all his puffed up superiority, “But Mr. Ask, these are uncut diamonds.”
You coulda fooled me. What do I know of uncut diamonds? They looked like rocks to me. And then as if a light had been shined in my eyes: rocks, diamonds, ok, I got it. But who could tell the diff. Maybe I sounded suspicious. “How am I supposed to know that these aren’t fake?”
“I can assure you, Mr. Ask, these are diamonds of the highest quality. From Africa,” he added.
Learn something new every day. Diamonds that look like driveway gravel from Africa when all I thought they had was bananas and coconuts.
“Maybe you are who you say you are, Doc but I only met you and Rabbi Joe here less than thirty minutes ago. I need to get the say-so from someone I’ve known a bit longer.”
Soloman looked astonished. “You have an appraiser?”
“Yeah, guy I know runs the pawn shop over on Fourth near Chinatown. He was in the diamond trade years ago. He knows his stuff.”
Now Soloman was almost on his tippy toes with indignation. “Stuff? If he knows this stuff then I knows of his stuff. I am familiar with everyone in the diamond trade. Name your stuff expert!”
I’d obviously hit a nerve. And again I was distracted by the comely granddaughter and feeling like the big bad wolf. “Yeah, sure, everyone knows him. Triple A Pawn, Max Feathers proprietor.”
Two bigger bug eyes you couldn’t find in the cartoon featurette at a Saturday matinee.
“Feathers?” he moaned the name as if was a curse. “Max Feathers was disbarred from the League of International Gem and Diamond Merchants. Feathers is a fraud! A cheat! A scoundrel! A confidence man!”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but he knows his diamonds.” From the shade of crimson creeping up toward his popping temple veins I figured my bird in the hand had flown the coop. But I was saved by an angel.
“Herr Doktor” she said, and why he wasn’t charmed is beyond me. He raised an eyebrow as if being spoken to by a woman was highly irregular. “Zayde,” she also invoked the protection of the old rabbi, “I have a suggestion if you will indulge me.” Of course I was enchanted and I’d have to say she’d been doing pretty good at learning her English. Old Joe gave a nod lifting his hands to Soloman as if asking what’s the harm?
“Just as Mister Ask has brought only one page, perhaps we can allow him one,” and she smiled at me, “pebble to verify with Mister Feathers. In exchange for the book he will receive more.” She beamed, proud of herself although gramps wasn’t so sure.
Soloman didn’t like the idea as soon as she started talking and when she was done he liked it even less. “Nein, nein. What if he did not return? He has gained an item of value and we have nothing but a scrap of paper! Does he take us for fools?”
The thought had crossed my mind. If the diamond was real I could be on a boat to Havana before anyone was the wiser.
“It was my suggestion, uncle, and I have a feeling that Mr. Ask is in a situation unlike any other he’s been in before.” She came at me with her eyes as if she were boring in and I began wondering when I’d last changed my underwear. “Here he is with the opportunity to make a considerable amount of money, enough to give him a vacation from his dangerous profession for a very long time. I don’t think that he would pass up that opportunity.” Now she was appealing to my mercenary side: with a load of dough I could ditch this burg, maybe move to Hollywood, reconnect with Grace. “Furthermore, I think that Mr. Ask is a man of honor, a man of his word who would not consider betraying us.” By “us” I was sure she meant “her.” And the way she said it, the implications were tempting. I just wanted to see how committed she was to her scheme.
“There was an expression I liked to see after I’ve made love to a woman—shock and pleasure. I recognized it immediately because it was so rare of an experience.
“Thanks, miss, I forget your name, but you are correct. I am a man of my word. Once I shake on a deal it is solid. And if what I have is that important to you,” and I meant to her, “then it is just makes good business sense for us to conduct this exchange, the book for the rocks.”
Soloman sniffed like something didn’t smell right. He squinted one eye at me as if trying to view me from a different angle.
“Like the girl said, I take one diamond to Feathers. He looks it over. If he gives the ok, I get the gravel and you get the book. No one breaks a sweat.”
Soloman was shaking his head. He didn’t like the logistics. “How will we make the exchange? The Rabbi nor I cannot go abroad.”
“What? I ain’t asking you to leave the country.”
“No, no we have to be careful in this city. We have enemies. We cannot be seen in public.”
“How about a coupla your minions. They look like they can handle themselves.”
Soloman gave a sour look. He didn’t like that idea either.
“How about the dame?”
There was an expression I liked to see after I’ve made love to a woman—shock and pleasure. I recognized it immediately because it was so rare of an experience. That’s what was missing in my life. I could tell by the demur smile that she liked the idea. Shock for being put into that position and pleasure because it felt good.
Soloman sputtered like he’d inhaled something down the wrong way and coughed till his eyes bulged holding on to the edge of his desk for fear he might fall down. Then it translated into, once he caught his breath, “absolutely not, impossible, I won’t hear of it.” And in a couple of other languages, I couldn’t be sure. In a way it made the objection international, like we were hemmed in by little flags stuck in a map. The old rabbi looked uncomfortable, color coming to his ears, and lowered his eyes.
But she knew her mark. “Zadye,” she began, “if you send Mr. Ask with your men to the Feather Diamond place he will become suspicious and might not want to verify the authenticity of . . .” and looked directly at me, “the pebble.”
The rabbi had lifted his eyes. They asked what are you getting at?
“Now if I were to accompany Mr. Ask to the pawnbroker, he would not be suspicious because we could pose as betrothed,” she smiled, pleased with herself, “and we are inquiring as to the authenticity of the stone.”
It sounded so simple. And naive. I know, I’d been there.
Soloman wasn’t buying it. “Nien! Nein!” He was pacing now. “It is not safe! Who knows who we’re dealing with. This might all be a ploy. He could be working for them. To kidnap Rebecca!”
“Herr Doktor, they could not have known that I would be involved. I didn’t know it more than a minute ago when I suggested it.”
“Rebecca, my child, these are cruel and evil people we are dealing with. They are clever, insidious.” His head wagged back and forth like a dog’s tail. That meant no.
“Listen, Hair Doctor, do we have a deal or don’t we? Otherwise I’m wasting my time here.”
“What you suggest is impossible. How do I know you have what you’re claiming to have in your possession? That it is authentic. What else is there beside this single page? What am I buying?”
“First of all, Doc, suddenly you’re worried about authenticity. You musta thought that this page was the hoot’s snoot otherwise you wouldn’ta asked me into the inner sanctum. You were gonna offer me a bag of gravel in exchange for the book. That’s how authentic you made that single page. I get it. You think you need to be extra careful because you don’t know me from Adam. But lemme put you straight. This book usta belong to one of Yan Kovic’s goons, a guy by the name of Yamatski who is now swimming with the fishes in the East River. How I got it is a story we won’t get into. Just let’s say I got wet and the pages only suffered a little water damage around the edges, but everything is still readable because it was written in pencil. It’s an address book and doubles as a wallet, about the size a cigar case, leather like one, and it’s got a wraparound zipper that closes up the three sides.” I don’t know why I felt I had to claim the wallet was empty, but I did. “There are pages of what look like names and addresses like I said, and what looks like some kinda codes. I couldn’t figure out what they said because my Buck Rogers decoder ring got lost in the mail. Besides they mostly was all in that serialic writing.”
Now the doc and old Joe were trying to say something to each other without opening their mouths.
I gave them a nudge. “I saw you flash the old stink eye when I mention’s Kovic’s name. He’s from that part of the world you were showing me on the map, am I right?” I pointed to the map on the wall. Mrs. Peabody would have been proud of me—maybe something did sink in after all.
“Yes, the name is known to us. America is truly the land of opportunity when a petty thief in his home country can become an American gangster and make more money than even the President of the United States. Is that what you call democracy, rule by the petty?”
“He’d be part of this secret society then, the Black Hand, I’m guessing.” Even the frill took a breath in fright at the mention of the name.
Soloman nodded glumly. “They are a network of thugs and murderers who prey on the vulnerable, the fringes of society and culture where the powers that be often look the other way. We are the mercy of their genocidal schemes. There is a chance, a slight chance, that the address book will provide information that will aid us in our resistance and thwart their aims. These fascists are drunk with power! The Black Hand must be stopped from terrorizing our people!”
“You don’t have much of a choice then, do ya, doc. Me and the bird take a rock over to Feathers’ shop. He scopes it and it’s either deal and you get the book you wanted or no deal and I get a free ride downtown in the company of a beautiful young woman.”
Soloman made a face that made him look like he had exclamations points all over his mug!!! “They are real, that you can count on, and I would expect delivery of the address book upon verification!” He glanced sideways at the rabbi whose head reluctantly nodded yes. “Simon and David will drive you there and make certain there is not a. . .double cross, as you American’s like to say.”
I shook my head. “The girl is right. Max sees a couple of mugs with us, he’s gonna smell something fishy. Just me and her. Nothing to worry about. Max won’t bite. You just watch.”
“Nonetheless, they will accompany you and stay discreetly hidden but nearby. Should the need arise, Rebecca, do you know what to do?”
“Surely my father must have told you of what I and my troop of Red Kerchiefs did in the hills above the city.” Before Soloman could interject, she said, “We secured the parachute drops and parachutists and hid them from the authorities.”
“Ja, ja, we are well aware of your exploits. And that is why you are here in the United States. To keep you safe, out of harm’s way. You are, after all, Rabbi Joseph’s great granddaughter and ark of his ancient family line. Your father was foolish to leave you behind.”
“I stayed with my mother, to fight in the resistance.”
“And sadly she is no longer with us.” Soloman lowered his head. “And you are here in relative safety.”
“I would have stayed behind! I wanted to avenge her death! Instead you had me kidnapped and brought to this country!”
I had to step in. “I hate to breakup this family tussle here, but missy, if you want to get your revenge, the quickest way is to get going with the plan.” I coulda asked her if she had a backup plan but this was looking like taking candy from a baby. “Only I need to use the can before we head out.” With the quizzical looks they gave me I had to add, “My bladder’s lapping at the overflow valve.” Still nothing. “The facilities, the toilet?”
They rolled a big Packard around to the front entrance. The tailor’s daughter didn’t look a bit like the kid in Soloman’s study. She was wearing a dark wool skirt and a beige blouse with a collar tied in big bow under her porcelain chin, a russet three quarter length wide lapeled tweed coat, and a tiny brown Robin Hood peaked cap with a black and red band propped jauntily on the luster of her long auburn hair. Looking like she just stepped off the silver screen, she smiled at me as I held the door open for her, long lashes blinking a beguiling thank you.
Two mooks sat like bowling pins in the front seat of the Packard—they couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old—the one who looked like he was working on a ‘stache driving. The other one had a head of curly hair no hat, even the bucket he was wearing, was going to hide.
I sat in the back seat with Rebecca. I’d made a detour to the water closet before we left, pretended to make my business all the while wedging Yamatski’s address book up behind the gravity flush water tank. Then I flushed.
I even felt a little flush—sitting next to this specimen of female flesh had worked up my blood. It was her feisty nature as well as her good looks that kept my interest. She, however, was interested in only one thing. Learning how to talk American.
“What is this stink eye?”
“Uh well,” I was at a loss, “it’s just kind of one of those looks you give somebody who says something that spills the beans when they shouldn’ta.”
“Beans? In the kitchen? I see, they have spilled a pot of beans and you are giving them this look that you are disappointed, no, angry! Angry eye, yes?”
“Yeah, angry, maybe the evil eye without all the hoodoo voodoo behind it.”
“ Hoo-doo voo-doo. This is your American tall tales you are telling me. I have heard that they are told and one must be cautious because they have flam flam. No, flim flim, that’s it!”
She had such a little pink innocence to the scrunch of her nose, such a determined set to her lips, such an intense gaze I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kiss her or laugh in her face. “Flim flam.”
“Yes, that is what I said. And this stink to the eye. It smells, it emits an odor, and you are . . .threatening with it? No, you are giving them this, this. . .stentsch with the look of your eye! Yes?”
She had my mind taking corners I didn’t even know were there and it was making me dizzy. I was on the verge of asking her if she wanted to see Niagara Falls because I was about to change my name to Niagara and I was falling for her. But it would have just added to the confusion. I didn’t want to look like a dumbo so I said, “The look says you can see the reek rising up off them and lets them know that you can.”
She cocked her beautiful head to one side as if considering the explanation “And who is this Buck Rogers, an associate of this Feathers man?”
I don’t know why all this wasn’t covered at Ellis Island but all of a sudden I was feeling like a tour guide at the Statue of Liberty. “Naw, Buck Rogers, he’s this guy who flies around in a rocket to other planets in outer space. In the funny papers, the brats, you know, the Katzenjammer Kids? He’s on the radio, too, and in the movies, that Olympic champ, Buster Crabbe plays him.”
Her pretty little forehead gave a frown. “This is your flam flim, yes?”
She was a real doll, and I can’t say that I’d ever met one before, not one like this, not putting on a front, acting tough or sexy, but smart as a pistol, and from what I could see, some terrific gams. She caught my gaze and pulled the hem of her skirt to cover her knees. “I am curious also. A hoot’s snoot, this is more of your filmy flam?”
“Naw, just something I made up. ‘don’t give a hoot’ means ‘I don’t care,’ and ‘snoot’ means ‘nose,’ kinda like I’m ‘thumbing my nose’ and I just threw them together because they sound the same. It’s jive talk, that’s all.”
“A whole other American language?
“You might say that. It’s what you might hear on the street, you know from the hep cats or if you hang out in jazz clubs.”
This is something you can do in American? I am unaware.”
“Well, yeah, you can if you’re good at it”
“And you are good at this, what would you call, improvisational arabesques, verbal flourishes? Maybe you should be a writer.”
“Yeah, I thought about it once.”
“What happened?”
“I ran out of paper.”
She laughed, peals of amusement filled the entire car, and even Mr. Hair had to look over his shoulder to make sure we weren’t being unruly.
“Ah yes, I understand,” her eyes widely innocent, “Jive talk, a kind of argot.”
She wasn’t going to get me with that fancy word because I knew exactly what she was talking about so I said, “No, it ain’t like them snails you eat at fancy French restaurants.”
This time she chortled behind her gloved hand and her eyes gleamed merrily reflecting the neon night of the passing streets. “Mr. Ask, I find you extremely charming which belies your rough exterior and manner. This is a most wonderful and informative conversation.”
“Pigs who speak Latin, another one of your American tall tales, yes?”
The beam of her smile blinded me and tangled up my tongue. I didn’t know what to say, besides my heart was in my mouth and I didn’t want to spit it out and hand it to her because that would definitely be uncouth, and what little couth I had I wanted to wait and use at the right time so I said “Yeah, I was thinking the same about you, and maybe sometime you and me, we could, ah, get to know each other a little better, you know, over a cup of coffee or a drink, I could take you to a club, go dancing, hear some jazz.” I put my arm across the seat behind her and moved in her direction. “We probably got a lot in common. I mean, you’re doll and I’m a guy.”
She shifted toward the door on her side and I felt something hard poke against my ribs. I looked down at her hand in her coat pocket and up into that determined look I had found adorable earlier now steely and uncompromising. “You are suggesting what it is called a date, but not from a palm, one agreed on ahead of time on a calendar. I don’t think my father would approve or allow it. Our supposed engagement is a ruse, Mr. Ask, nothing more. Please do not try to make more than it is. I am fully capable of taking care of myself.”
I shrugged and sagged back to my side of the bench. I felt the breeze of being blown off followed by the disappointment of being wrong about a dolly again, I always end up leading with my chin wearing my heart on my sleeve, and falling for a herring, the operator behind my eyes putting me through to a wrong number.
I’d been shot down before so I laughed it off. “I dunno why you need any help from me. Your English ain’t so bad.”
“Yes, but it is my American I must improve. I am curious again for a word. What is this ixnay?”
“Nix, no. What you just said to me, notta chance. It’s pig Latin.”
“Pigs who speak Latin, another one of your American tall tales, yes?”
“No, it’s for real, something we used to talk in the neighborhood among us kids. Only thing I still use is ixnay, anybody who’s ever spoken it still does, that and amscray.”
“Amscray, I have not heard.”
“It means scram, beat it. . .go away?”
“I must remember these, scram, beat me. . . ? I am still confused as to why you speak the Latin of pigs as a child.”
“Well, it ain’t really Latin, it’s a made up language, kind of a code so you can say stuff that somebody who don’t know the igpay ain’t gonna understand, like if they ain’t part of your gang, see?”
“Now I am very confused. Are you being truthful or are you with me making a toy?”
“No, it’s all true. Now I wasn’t as good at it as little Stevie Silverman, he’s the guy who taught igpay to most the guys in our gang. We called him “Stubby” cause he was so short. He could hold whole conversations in pig Latin. Once he recited the preamble to the Declaration of Independence in pig Latin to history class. Mrs. Peabody didn’t know if she shoulda been shocked or amused, but it got Stubby beat up on the playground for being a showoff anyway.”
“This is fascinating. How is this pig Latin spoken?”
“It’s pretty easy. You take any word, like say ‘pig’ and you move the first letter of the word to the end and add ay, a-y, so pig becomes igpay. Or, like scram, you take all the letters bunched up before the a and move them to after the m, add an ay, and you get amscray. Simple.”
“That is easy for you perhaps, but let me see if I grasp. Pig is igpay. If I wanted to say pig Latin I would say igpay. . .atinlay?”
“Yeah, I suppose, if you wanted to say that. Usually we just said things like amscray or uckday.”
“You would say a duck? For whatever purpose?”
“That is a very short question to a very long answer, but the gist is ‘keep your head down.’ Unray was always popular when we seen the cops coming.”
“Run, am I correct?”
“Yeah, I think you got the hang of it. Try this one on for size. Ouyay areyay ayay ishday.”
“I am at a loss. It sounds like an infant’s babble.”
“It means ‘you are a dish.’”
“A dish? What is a dish? Do you mean a place setting. . . ?” She blushed, “Oh, porcelain.”
I laughed “No flies on you.”
She brushed at her shoulders, suddenly alarmed, “I hope not!”
I laughed again. And we were there.
“Why are you so surprised? It’s just another name for seductress.” Albért Picón, the French poet and lecher had pointed that out to me over a glass of Pernod in a smoky café on the Left Bank years ago when I was still actively playing that role.
“Maybe it just seems that way.” Now I was uncomfortable.
Rikki’s friend was someone he’d known in Hollywood, Nathan Thiele, the legendary stage and screen production designer, now retired. So Rikki had informed me over the phone. I wouldn’t have had a clue. Nat’s partner was a young Haitian man named Lalo with the cutest accent and the smallest most revealing swimsuit, which, with the speed removed, left only the oh to the imagination. Rikki and Wallace were both conservatively attired in clashing neon Hawaiian shirts and rather unimaginative baggy swim trunks. Nat himself looked like he might be preparing to go on safari. Nat’s cabin, as he called it, was a dreamy redwood Arts & Crafts gem with a wide sweeping deck sitting at the top of an apron of manicured lawn that ran down to the sandy shore and the water’s edge.
“All of life,” spoke the shaman, stretching out her arms to indicate the world of the hillside garden outside of her ancient stone abode. Xuxann had repeated the words in French as I was not yet accustomed to the old woman’s coarse dialect.
Donovan followed Delphi Road up the lee side of Mount Oly. The narrow paved road wound around the base of the coastal peak still shrouded in fog. Vistas of dry yellow grass and oak woodlands, dotted in the near distance by grazing animals, stretched on either side broken occasionally by a trailer home set back under a cluster of trees or a barn and some farm machinery. Driveways were indicated by rural mailboxes and posts marked with large red reflector buttons. Some areas included sheds, corrals, and chutes indicating working ranches. Then a manicured hedge, stone or stucco wall and large wrought iron gates spoke of money that could afford to live that far out and not worry about the commute.
identity as law enforcement, of purpose at its most elemental was still there. Gadget porn was not his thing yet there was also something to be said for its effects.
Once he nosed the front end into the gap, he saw that it was the beginning of an obscured fire road. He steered around the rutted unpaved path several hundred yards in to a clearing and a cyclone fence topped with razor wire. Along with an identical red and white sign threatening lethal force and the specific Federal Codes that allowed the authority was another official sign.
He took a breath. How long ago had he taken that advanced tactical driving course? Something you don’t get much practice doing once you become a detective. He closed on the bumper, aiming the bull bar for the right rear. Current speed dropping to 30 MPH, he had to hit it just right. Activating the lights and siren as a distraction, he wheeled a sharp turn. The bull bar made contact with the outer edge of the Suburban’s bumper. He accelerated, pushing the large SUV off center to deprive the rear wheels of traction. The Suburban went into a skid, swerved to regain control but only ended up facing the way it had come, what Tac drivers euphemistically called a “committed lane change,” both side wheels dangling over the steep drop.
The gravel road into Sparta Creek trailer park ran along a wide dribble of questionable water between sand dunes and beach grass, and was accessed from the paved road that wound up to the parking lot of the overlook popular with hang gliders. A few bright colored sails had drifted down onto the wide beachfront as he turned off the coast highway and followed Royce down the narrow track into the nest of antique trailers, really tiny homes, rusty camper shells, and lean-to’s, most supplemented with one or more blue tarps. He didn’t want to guess how many vehicle violations were parked in front of the dilapidated aluminum dwellings. A profusion of surf boards, either atop of dune buggy type vehicles or leaning against old board fences, spoke of the occupants’ preoccupations.
He consulted his notebook. A “white room” was the interior of a cloud and a very dangerous place to be as it was disorienting to the hang glider. Entering the white room was also a term used to signified someone who had died while hang gliding.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe 
Deep in the redwood wilds along the Corkscrew River, someone is shooting neighborhood dogs. The year is 1985 and Lee Malone, former fashion model, queen of the runways from Paris to Milan, once dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world, now a part-time reporter for The Corkscrew County Grapevine, is looking for a story to sink her teeth into. When Lee finds the owner of Kelly’s Seaside Resort brutally murdered, it leads her on an adventure that includes a mysterious gray van, another murder, extortion, pornography, sex slavery, and a shadowy organization of militant feminists known as SAPHO. In the process, Lee Malone’s notorious past catches up with her. 
From Hard Case Crime nominated for numerous honors since its inception including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Anthony, the Barry, the Ellery Queen, and the Spinetingler Award with titles that include Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestsellers, Joyland and Later; James M. Cain’s lost final novel, The Cocktail Waitress; lost early novels by Michael Crichton (writing under the name “John Lange”) and Gore Vidal (writing as “Cameron Kay”), comes Max Allen’s Collins’ second outing in the Nolan series , continuing the saga as Nolan and his young, comic book-loving partner, Jon, match wits with a skyjacker and a vigilante slaughtering the members of a Midwest crime family.
The great thing about Hard Case Crime paperback novels is the nostalgic eye candy of titillating covers in that postwar Madison Ave advertising style that brings to mind twirling the wire kiosks of paperback novels in the corner pharmacy over by the greeting cards display looking for something to jump out, something lurid, scandalous, colorful at least, in the hues of rebellion. Essentially these Hard Case Crime paperbacks work as artifacts of taste and nostalgia, a repackaging of an idealized past in the history of crime/men’s adventure literature as a popular mode of storytelling. Although the genre will likely remain popular, actual volumes of bound pulp paper with the eye catching covers may become specialized objects much like vinyl LPs, especially with the advent of the more cost effective eBooks. As I write this, public libraries are discarding their mass paperback collections in favor of the less space demanding digital formats. 
technology. Follow Capitan Lydia Cheése (pronounced Chase), Airship Commander, into a world in which the biological sciences overshadow the physical sciences. Steam engines dominate most modes of propulsion. The skies are filled with lighter-than-air craft and railroads cover most of the globe. Internal combustion engines are banned except in the non-aligned nations of the African continent. Brazil has an emperor and holds an empire of its own covering much of the southern landmass, with Sao Paulo as one of the most modern cities in the world, far outstripping Newer New York and Greater London with its lively futuristic culture. The North American States fractured in the early 20th century after the revelation of the imposter president Cleveland. The Supreme Court under Justice White then ruled that the Southern States had the right to secede as they did nearly half a century previous and promptly left the Union to form the USSR, United Slave State Republics. Subsequently the Eastern Seaboard was renamed Newest New England with the Boston Bubble becoming an independent city state much like Newer New York. Albert Einstein was the name of a famous Swiss watchmaker, Henry Ford was tried for sedition for the rebellion at Belle Isle and faced a firing squad, and Guillaume Apollinaire was the last mayor of Paris before its annexation, along with Amsterdam, into the sphere of Greater London’s influence. Can Lydia Cheése find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack Cheése. Will her quest take her around the world in less than 80 days or is it a lifelong journey? Below is a sample of how any of that might occur in an alternate world never before explored.
Baker’s Square was hemmed in by blocks of apartment dwellings designed to look like rowhouses, stacked one atop the other. They were all the same whichever way you looked. Their sameness caused her a momentary claustrophobia.
The pickpocket veered into the alley between two buildings with Lydia still in the tangle of panicked underdwellers. She kept her gaze fixed on the hobbling figure and once free of the mob ran swiftly to the entrance of the alleyway. The already inefficient bacso street lamps hardly penetrated the deep darkness of the cleft between buildings. Indignation overrode her sense of caution and she strode into the shadows. Slowly her eyes gathered the available light and sharpened to the dark. An oversplash of orange from the city above allowed her to discern edges and contours. The young purse snatch bobbed hurriedly toward the light of a parallel street at the other end.
Donovan headed back to the parking lot after he’d watched the coroner’s assistants turn the body over and load him onto the gurney. Facing up, the corpse did nothing more than confirm that he was a white male. Royce met him at the top of the path.
I called my lawyer. He wasn’t answering. Later I learned why. He’d overdosed on the very same drug I had been arrested for. I knew Curt to be an occasional user, but never intravenously. A syringe had been found on the floor next to his body. Then Preston showed up. I was released on my own recognizance. Michel was also let go on Preston’s say-so. I couldn’t go anywhere afterwards without the blinding strobe of camera flashes. Preston was very helpful. He hired guards to keep the preying paparazzi at bay. When I appeared before the magistrate, it was he who did the talking. All I had to do was sit there and be as beautiful and as innocent as I had always considered myself to be.
sewers of the City Of Light was that of a litter box long overdue for a cleaning. I was in bed, a satin sheet covering only part of my naked body. Mohamed had just stepped out of the bathroom babbling about the superiority of his culture again. I’d about had it. The heat was making me cranky. “Listen, Mo,” I said. He hated it when I called him Mo. “That’s just a lot of goat crap. In your culture you make women wear bags to hide their bodies,” I said, and he stood over the bed looking down at me fitting a cufflink in to the starched sleeve of his tuxedo shirt, and said, “Burqa,” and I said “Burqa, bag, what’s the difference, you oppress women by making them cover every inch of their bodies when they’re in public. That’s pretty medieval, don’t you think?” and he gave me one of those condescending looks like I was some half naked bimbo laid out on satin sheets who didn’t know anything and said, “I’m surprised, Lee, that you, of all people, underestimate the power of the unadorned female form. Uncovered, the female body is like a brandished sword, a naked symbol of the raw power over life and death. Imagine a society where these razor sharp instruments were always on display, the anxiety and tyranny they would foster. The streets would run with blood. We have learned to respect our women as we respect our scimitars. We keep them sheathed.” And I had said, “Goat crap, Mo, pure, unadulterated goat crap.”
The Chicken Fish, perched on the bluff overlooking an expanse of driftwood strewn beach, had been a way-station for booze smugglers during Prohibition. I had a view all the way back to where Highway 8 joined the Coast Highway, now just a gray shimmer in the distance. Wind-shaped oaks and cypress dotted the far yellow hills. Up from the intersection, the shabby white of Kelly’s Seaside Resort and its semi-circle of cabins looked like a wagon train that had lost a battle with the natives. A relic of the past when rumrunners occupied the clapboard boxes awaiting their shipments, it was holding its ground even if it was just powder fine dirt and stunted snarls of vegetation. Cleared acreage hemmed the dingy swath of sand and weathered wood on three sides. Heavy machinery stood idle, waiting for the go-ahead to bulldoze the last remaining obstacle. Somebody big wanted to build something on that spot and some tiny tumbledown shacks were in the way.
He took one look at me standing in the doorway and ushered me into his studio. “Sit, sit over here under this light.” He pointed to the bruise under my eye. “That’s exactly the color purple I’ve been looking for!” Excitedly he grabbed a palette and brush and began mixing up colors on the spot. “Not as dark as plum and not quite maroon. Ok, needs a little yellow. Man that is ripe!” He grinned at me. “Wait, this is too good, I’m going have to sketch you right now. Oh, and those welts on your forehead. That one looks like it’s casting a shadow. Don’t move now. I need to get that color just right.”
I’d cleaned myself up a bit in the last couple of days. I was still trying to get used to my map without the ‘stache. Even Larry had objected, and when he finished up the sketch of my mug, he penciled it in. I scanned the daily blat for any hint that my lawyer’s corpse had been discovered, but if it had, it wasn’t deemed newsworthy.
She was a narrow dame in a black dress with a white doily around the neck line, not exactly Elsa Lancaster in the Bride of Frankenstein, but a cause for the shivers all the same. She had the kind of severe pale face and cavernous eyes that made you want to say sorry wrong number and hang up even though you weren’t on the telephone. Her hand reached for my card like the claw of a predatory bird as I introduced myself and repeated the bit about Cyril. She stood aside and let me pass into the apartment, closing the door behind. Once inside, the dim lighting and the somber shades of brown and shadow, the lingering smells of an unfamiliar menu, I knew I was in a different world, and the little hairs at the back of my head were looking for a place to scram.
Pointy beard called the tailor over and said something that caused the tailor to nod a few times in quick succession and then say something long and involved while referencing the address book page. Then they turned their attention to me, even the rabbi, one eye a large milky marble, and stared me down. At that the stuffed suit gave me a big phony smile and held out his hand apologetically. “Mr. Ask, of course, please excuse this unfortunate incident.” As I shook his hand he added, “The rabbi is an old man. It is not unusual.” He put his arm around my shoulder in a companionable way at the same time. “Why don’t we adjourn to the study and discuss this piece of paper? The rabbi will be joining us shortly.”
“Have you ever heard of the Black Hand, Mr. Ask?”
Dime Pulp 