Introducing Dime Pulp Number Two
In the second issue of Dime Pulp, The Serial Fiction Magazine, The Last Resort continues with the adventures of Lee Malone, former super model now small town newspaper reporter, a regular, backwoods Brenda Starr, as she finds her first body (not counting the Airedale). The second part of Long Shot in Helena Baron-Murdock’s Hard Boiled Myths series concludes with Weston County Sheriff Detective Jim Donovan on the carpet again. A Detective Story’s Lackland Ask, after being dupped once again, this time by a not so pretty face, is bent on murderous revenge. A new talent to the writing team, “Patton D’Arque is a pseudonym if there ever was one, in real life an aspiring screenwriter who has cleverly given himself a kind of bunraku cameo in his two part story about a couple of dangerous and grumpy old men, an ex-cop and an ex-bounty hunter, looking for their former girlfriend ex-wife who has Gone Missing.
In the first issue Dime Pulp presented the initial installments in the serialization of two full length novels, The Last Resort and A Detective Story, as well as a short story from the series of tales under the rubric of Hard Boiled Myths. As was often done in the days of yore, the writers appear under pseudonyms. “Colin Deerwood,” the author of A Detective Story, is an amateur historian who claims to have been inspired to write his period piece after contemplating the cover of an issue of Black Mask Magazine. “Helena Baron-Murdock,” under her own name is a scholar of comparative religions and myth and is the creator of Sheriff’s Detective Jim Donovan of the Hard Boiled Myths short story series. The Last Resort, A Lee Malone Adventure, by poet and publisher Pat Nolan (not a pseudonym but in Nolan’s estimation, he is obscure enough not to need one) was written to upend the stereotypical image of the hard boiled crime sleuth. The Last Resort was originally published by Nualláin House, Publishers, in 2012—it is serialized here for the first time.
While the primary focus will be on crime fiction, Dime Pulp hopes to also include Western and Steam Punk anachronism, and other popular fictional fare of a speculative nature. (By now you should have skipped down to the actual contents). Dime Pulp anticipates to publish as a monthly serial fiction magazine but should the workload prove too ambitious for the editorial staff (of one), the schedule will be adjusted to post as quarterly issues.
If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume One, Number Two.
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
The Last Resort A Lee Malone Adventure
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. A rollicking imaginative romp in the neo-pulp hard boiled genre, THE LAST RESORT is told with the succinct directness of a Hammett, the witty hyperbole and lush locales of a Chandler as well as a sly nod to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys adventures.
The Last Resort, Chapters 1-3 The Last Resort, Chapters 4-6
Hard Boiled Myths
Crime Fiction With A Classical Twist
Greek myth is rife with murder, mutilation, cannibalism, mayhem, and the ever popular incest. Weston County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Donovan of the Violent Crimes Unit wouldn’t know a Greek myth from a Greek salad, but if he did he would find some troubling similarities to the cases he’s investigating.
A Detective Story
Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime friction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.
The brownstone was on the Westside and easy enough to find. So was the mug’s yellow roadster. It stuck out like a new shoe in a cobbler’s shop. I was being a sap again.
“This kind of story always starts with a blonde“
“I was being a sap again.”
Gone Missing
When you think of “grumpy old men” you don’t usually think of an ex-cop and an ex-bounty hunter answering a call for help from their step-daughter “niece” to look for her mother, their ex-wife former girlfriend, who has mysteriously disappeared.
Paul Fernando had finally stopped talking to the camera as if it were an audience. A retired cop, in his late sixties, balding, gray at the temples, he took a long pull on his cigarette as if retrieving a memory, his other hand firmly wrapped around a tall glass of high octane orange juice.
He chuckled at his little joke lifting the glass to his lips. The second unit director, a kid just out of film school, let the camera do the work occasionally focusing on the butt filled ashtray and pale smoke curling up into the dark room. He was shooting available light. The storm had knocked out the power.
“I noticed there were little ticks in the corner of certain days on the calendar. I hadn’t made the marks and I didn’t exactly think too much about them. I figured mom was keeping track of something though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what that was. There are some things about her that are just not explainable. I’ve grown up with that. She’s an incredibly intelligent woman. I mean, I’ve always been in awe of the things she knows. I’d say ‘mom, how do you know that stuff?’ And she’d say, ‘I seen it in a tabloid in the supermarket checkout line or I read it in the National Geographic at the doctor’s office.’ But you’d think that someone that smart would have some common sense.”
Injun Jerry, real name Jerome Sorenson, was ex-cop, former bounty hunter and one of Jackie’s ex-boyfriends. In his late fifties, stocky, broad shouldered with a full head of long graying blonde hair down past his shoulders, he’d dressed in a dark suit, open collar dark shirt, strands of gold chain showing in the thicket of graying chest hair, a large gold wristwatch, and dark sunglasses for the occasion. He did his best to charm the lens, all smiles and exaggerated expression. He had no qualms about telling it like it was. “I’d been a city cop, narcotics, vice. I got splashed by some dirty partners and we all went down together. I missed the rips so I got into skip tracing. The money was good. The crowd was fast. That’s how I met her. She was running with a couple of wannabe criminals with family money.”
She had spunk, that much was obvious, and her carrot colored hair had been permed to give it that Orphan Annie look.
“Get outta here!”
The blonde was doing the talking. “Ok, so what do you want, tough guy? Obviously we ain’t the coffee type. Maybe you think we ain’t nice girls or something.”
Al’s sister had me come up to her apartment after I’d called her to say that I’d got a line on her Eddie’s new address. She was sociable this time, maybe a tiny bit seductive. She didn’t object when I asked for an advance and gave me the fifty bucks I wanted. Then she smiled a smile that seemed to say everything.
“Ya don’t say?” He had his fists on his hips, sheaf of papers in one, tie loosened around the collar, sweat darkened yoke and pits, cuffs rolled up to the elbows. If it weren’t for the revolver on his hip, you’d swear he smelled just like a parish priest. Now he was interested.
I had revenge on my mind and there wasn’t room for anything else. I reached under the mattress and pulled out a bundled oily rag wrapped around an old .38 Smith & Wesson with the serial numbers filed off. It was something that had come my way a few years earlier and I had stashed it away for just such a time. I dug through a box of papers on the floor of the closet. No bullets there. I went through a couple of coat pockets and found one .38 caliber bullet. Then I remembered I’d been using one to add up expenses and it was still on the table among the bottle caps and paper matches. That made two. I stood on a chair and reached my hand into the dark recesses of the closet shelf. Nothing but an old suitcase I’d all but forgotten. Full of old papers from a novel I was going to write. And yes, one lone bullet rattling around in the bottom. I had no idea how it got there.
The pulled pork sandwich was as good as it got at the barbeque joint Donovan favored in Old Town. Since the Fed had an expense account, he sprung for lunch. Dabbing a corner of his mouth with a napkin, Donovan continued, “It wasn’t originally my call. This is about two years ago. We had a new guy, Hutter.” Butler nodded like he knew the name. “And Collins, who was undersheriff then, had me go in and back him up. Considering that it was at the Horsemen’s compound, he thought that it might be a little intimidating to the new guy. I’d dealt with Herko before so I wasn’t going to be put off by his bullshit.”
When they wheeled Herko into emergency he was screaming that he was on fire. He struggled against the restraints on the gurney and finally broke free of them. He careened down the hallway in agony, tearing at his clothes, his cut, his shirt, insisting that he was burning up. An EMT tried to tackle him and got a blast in the chops from an elbow that landed him crumpled against a wall. Security and deputies who were attending a stabbing call joined the fray. They tased him but he merely ripped the barbs out of his skin and continued to rage, batting at anyone who came near him. He raised his dusty leonine head and roared at the ceiling, digging his nails into his bare flesh. He fell to his knees and gasped for breath. Then he was silent and dead.
“It’s all there in the report, Tim. The slug they dug out of Nesso was a .223. Stopped right in the center of the heart. The DEA’s undercover confirmed what I suspected. Herko had a trophy room, strictly off limits to anyone not in the inner circle, on the second floor of the compound with a large window overlooking the undeveloped field that abuts to a number of rural dead ends about a mile away, one of them being Willig near where we found Nesso’s body. Herko had a shooting range set up in the room that allowed him to target practice in the vacant lot behind. He had everything in there, competition rifles worth a couple grand easy, tripods, sandbags, scopes, range finders. Looked like he did his own loads, too. Apparently, according to one of my sources, he did a lot of plinking from his perch.
I found myself alone, in the cramped little square that housed the editorial office of Corkscrew County’s weekly newspaper, The Grapevine. Bundled back issues were stacked on the floor and against the walls, and in turn, file folders bulging with clippings and black and white photos were placed precariously on top of the none-too-steady bundles. There were two chairs in the room, one at the desk and one by the door, both of which were piled with more shapeless folders and assorted papers. The one window that looked out onto the street below was being used as a de-facto bulletin board, plastered with sticky note reminders, editorials from other newspapers, announcements, flyers, and various New Yorker style cartoons commenting on the vagaries of fourth estate culture.
Kelly’s owner was a man by the name of Ralph Fashwalla, or so he introduced himself. Kelly’s hadn’t been owned by anyone named Kelly in quite a while JJ had explained on the way out. In fact, in her opinion, the place was jinxed. The last three owners had gone bankrupt. Business was generally good in the summer and early fall. But revenues from the so-called tourist season were hardly ever enough to sustain the resort during the lean winter months. Part of Kelly’s problem was its rundown appearance. The shredded fishnets, the broken life rings, and rusting nautical knick knacks littering the verandah were just plain tacky. JJ was making vague promises that an ad in her paper would help assuage the coming dearth of business.
Next to the gas station and heading back into town was Elaine’s Pottery and Knick Knacks with a big hand-lettered Closed Till April sign on the front door. Directly across the street was Henderson’s Realty and next door was Carlyle’s Hardware and Equipment Rental. A weed clogged vacant lot provided the space between the hardware store and The Blue Ox, a garish blue cinderblock bunker adorned with an oversized representation of Bunyan’s pet with particular emphasis on the horned mammal’s gender. The red neon knot in the only window advertised a brand of beer known the world over. Across the street and completing the first block of businesses was a cyclone fence enclosure that contained a Quonset hut surrounded by the rusting hulks of autos. The sign on the double drive gate read Mike The Mechanic and underneath, in smaller print, American Cars Only – Beware of Dogs.
Every hair on the man’s head was flawlessly in place as if it had been painted on. He wore a navy blazer over a white shirt, and around his neck, a speckled yellow power tie. A pair of Bermuda shorts and sandals completed the outfit. Typical of TV reporters. Since they were only viewed from the midriff up, they went casual below the belly button.
“Well, this is news! International fashion model discovers gruesome murder while reporting for obscure country journal!” His face lit up like a cheap paper lantern.
of fantastic storytelling that’s been around since practically the invention of writing (if one is to believe Mikhail Bakhtin). Crime fiction itself has an American origin, in Baltimore, from the pen of Edgar Allen Poe. The superstars of that genre, Hammett, Chandler, and Gardner, were published in the highly respected Black Mask Magazine but also in magazines like Dime Detective, and Spicy Detective. An abundance of irony and a certain cynicism set the requisite tone. There are only bad people and less bad people and they don’t even think of themselves in that way. The modern gaze is blurred in discerning right from wrong because we inhabit the age of relativity. It’s all very dark, particularly after the war, some might even say “noir.” Crime fiction and westerns are where the tough hombres and mujeres live, lines are drawn in the sand or around corpses and someone is always on the wrong side (or so it seems). In the early pulps, those shady characters were roughly drawn, sketchy, succinct, the dialogue terse, wisecracking, the action constant.
I passed my first mile mark, a rank of sentinel-like poplars turned from green to gold in just the last week. There were a half dozen of them guarding an abandoned property, and tall enough that I had to tilt my head back to see their tips pressed into the swirl of thick morning fog. Their leaves littered the late greening grasses at the shoulder of the road like a scattering of large yellow coins.
I maintained my pace, determined to remain calm. They weren’t really trying to run me over. It was just their way of getting acquainted. I’d been recognized. Nothing new, I assured myself.
The road brought me out into an open alluvial plain where the gray low ceiling seemed bright by comparison. Banks of brambles lined both sides of the road, and scattered throughout the thicket, the reds and yellows of poison oak pennants. A row of birches partially divided a weed-choked field alongside a driveway at the head of which stood a tiny cabin, roofed and sided with the same green tar-paper brick. An anemic thread of smoke rose from the rusted stovepipe on the roof. I saw old man Goldstein cutting across the field to the road ahead of me, elbows pumping like a tiny old-fashioned locomotive. He hailed me as I was about to run by. It sounded like Chinese at first.
In the differing versions of that story I’d heard before Goldstein never admitted that the original dog named Hitler would have died years ago and that the present Hitler was either a grandson or some descendant of the original dog. And he never admitted what I’d come to suspect, that he had named his Airedale Hitler because it was shocking for a Jew to have a dog with that name.
The dog had almost strangled itself on its tether chain trying to get to him when he approached the gate. He couldn’t be bothered and had gone back to his sedan to call dispatch.
“That’s all they had left at the souvenir shop.” He wasn’t going to tell them it was a present from Miriam, the emergency room nurse he’d been seeing. She’d gone back to Baltimore to live with “her people” as she’d told him. The coast was just too white. Even the black folk were too white. She’d sent him the bobble-head to say that she still thought of him. Not that he was a baseball fan. Miriam knew he cared only for round ball.
“Right, that’s the Horseman compound right there and home of Jerzy Herkovanic, the president of Apocalypse Inc. So anybody in that neighborhood knows better than to report gunshots or even a gunshot.
I was listening to the engine purr as it lapped up the macadam and glanced over to see her clutching the purse nervously to her lap. My hand to the dash radio made her flinch. I tuned in one spark of reception after another but out in the wet green hills, no signal had the strength to be heard, not even the high powered stations from Memphis or West Virginia. Music might have relaxed her, dispelled her fears, soothe the savage breast. She must have had an inkling of who I was, what I was doing, and where I was taking her. It couldn’t have been the first time. I figured I should answer her unasked questions
I tapped a Lucky on the cigarette case, fit it to my lips and lit it. I said, “Yeah,” let the smoke out, and turning my attention to “Yankee’s” kielbasa. I watched him reach inside his suit coat, a garish mauve with pinstripes, and extract a long black leather wallet. He folded it open and I caught a glimpse of the sheaf of bills. That much money made me nervous. His large fingers flicked through the stack expertly and shoved a crisp specimen in my direction. The sight of Ben’s likeness in the oval hypnotized me. I reached for it and it fluttered, just missing my fingertips, towards the plush red pile of the carpet under my feet. I crouched to catch it before it landed. As I did, I realized my mistake. The red pile exploded into blackness against my cheek.
Dime Pulp 