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Posts Tagged ‘Crime noir’

Crime fiction, pulp-style: the way Goodis and Chandler liked it

Posted in Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry, tagged , , , , , , , on January 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Frank Ford is a survivor of 10 long years at the Metropole Bar, where he’s babysitter and alcohol dealer to Zenith City’s derelict class: the misfits, the losers, the crazies, the old fading lushes and “the budding young alcoholics unaware of or indifferent to what lies ahead.”

Writer T.K. O’Neill introduces Frank in the aftermath of his little brother’s funeral. Ray was an addict and a constant irritant. “Forgotten, is how Frank wanted to remember Ray.” The police, who also lost no love for Ray Ford, lean towards a verdict of suicide for the swollen, pulpy body that washed ashore near the port terminal. Frank thinks it was murder, but he’s willing to let it ride. His grieving mother has other ideas.

Set in 1977, Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry combines elements of David Goodis and Raymond Chandler with the popular culture of the era to form a pulp-style novel filled with sex, drugs, violence and smelt fishing—the essence of classic northern noir.

Ebook and paperback available at all online bookstores for $2.99/$15.95!

Amazon   http://amzn.to/2ENL6ah

Barnes and Noble   https://bit.ly/2KrFGEh

 

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Boxer Johnny Beam drawn to gangster’s financial success

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 20, FLY IN THE MILK

Last excerpt from Chapter 3 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever books are sold online:

Then Ethyl came careening through the door with a jug of Canadian Club and three glasses, her bleached blond, straw-like hair falling in her face and the straps of her green dress slipping down off her shoulders. She set the booze and glasses on the desktop and flounced back to the couch.

Ted stared at her, half sneering, then lifted a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, shook one out and placed it on his lower lip. “I s’pose I’ll go make the rounds,” he said, his eyes flickering darkly. “You gonna empty the machines tonight, Jimmy?”

“Like I always do.”

“Well, yeah then, enjoy your drink and I’ll be back before the next gas is passed.” He flicked open a war surplus lighter; lit his fag and exited in a cloud of blue smoke.

Except for the two assholes, it’s a pretty slick operation, Johnny thought to himself. Low overhead, a percentage of the gambling and Jimmy owns the machines, supplies the booze and takes a chunk out of the till. But what about the whores? Much money to be made off whores. Something he’d have to look into. Maybe he and Lambert could work some kind of lend-lease deal.

Gloria and Ethyl were on the couch looking at television, engaged in an amphetamine-fueled conversation. Lambert was in a chair at the desk, his bad leg stretched out, and Johnny, unable to stay seated for any length of time, paced around the room, talking a blue streak and gesturing animatedly with his slightly swollen hands.

Whereas the broads yakked about actors and Hollywood and the contents of their purses, Beam and Lambert were speaking rapidly and in depth about percentages, availability of product and volume discounts, as well as security, bribery and the law.

Twenty minutes passed before Ted returned with a canvas bank bag in his hand and a pained look on his face. Lambert took the bag and looked inside. “You got the invoices on the liquor handy, Ted? I forgot to bring my book out tonight. I also need a bag for the coins from the machines. Forgot that, too.”

“Got your key, for fuck sake?”

“Got that.”

Ted said, “Top drawer, James, everything’s in there: bags, invoices, rubbers—whatever the fuck you need.”

Lambert ignored Ted’s strutting and checked the liquor receipts while Johnny finished the last of his drink. Gloria stood up from the couch just as the national anthem began to blare from the television, tinny and out of sync with the words running across the bottom of the screen.

“See ya next week, Ted, be good now,” Lambert said, slipping on his suede leather jacket. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” grinning like a decaying jackal.

Ted smiled back, his lips peeled back to reveal yellowed canine incisors. “Don’t know what the fuck that would be, Jimmy, you sick son of a bitch.”

“You see the way I get treated, Johnny?” Lambert said, his eyes flashing. “Save these two ungrateful punks from a life of poverty and sex with animals, and see how I get treated. I got half a mind to sell this place to you, Champ, if you want it.” He side-glanced Johnny then back to Ted.

Stuck there inside his stupid grin and filled with the desire to punch somebody smaller than himself, Ted could only stand stiffly, stunned look on his sagging, hang-dog face, while his Adam’s apple bounced up and down like a frog on a hotplate.

Lambert grabbed the Canadian Club from the desk, snickered, and made his way out, not looking at Gooder. Gloria and a smiling Johnny Beam nodded their good byes and followed close behind.

Some sucker is gonna pay for this goddamn shit, Ted Gooder thought, as he watched the door close behind them. Jimmy comes out and embarrasses me in front of Ethyl and now she’s sitting there thinking I’m a stooge. Fuckin’ asshole brings a stinking nigger with him who puts his juju lips on the goddamn booze bottle.

Trying to save some face and always one to look at saving a buck, Ted came up with an idea. He could give that bottle to Ethyl and get back on her good side. She wouldn’t know the nigger had lipped it. Maybe he could salvage something out of this lousy night, anyway….

While Jimmy cleaned out the pinball machines and the jukebox, Johnny and Gloria retreated to the car, got the engine running and the heater going. Johnny had thought it best to leave the building before any trouble started, having correctly assessed the mood of the crowd as just a very short step above a lynch mob. Discretion triumphed over valor despite the pounding speed in his head and the feeling of invincibility it gave him. Funny thing though, sitting out in the car in the empty black woods, he wished he had Jimmy’s gun.

His paranoia evaporated when Gloria brushed her hand across his thigh and brought her mouth close to his ear. “It sure would be an honor to touch the chest of a champion prize fighter,” she cooed, sliding her curvaceous ass a little closer. “I’ve always wanted to feel the muscles of a fighter, you know. They must be really, really hard.”

Well it wasn’t long before his chest wasn’t the only thing that was hard and Johnny was sliding his bruised hand up along Gloria’s thighs, all the way to the moneymaker. In response to this bold move, she moaned and leaned in for more. Their tongues intertwined while Johnny kept one eye on the door of the house. After a steamy few minutes, Johnny finally had to push her off, sensing something.

Lambert emerged from the house a few seconds later, looked around warily and searched the darkness. Seeing no danger, he got in behind the wheel and threw the coin bag on the backseat floor. Johnny liked the musical chink the coins made when the bag hit the carpet. Sweet music indeed.

“Well, gang,” Lambert said, “Only two more stops to go.”

(End of Chapter 3)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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Fighter Johnny Beam rubs elbows with more evolutionary low-hanging fruit

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 19, FLY IN THE MILK

Johnny Beam encounters yet another garden-variety racist in Chapter 3 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever books are sold online:

He charged for the liquor used and kept track of the empties, refilling the more expensive brands with cheaper booze. He offered cash to the bartenders in the joints in exchange for any information on skimming, and often hired informants who would come in, spend a little money and watch the goings-on with an eye out for employee theft. The Gooders never could be sure whom Lambert might send. The threat of being caught and what Jimmy might do to them had kept the degenerate siblings in line, so far.

Ted Gooder slid his arm off the bare shoulders of the former exotic dancer. She shifted her position and continued to stare at the TV. Gooder, a slight sneer wrinkling his lips, stern-eyed Johnny. “Jimmeee,” he said, cocking his head back and assuming a slit-eyed smirk. “You’re early tonight. You got a hot date or something like that?”

“Something, like that. And if you’ll get me the bag, I’ll be on my way.”

“You’re so goddamn early, man, it’s still a little short. I gotta hit the till and the poker table one more time. Unless you don’t have the time.”

“I can wait, Ted. For a minute. I’ll have a Seven ’n Seven while I wait. And get us a bottle of good bourbon, would you? We need a jug for the road. Deduct it from the tab.”

Ted turned to Ethyl, still engrossed in the Doris Day, Rock Hudson feature. “What say you be a good girl and fetch my friend Jimmy a bottle of our finest whiskey,” he said. “Some Canadian Club or something. Tell Pete to put it on my tab.”

“Ah Ted, can’t it wait ’til the commercial?” Ethyl whined, wrinkling her nose. “What’s the matter with the Seagram’s, anyway?”

“Get the fuck off your fat ass and do what I asked you. You tell me I should ask when I want things, and now I do, and you don’t do what I ask. What the fucking hell is that?”

Flustered, her bright red lips sagging down like a sad clown, she reluctantly struggled out of the couch and slinked away, thinking that Ted wasn’t getting anything for free tonight.

“And get three clean glasses, too,” Ted yelled as the door swung closed. Then he stood up and stretched his arms. “Jesus, Jimmy,” he said, moving toward Lambert. “You really oughtta knock at a man’s door, y’know. What if I was getting a blowjob or something, and you came barging in?  A guy could get his dick bit off. Someone comes barging in on you like that, it could be dangerous.” He slapped his thigh and laughed, his chin jutting out sharply like a blade.

“Don’t you be talking like that in front of Gloria,” Jimmy snarled playfully, before laughing and coughing at the joke. “The way I see it, Ted, you got no worries at all. First of all, I seriously doubt if anyone would ever suck your dick, but if for some strange reason it actually came to pass, like maybe you had a blind, retarded sister… you’d still be safe. Yup, with a one-inch dick, there’s not enough there to bite off.”

Gloria giggled and glanced quickly over at Johnny’s crotch, all rounded and full under those nice, creased slacks.

“Very funny, James,” Ted said, flipping the bird, his left cheek and eye twitching.

Johnny stood up and creaked across the warped, aqua blue linoleum to a window. Looked out into the small backyard, the gray, grainy snow and the dark tree line dimly lit by a three-quarter moon riding high in the sky. He was thinking about who should run his juke joint when it opened. How it was good to delegate. Spread the responsibility. And the culpability, should the authorities ever choose to enforce the laws and crack down on this shit. His choices were admittedly thin.

First things first, though, he needed to get ahead on the booze angle. His mind was flying with ideas and it was hard to contain his thoughts. The knot in his stomach was still there, like maybe an ulcer.

He turned from the window and walked assuredly to the tub of ice. Smiling politely as he passed Ted, he reached down and grabbed the Seagram’s, twisted the top and tipped it to his lips.

“Your boy sure makes himself at home, doesn’t he, Jimmy,” Ted said, cocking his neck to the side and squinting at the black man.

Johnny felt the muscles in his neck tighten. He gritted his teeth and sucked in some of the moldy air, smiled at Ted with hard eyes.

“That’s nobody’s boy, you inbred piece of shit,” Lambert snapped. “That’s Johnny Beam, light-heavyweight champion of Minnesota. You better show him some respect or he’ll kick your skinny white ass.”

“I’m not out to kick anyone’s ass tonight, Jimmy, I already did,” Johnny said, eyes going gentle. “I’m just trying to relax and have some fun. I’m a guest here, and I should’ve asked for the drink. My mother always taught me to be polite, and I’m afraid I forgot my manners.”

Ted seemed pleased for a second, then confused. His hand went up beneath his nose and covered his mouth.

Johnny took another pull of the whiskey, felt the flush in his cheeks. The cretin would probably throw good booze away, he thought, before drinking from a bottle that a nigger had touched to his lips.

He set the bottle back in the ice and went back to his chair humming the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown.”

(To be continued)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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Johnny Beam takes a job as muscle for crime boss

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 18, FLY IN THE MILK

Beam’s pent-up tension didn’t need any help, but help it got in Chapter 3 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever books are sold online:

As Johnny became visible to the crowd inside, the roar became a murmur and then a kind of hissing, as the inhabitants took notice of the black man with the white woman, and the skinny guy with a limp and a face like a rattlesnake. Some in the crowd recognized Lambert and went back to their card game or their drink or their overweight prostitute.

Johnny felt the tension right away. He’d expected it. He was used to it.  At 5’11” and 185 pounds of thick muscle, with hands as fast as two cobras, he didn’t have to take it if he didn’t want to, and hell, Jimmy had a gun for Christ sakes. But tonight he didn’t want any trouble. He was starting to feel too good for trouble. And Gloria was beginning to look mighty fine. Sure was coming on to him, what with her leg-rubbing routine and all that.

No, he didn’t want any trouble from these Farmer Johns. You often heard the BS about peaceful country folk, but they just seemed like a bunch of ignorant rubes to him. Put them in the same room with a person of dark skin and it’s like they’ve seen the devil himself.  A nigger with a white woman is just too much for the retards; their blood starts to boil. A hanging offense to the slack-jawed dipshits.

Let them come after him tonight, Johnny thought. They started something; he’d sure as hell finish it. The way the bennies had him going, his hands would be quick. Except for the throbbing in his eyebrow, it was like he hadn’t gone ten rounds. He was fresh, like he’d just woken up five years younger. If only Lambert had given him these pills before the fight…. Would’ve put Sparks on the canvas to stay, without a doubt. Fuckin’ right. And any Clem Cadiddlehopper motherfuckers decided to give him trouble tonight, they were gonna be spitting teeth real quick. Anyone pulled a blade and he had Jimmy with that cannon of his. But he didn’t want any trouble. The goofballs were really taking hold, putting a little tightness in the solar plexus. Room was full of white guys spending money.

Ted Gooder’s office had once been a bedroom at the back of the house. The door was closed but Lambert barged right in.

Maybe some poor, lonely little kid used to sleep here in this room, Johnny thought as he floated in behind Gloria.

Besides a console model television in the corner, the office held a desk, a few folding chairs of various styles and a brown vinyl couch against the left wall. The doorman’s older brother Ted was sitting on the couch watching the late movie next to a plump blond in her forties, a former stripper once known as Ethyl Flame. At their feet was an old-fashioned metal washtub filled with ice cubes and bottles of beer. A jug of Seagram’s Seven and a quart of 7Up were propped in the center of the tub like the crown on an ice sculpture. Not that anyone in the room had ever seen an ice sculpture, except maybe for the frozen mounds of urine-carved snow at the side of the outhouse and the bottom of the back porch.

“Don’t get up, Ted, you might miss something,” Lambert said, limping to the metal desk and sitting on the top. He rubbed his hands together. “Come on Johnny, Gloria… pull up a chair.  Ted’s going to offer us a drink, aren’t you Ted?  And then we’ll conduct our business and get the hell out of here. Looks like you’re busy tonight, anyway, Ted.”

Lambert was pretty buzzed himself and he didn’t care much for the Gooder brothers except for what he could get out of them. He knew they were capable of anything, as he had witnessed them torturing cats and screwing sheep back in their school days together at old Walnut School.

But Lambert knew the Gooders were perfect to run this joint for him. Everyone in the area, including the law, was scared of them. And the general populace accepted the fact that if you crossed one of the Gooders you’d better sleep with one eye open and take out plenty of fire insurance.

Jimmy had been able to kick their ass when they were kids and he still had a hold over them. Now they worked for him. It wasn’t hard to be smarter than the Gooders, and in the long run, Lambert was even more ruthless than they were. Over the years, Ted and Ray had accepted it. Sure, they still skimmed a little off the top of the rake at the poker table, and lifted a few bottles of liquor or a couple cases of beer once in a while. But they weren’t aware that Jimmy allowed them to get away with stuff like that—the little things. They just believed they were devilishly clever.

The Gooders didn’t mess with Lambert. They knew quite well what he was capable of, having been his enforcers for years. Besides, why bitch too loud? They were making money and doing what they liked best: getting piss drunk, screwing whores, fighting and dealing in stolen property.

Jimmy believed that contented cows produced more milk. Give the ignorant pricks a little frosting and they’d lay off the cake. And he had other ways of insuring his fair share of the take.

(To be continued)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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Fighter Johnny Beam gets in deeper than expected—or desired

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 16, FLY IN THE MILK

Johnny Beam leaps from frying pan into fire in Chapter 3 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever books are sold online:

Johnny shrugged and took another tablet from the bag, put them both on his tongue; poured some Cutty in his glass and washed them down.  A bitter taste lingered.

“You’ll be right as rain in a little while, my friend,” Lambert said, getting up.  “Pour yourself another drink while I get ready.  We’ll snag Gloria on the way out. That is, if she isn’t already in the parking lot giving head to the band.” He laughed loudly then limped over to the metal filing cabinet, opened the second drawer from the top and lifted out a nickel-plated Colt Python .357 Magnum.

“Jesus, man, what you need that for?” Johnny asked, the skin around his eyes tightening.

Lambert turned with the gun in his right hand, barrel pointing up at the low ceiling. “You never can tell, my friend. You never can tell. I ain’t ever had to use it yet, but there were, you know, times in the past when I wished I had a gun with me. And now, since I got one, nothing happens. It’s like hazard insurance, y’know?  With this bum leg of mine I sure can’t run away if there’s trouble, and it doesn’t help me much if I have to fight, either. I can still handle myself, you understand, you’d be surprised. But I can’t handle more than one guy at a time.”

“Yeah, sure, I know. But I don’t like guns, had enough of guns in Korea. Seems like where there are guns, trouble follows close behind—if it ain’t already there. Way too many of them in Chicago when I was there. Got so you were always checking out a man’s coat to see if he was packing.”

“Man like you, Johnny, can get out of most jams with his fists, I ‘magine,” Lambert said, sticking the revolver in his waistband.  “But ah, come on, man, take a look at me.  Skinny old gimpy bastard like me needs a back-up.”

“I’ll watch your back tonight, Jimmy. You don’t need that thing.”

“No offense, my friend, but walking into one of my joints with you next to me, could start something right there. Could be some kind of trouble start up—uh—just on appearances—if you catch my drift.” Lambert looked down at a stain on the rug.

“I know what you mean, Jimmy; I know what you’re saying. But honestly, I don’t usually have any trouble when I go out. I’m a friendly guy, you know; I get along with people, for the most part. My mother always taught me that was the way you had to be to get by in this world.” Johnny shifted uneasily in the chair, rubbed at his throat and smiled.

“Just the same, my friend, I think I’ll bring the heater along.” He patted the pebbled grip and nodded. “You know the old line: Meet my friends, Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson. So here, meet my friends, Mr. Colt and Mr. Python.” Jimmy cackled and a cold light danced in his eyes.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go at all,” Johnny said, wincing deep furrows on his broad brow. “I don’t wanna screw up your deal, Jimmy.”

“Ah, no, Johnny, don’t worry. Just come along for the ride, we’ll be all right. No, I mean it. One thing for sure, you won’t be sleeping anytime soon, I promise you that.” He cackled. “You gotta see these places of mine. You know, get a grasp on the scope of my operation. You gonna be a businessman, you gotta learn.”

“Well I ain’t gonna tell you your business, Jimmy, so we might as well get a move on. I’m already starting to feel pretty good. This is good scotch,” he said, lifting the glass to his lips.

“Have some more while I get a few things from out front, Champ. I’ll be back in a flash.”

The door slammed shut. Johnny leaned back in his chair and took a look around the office. Couch, TV, desk, a few chairs, file cabinet, pictures of fighters on the brown-paneled wall: Joe Louis, Marciano, Max Baer, Sugar Ray Robinson, Carmen Basilio, Benny “Kid” Paret and others, also a couple of wrestlers. He recognized Gorgeous George, long, curly blond hair like a woman’s.

Kind of place that Johnny felt at home. He could picture himself in a backroom like this, smoking a cigar and stuffing money in a canvas bag. His would be a little nicer, though, better furniture. Have a color TV, maybe a fridge… That would be real fine.

(To be continued)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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Beam didn’t remember his old man, only the stories

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 13, FLY IN THE MILK

A tough fight, pain pills and the blur of streetlights take Johnny Beam on a trip down memory lane in Chapter 2 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever ebooks are sold:

Hell of a place to be born in, Johnny thought. It was after midnight and he was rolling by the High Times Saloon and the Heartbreak Hotel. Wanting to stall a little longer, he decided to cruise over by the viaduct and see if he could find the apartment building that he and his mother had lived in.

He didn’t remember his old man, only the stories. 

It was said that Clarence Walker Brown knew all the right places and all the right faces. He was a gambler, a bon vivant and the keeper of a few professional ladies: a Negro making a buck in the very cold, very white North. One may wonder what a black man was doing in northern Wisconsin in 1927. Clarence often pondered that question himself.

He had learned the various scams in and around Chicago from his daddy and his uncle. They had worked the dock and warehouse districts with their women and their cards and their dice. Success eventually had bought them a small club out near the truck stops and the mills. All was fine until prohibition hit and Al Capone and his boys appeared on the scene with a strong interest in corn liquor and the connected rackets.

Then came the fires and the shootings.

Escaping on the run, Clarence had ridden the railroad north, hoping to find a place where the ready cash might flow without the loss of his precious blood. Booming Bay City was the end of the railroad line and the beginning of a new life for him, as well as several other Negroes that had traversed the trail of the tracks.

As always in boomtowns, with the flow of cash and commerce comes the flow of vice. With vice, comes corruption. Bay City had it all. And it was so damn cold the competition was sparse.

The cold equalized things. In the long winters, the main concern was warmth. Everyone is on the same page when it’s ten below zero. Few like to fight when they’re shivering.

Post-1920, as the aftershock from a racially motivated lynching in Zenith reverberated through the region; racism in the Twin Ports became mostly a verbal thing. The Scandinavians and the Bohunks gradually learned how to live with the “coloreds,” generally allowed them to fill a niche.

One Bay City sporting house featured black ladies exclusively, for servicing a strictly white clientele, and most of the other houses featured at least one black prostitute. A black piano player was a fixture on the speakeasy circuit in the infamous North End, and some superb Negro jazz combos occasionally arrived to play all-night gigs. The black gamblers were allowed to ply their trade without interference as long as they played it straight and paid their bills.

Shortly after arriving in town, Clarence had stumbled into a real sweet deal, the good fortune of which reaffirmed his lifelong belief and reliance on luck and circumstance. It had gotten him this far, after all. The circumstances coming into play here being the shortage of healthy “sporting ladies” in Bay City, and the luck, being the three young prostitutes who accompanied Clarence on his journey from Chicago.

Destiny came into play when the foursome chose to make their first stop at the Douglas Hotel. After a round of introductions in which the ladies strutted their stuff and made their nicest, Clarence and the hotel proprietor quickly struck up a deal. In exchange for a small rental fee, the occasional free lay for the proprietor, and a cut of the take, Clarence was allowed to run his ladies out of the upstairs of the Douglas Tavern, currently languishing in disuse next door, and host dice and card games in the backroom.

The local cops pretty much kept their eyes turned away as long as their pockets were lined. On occasion, when the mood struck them or too many ministers had complained to the chief, the boys in blue would bust a card game and scrape a big pot into their coats or maybe make a few nominal arrests of known prostitutes.

In an effort to keep the raids at a minimum, the gamblers often sent turkeys to the police station at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and many on the force were known to fight the winter’s chill with a bit of local moonshine, free of charge.

Clarence didn’t like giving money to cops; it went against his upbringing. As far as he could see it, the only difference between the cops in Bay City and those in Chicago was that up North they were dumber and cheaper to bribe. They were, however, just as brutal. Nevertheless, he marched along with the band, kept his mouth shut and greased the right palms when necessary.

Things went pretty well on the edge of civilization. He wasn’t exactly getting rich, but he had enough to eat and drink and smoke and gamble, put warm clothes on his back and coal in the stove during the six months of winter. He was extremely popular with the ladies, both black and white, and was considered a prized catch among the working girls.

For a time Clarence enjoyed relatively easy living in Bay City, even doing some fishing and playing a little golf in the all-too-brief summers. By 1929, his stable of women had grown to ten and his gaming salon was the most popular in town, attracting many influential and wealthy patrons.

Then the Great Depression hit the country like a razor blade rainstorm.

(To be continued)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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A look at Bay City, home to disappointment, betrayal and Johnny Beam

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 12, FLY IN THE MILK

A tough fight, pain pills and the blur of streetlights take Johnny Beam on a trip down memory lane in Chapter 2 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever ebooks are sold:

Johnny moved back to Zenith in 1957 with his statuesque bride Ruby and their unborn child in tow. With the help of some fans of his past gridiron prowess, he managed to land a job at the steel plant in western Zenith.

They attempted to play house.

Sadly, John couldn’t control his wandering eye or the other body parts that followed, and Ruby quickly got fed up. She walked out of the house with John Jr. and hopped a Greyhound bus headed for Chicago in March of 1958.  Somewhere south of Madison, Wisconsin, Ruby was heard thanking the lord for giving her the strength to escape from a “town more drab and gray than the darkest night Chicago ever seen and a man who made an alley cat look like a saint.”

Liquor and pain pills had him giddy; the streetlights had blurry circles around them. No wonder his mind was drifting a little, wondering about what it was like for his mama in this old town, thinking about things that went on thirty-plus years ago in this vulgar little place.

                                                     *   *   *   *

Walking the streets of Bay City, Wisconsin, in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, one might wonder as to why this side of the bay was once expected to become the larger and more populous of the two port cities. The “Chicago of the North,” some had boldly predicted.

Conventional wisdom at the turn of the century had it that the tip of the great lake and its two ports would prove to be a hub for the shipping industry, with the railroads meeting the shipping traffic at a natural vortex of goods from all directions.

The region did indeed prove to be a hotbed of commerce. By 1920 the port cities were being serviced by fourteen railroads, bringing in over thirty million tons of iron ore and nine million tons of coal yearly. Lumber from the forests and grains from the western prairies also rolled into the ports in great quantities, and by the mid-twenties, the Twin Ports boasted more millionaires per capita than anywhere in the U.S.

Unfortunately for Bay City, the majority of the new citizenry, and almost all of the wealthy, chose to make their homes in the tree-covered hills of Zenith, on the Minnesota side of the lake. There was something about the hills and the rocky cliffs and brooding pine forests on the North Shore of the lake that made it special. 

The port town on the Wisconsin side of the bay was soon filling the role of tawdry little sister to the lovely and virtuous Zenith. Bay City was the homely one resigned to collecting the runoff. Like algae to a stagnant pond, the lost, the lonely and the otherwise disenfranchised floated to this low point on the geographical survey where the speakeasies, the gambling joints and the sporting houses waited with open doors. There was always a drink to be found, a card to be turned or a skirt to be lifted. The railroaders, the truck drivers and the seamen, along with many “good citizens” of Zenith, came to pursue pleasure and release in a town known to many around the region as “Hell.”

Walking down Main Street, Bay City didn’t look much different than many Wisconsin towns. Markets and furniture stores and hardware, mostly low buildings with hastily assembled storefronts. Snowbanks, a few cars and brown-brick structures that made the dark days darker and the sunny days seem dirty. Black and white and shades of gray.

Leaving the main drag and heading toward the railroad tracks, one would come upon the cracker-box houses of the citizenry. Tap on the window of the right ones and a woman would appear, a woman who would take money for sex. Other stops in the jungle of bungalows might provide a jar of corn liquor in a paper sack or perhaps more exotic means to loosen the bonds of the imprisoned soul.

Down by the waterfront were greasy cafes, cheap rooming houses and boarded-up, sagging buildings with faded signs touting now-illegal imbibing pleasures. Good names like Budweiser and Schlitz and Seagram’s turning gray with age. Closer to the docks, it was mostly flophouses: two-story flops that were perfect if you were between jobs or riding out a binge, either short-term or permanent. Hobo hotels where the desk clerks knew the right houses in the right neighborhoods to find what was needed to make it through another day.

(To be continued)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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One fight over, another fight begins

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 11, FLY IN THE MILK

Johnny Beam looks back on the life that led him to this moment in Chapter 2 of Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever ebooks are sold:

The rest of his Bay City memories consisted of dark mornings and cold nights spent with his mother in a small apartment in a brick building that smelled of cabbage and dust and pine-scented cleaner. One of his favorite things was dropping the table scraps down the second-floor incinerator chute after his mom had wrapped them in newspaper. He’d had a radio, a football and a basketball. He remembered bouncing the basketball behind the building on the cracked concrete in the cold, wet spring. No images of his father reached his consciousness.

Color entered his memories after he and his mama moved across the bridge into Minnesota. It had been summer and the little house with the small backyard had filled the two of them with joy and a feeling of freedom. Something new for his mama, this freedom thing. She instilled in him the need for it.

The circular dashboard clock on the Olds read a little before midnight. To kill some time, he decided to take a ride around the town and soak up some of the atmosphere. Lambert couldn’t think he was overanxious—you didn’t want that.

Bay City repelled and attracted him at the same time. It was a great place for chasing pussy and drinking on the cheap and that was about the extent of it. The trouble was that a black man was like a fly in a bottle of milk over here. It wasn’t hard for anyone to spot you, and when they did, they usually hated what they saw.

Not that Johnny never got around. He could handle himself and had the championship belt to prove it. Duking it out with some drunken fool wasn’t what worried him. It was the strange feeling he got in Bay City, a feeling of uneasiness coming from no identifiable source.

He toured the dark and decaying north end of town and took a little trip along the infamous John Avenue, aptly named, considering the number of brothels it had held over the years. He wondered if perhaps he’d somehow driven by his birth home without knowing it.

His mother had once been a whore.

The knowledge had hurt him at first. Burned him from the inside out like he’d swallowed hot charcoal. He’d only known her as a saint. She’d been a beautiful woman, that part was true. He’d seen the old photos. She’d carried herself tall and straight, and even when she’d gotten heavy in her later years she radiated a noble quality, like royalty.

Whatever she’d done in her past, Johnny didn’t hold a thing against her for it. And over time, he accepted it. He knew that folks sometimes had to do things to get by. Things that the straights and the self-righteous looked down upon. But Johnny had the utmost respect for his mother and everything she’d done for him. It hadn’t been easy for her around here; he knew that.  She’d heard the word “nigger” more times than she cared to, that was for sure.

One thing he deeply regretted was not being there the day she died. Poor woman dropped dead from a heart attack in church while he was living in Chicago. After coming back to Minnesota for the funeral, he’d wanted to stay. Didn’t need any more of Chi-town. One thing had led to another, and after some coaxing his wife Ruby said she’d give it a try, thinking anything would be an improvement over the old neighborhood and the way it was going downhill.

(To be continued)

T.K. O’Neill’s crime novel Fly in the Milk is available on ebook at online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, ebookit, Google, iBookstore (Apple), Amazon, Sony Reader Store, Kobo (Borders) and Ingram Digital.

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

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A Boxing Scene Classic from Fly in the Milk

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »

EXCERPT 4, FLY IN THE MILK

Ever read a boxing scene so vivid that you can smell the sweat, see the desperation, feel the tension? Round one through eight from Fly in the Milk, ebook available wherever ebooks are sold:

February 1960, National Guard Armory, Zenith, Minnesota

Smoke hung thick in the air, stagnant and stinking in the yellow glare of the ring lights. The buzzing of the crowd matched the buzzing between Johnny Beam’s ears as he sank down onto the wooden stool and struggled to clear his head. His opponent had given him all he could handle for seven long rounds but the son of a bitch had paid a price.

The corner man squeezed a sponge and Johnny basked in sweet relief as the cool liquid slid through the tight curls of his black hair and down his bruised, swollen face. All around him, the crowd rumbled. He straightened himself and leaned back against the turnbuckle, stretched his throbbing arms along the ropes and squinted across the blue haze at the cut man working furiously on Al Sparks’ right eye.

The bastard looks like he’s beaten, Johnny thought. Look at him over there, blood dripping down on the canvas. But then, Christ, look at me… the only black men in the goddamn building and we’re both bleeding from the head. But that’s what the paying public wants to see, and you gotta do what you gotta do….

His body was heavy; blood in his mouth made him sick. Legs felt like liquid lead, worse than back in high school football when the rain had turned the pads to concrete. He didn’t feel much like getting off the stool again to face the left-handed Canuck and his goddamn right-hand leads. But the road to the big time went through Sparks, and the big time was where Johnny Beam wanted to go.

He was the light-heavyweight champion of Minnesota—had been for two years. He was proud of it, but it really wasn’t much of a title, and he knew it. Only way to a shot at some real money was by beating better talent. At least better than the punching bags he’d faced so far in his career.

He drank from a glass bottle covered with tape and swished the water around, spit bloody goo into the tin bucket between his legs and ran his tongue over the sore spots in his mouth while old Ernie Callahan applied Vaseline to his eyebrows and dabbed more styptic on the ever widening cut above his left eye.

The ringside bell clanged sharp and shrill.

Trying to focus his thoughts, Johnny stretched his lips around the mouth guard and stood up to answer the call.

Flashbulbs popped. The crowd howled.

Their roar is my engine, Johnny thought; I’ll make sure there’s more of Sparks’ blood to see than mine. If you got two Negroes in the ring, one of them should hit the canvas. That’s just the way it is…

The two well-muscled fighters came together in the center of the ring. A drunk yelled, “Kill the goddamn Canucky, Johnny,” and a cheer went up.

Sparks was desperate and went on the attack. He faked a right-hand jab and then launched a southpaw haymaker. Beam anticipated well, ducked under the punch, slid to his right, drove upward with his legs and unleashed a vicious right cross to Sparks’ cheekbone, eliciting an audible smack–leather against flesh.

The crowd exploded. Sparks stumbled, crashed into the ropes and grasped clumsily, gloved paws flailing for balance.

The cheers filled Johnny with energy. Just like the old days after busting off a long run or making a crunching tackle across the middle. He moved in for the kill, saw the blood and the look in Sparks’ eyes: dazed, struggling, fearful.

Beam’s jabs shot through and found their mark. Sparks retreated into the corner, struggling for breath and covering up, the cut spreading dark fluid down the side of his angular jaw.

His eyes are pleading with me, Johnny thought. Please don’t take me out. Not in front of all these goodamn white boys… let me stay on my feet like a man.

Johnny hesitated for a second then snapped off another jab, followed by a short, hard right to the mouth that rocked Sparks’ head and sent blood bursting into the smoky air, mixing with sweat in an artful pink mist that put a fever in the fans.

Beam stepped back and searched the Canadian’s eyes. Sparks’ right hand snapped out of its defensive position like a striking cobra, thumping Beam’s cheekbone. Seemingly revived, Sparks came on with purpose in his step and an all-or-nothing look on his bloody, battered face. He jabbed with the right hand, stinging Beam’s widening cut.

Johnny held his ground and they stood toe to toe. An explosion of punches fueled by desperation and anger juiced the screaming throng. Combination for combination, headshot for headshot and body blow for body blow. The crowd rose from the seats, howled for a knockout. The huge armory echoed as the referee stood with his hands on his hips, staring at Sparks.

Beam was tiring but his opponent was further gone.

Like he was lifting a boat anchor out of the mud, Sparks prepped for one more looping left hand, desperately hoping for the knockout punch. Johnny saw it coming and knifed inside. The roundhouse left bounced harmlessly off the back of his head. He came out of the crouch and snapped his own left into Sparks’ chin. Sparks staggered against the ropes and Beam swept in, launching a flurry of punches that were brought to a premature end by the dull sound of the bell.

End of round eight.

(To be continued)

Fly in the Milk – $2.99 at https://amzn.to/2LbNJ8j

Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry – $2.99 ebook, $15.95 paperback at https://amzn.to/2Lp48GT

 

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Johnny Beam in “Fly in the Milk” Excerpts

Posted in Fly in the Milk Excerpts - Selected, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

On with the story:

 

EXCERPT 3, FLY IN THE MILK

Chief of Detectives Harvey Green was a friendly, heavyset man who was smarter than he looked and well liked by most. His personal motto was Do a good job but take care of you and yours first. He seldom thought or felt too deeply about anything and as long as the larder was full, life was good.

Police Chief Ira Bjorkman was old and tired and had been on the job for too long.  Everyone on the force knew it and so did he. A recent increase in local crime coupled with the intrusion of the national press covering the Norville murder trial into his previously serene existence had stoked his growing desire for retirement. There was just too much bullshit going on these days for someone who was raised on Live and let live.

Harvey Green let the chief walk slightly ahead of him as they approached the wreck.

Adams watched them come, waited for the slow-moving pair.

“What have we got here, officer?” Chief Bjorkman asked, bending over and peering in the car.

“What appears to be a dead man, sir, who I believe is Johnny Beam, the boxer. But I didn’t look for I.D. I haven’t touched anything.”

“Very good,” Bjorkman said. “Looks like we got another one for the coroner. That fat son of a bitch hasn’t worked this much in his whole goddamn career.” He turned around and looked east along Superior Street. “And the asshole better get here in a hurry.”

Chief of Detectives Harvey Green bent over and peered inside the Olds.

“Looks like this could be the end of the line on the ATF boys’ case, eh, Harvey?” Bjorkman said, pawing at the damp pavement with his worn wingtip.

“Maybe so, Ira, maybe so. You think someone got to Beam here? He’s pretty battered. Nobody ever hit him that much in the ring.”

“Driving off a cliff will do that to ya.”

Green pulled a clean white handkerchief from his trouser pocket, draped it over his left hand and reached inside the dead man’s coat. He came out with a long wallet that he placed on the roof of the car then leaned back in and sifted the outside coat pockets.

“Here’s a winner for you,” he said, holding up a set of keys. “Still got his keys in his pocket. Look at the little gold boxing gloves. Must be a spare set there in the ignition, just got a plain chain. That’s a little off, wouldn’t you say?”

“A man gets older, starts hitting the sauce, there are times he’ll forget just about anything. You telling me you never thought you lost your keys and then found them later.”

“No… but not like this. This is a heavy set of keys. Man’s gotta know it’s in his pocket.”

“Yes and no. If a man has been up all night hitting the sauce and the foo-foo dust, he might not know much at all. He may be stumbling out the door in a hurry and not know his ass from a tuna sandwich.”

“Yeah, s’pose that’s a possibility,” Green said.  “And it is March….”

“That it is, Harvey, that it is.”

Green straightened up and scratched his chin. Scowl lines formed deep furrows above his eyes. “I think we need to call in a professional accident guy on this one,” he said, turning to gaze at the frozen bay and the hazy outline of the grain terminals in the distance. “Someone whose expertise will override ours. The way the media is jacked up these days, with that goddamn Paul Richards sticking his beak in everything, I think we need someone out front on this.”

“You’re right. I agree,” Bjorkman said. “Your wisdom suits that of the next police chief. But Jesus, what the hell happened to this poor son of a bitch Beam? How did it ever come down to this? I remember when he was really something.”

“Me too, Ira. Me too.”

*  *  *  *

(To be continued)

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