TH E

BEST AMERICAN

NOIR
OF THE CENTUR Y

edited by
JAMES ELLROY and
OTTO PENZLER

with an introduction by
JAMES ELLROY

hough­t on mifflin harcourt

boston • new york • 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Hough­ton Mif ­fl in Harcourt Publishing Company
Introduction copyright © 2010 by James Ellroy
all rights reserved

The Best American Series® is a registered trademark of Hough­ton Mif

­fl in Harcourt Publishing
Company.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The best American noir of the century / edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler; with an
introduction by James Ellroy.
  p. cm. — (The best American series)
isbn 978-0-547-33077-8
1. Noir fiction, American.  2. Detective and mystery stories, American.  3. American
fiction — 20th century.  I. Ellroy, James, date.  II. Penzler, Otto.
ps648.n64b47  2010
813′.087208 — dc22  2010017204

Printed in the United States of America

doc  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

“Stab” by Chris Adrian. First published in Zoetrope: All-­Story, Summer 2006. Copyright © 2006
by Chris Adrian; published in Better Angel: Stories, by Chris Adrian, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2008. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
“The Hunger” by Charles Beaumont. First published in Playboy, April 1955. Copyright © 1955 by
HMH Publishing Company, renewed 1983 by Christopher Beaumont. Reprinted by permission of
Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
“Like a Bone in the Throat” by Lawrence Block. First published in Murder for Revenge, ed. by
Otto Penzler. Copyright © 1998 by Lawrence Block. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Gesture” by Gil Brewer. First published in The Saint Mystery Magazine, March 1956. Copy-
right © 1956 by the author. Reprinted by permission of Marvin N. Lee and Mary V. Rhodes.
“Man in the Dark” by Howard Browne. First published in Fantastic, 1952. Copyright © 1952 by
the author. Reprinted by permission of Melissa Browne, Trustee.
“Texas City, 1947” by James Lee Burke. First published in Southern Review, 1991. Copyright ©
1991 by James Lee Burke. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Pastorale” by James M. Cain. First published in American Mercury, March 1928. Copyright ©
1928 by The American Mercury, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1955 by James M. Cain. Reprinted by
permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.
 “Missing the Morning Bus” by Lorenzo Carcaterra. First published in Dead Man’s Hand, 2007.
Copyright © 2007 by the author. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“All Through the House” by Christopher Coake. First published in Gettysburg Review, 2003.
Copyright © 2003 by Christopher Coake; published in We’re in Trouble by Christopher Coake,
Harcourt, 2005. Reprinted by permission of Hough­ton Mif ­fl in Harcourt.
“What She Offered” by Thomas H. Cook. First published in Dangerous Women, 2005. Copyright
© 2005 by Thomas H. Cook. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Hot Springs” by James Crumley. First published in Murder for Love, 1996. Copyright © 1996 by
James Crumley. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of James Crumley.
“The Weekender” by Jeffery Deaver. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, De-
cember 1996. Copyright © 1996 by Jeffery W. Deaver. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Ticket Out” by Brendan DuBois. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January
1987. Copyright © 1987 by Brendan DuBois. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Mefisto in Onyx” by Harlan Ellison. From The Essential Ellison: A 50-­Year Retrospective, 2005.
Copyright © 1993 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation. Reprinted by arrangement with, and permis-
sion of, the Author and the Author’s agent, Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., New York. All rights
reserved. Harlan Ellison is a registered trademark of the Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Since I ­Don’t Have You” by James Ellroy. First published in A Matter of Crime, vol. 4. Copyright
© 1988 by James Ellroy. Reprinted by permission of Sobel Weber Associates.
“You’ll Always Remember Me” by Steve Fisher. First published in Black Mask Magazine, March
1938. Copyright © 1938 by the author. Reprinted by permission of Keith Alan Deutsch.
“Poachers” by Tom Franklin. From Poachers. Copyright © 1999 by Tom Franklin. Reprinted by
permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
“The Paperhanger” by William Gay. First published in Harper’s Magazine, February 2000. Copy-
right © 2000 by William Gay. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Out There in the Darkness” by Ed Gorman. First published in Out There in the Darkness, 1995.
Copyright © 1995 by Ed Gorman. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Iris” by Stephen Greenleaf. First published in The Eyes Have It, 1984. Copyright © 1984 by Ste-
phen Greenleaf. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Crack” by James W. Hall. First published in Murder and Obsession, 1999. Copyright © 1999 by
James W. Hall. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Slowly, Slowly in the Wind” by Patricia Highsmith. First published in Slowly, Slowly in the Wind.
Copyright © 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, and 1979 by Patricia Highsmith. Copyright © by Diogenes
Verlag AG Zu­rich. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
“The Homecoming” by Dorothy B. Hughes. First published in Murder Cavalcade, 1946. Copy-
right © 1946 by Dorothy B. Hughes, Murder Cavalcade, New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce. Permis-
sion granted by Blanche C. Gregory, Inc.
“The Last Spin” by Evan Hunter. First published in Manhunt, September 1956. Copyright © 1956
by Evan Hunter. Reprinted by permission of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, Inc.
“Gun Crazy” by MacKinlay Kantor. First published in the Saturday Evening Post, February 13,
1940. Copyright © 1940 by MacKinlay Kantor. Reprinted by permission of Layne Schroder, Lydia
Kantor and Melissa Poplazarova and by agreement with the estate’s agent, Donald Maass Literary
Agency, 121 West 27th Street, Suite 801, NY, NY 10001.
“Nothing to Worry About” by Day Keene. First published in Detective Tales Magazine, August
1945. Copyright © 1945 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed © 1973 and assigned to
Argosy Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission by arrangement with
Argosy Communications, Inc.
“Her Lord and Master” by Andrew Klavan. First published in Dangerous Women, 2005. Copy-
right © 2005 by Andrew Klavan. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Running Out of Dog” by Dennis Lehane. First published in Murder and Obsession, 1999. Copy-
right © 1999 by Dennis Lehane. Reprinted with permission of Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency,
Inc.
“When the Women Come Out to Dance” by Elmore Leonard. First published in When the
Women Come Out to Dance, 2002. Copyright © 2002 by Elmore Leonard, Inc. Reprinted by per-
mission of the author.
“The Dripping” by David Morrell. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, August
1972. Copyright © 1972 by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the au-
thor.
“The Hoarder” by Bradford Morrow. First published in Murder in the Rough, 2006. Copyright ©
2006 by Bradford Morrow. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Faithless” by Joyce Carol Oates. From Faithless: Tales of Transgression. Copyright © 1997 by The
Ontario Review, Inc. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
“The Lady Says Die!” by Mickey Spillane. First published in Manhunt, October 1953. Copyright
© 1953 by Mickey Spillane. Contributed by the Estate of Mickey Spillane.
“Forever After” by Jim Thompson. First published in Shock, May 1960. Copyright © 1960 by Jim
Thompson. Reprinted by permission of Vanessa Holt Ltd.
“Midnight Emissions” by F. X. Toole. First published in Murder of the Ropes, 2001. Copyright ©
2001 by F. X. Toole. Reprinted by permission of Sobel Weber Associates.
“Controlled Burn” by Scott Wolven. First published in Harpur Palate, 2002. Copyright © 2002 by
Scott Wolven. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“For the Rest of Her Life” by Cornell Woolrich. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Maga-
zine, May 1968. Copyright © 1968 by JP Morgan Chase Bank as Trustee for the Clair Woolrich Me-
morial Scholarship Fund. Reprinted by permission of Renaissance Literary and Talent.
 FOREWORD

The French word noir (which means “black”) was first connected to the
word film by a French critic in 1946, and has subsequently become a
prodigiously overused term to describe a certain type of film or literary
work. Curiously, noir is not unlike pornography, in the sense that it is
virtually impossible to de­fine, but eve­ry­one thinks they know it when
they see it. Like many other certainties, it is often wildly inaccurate.
This volume is devoted to short noir fiction of the past century, but it
is impossible to divorce the literary ­genre entirely from its film counter-
part. Certainly, noir most commonly evokes the great crime films of the
1940s and 1950s that were shot in black-­and-­white with cinematography
that was heavily in­flu­enced by early-­twentieth-­century German expres-
sionism: sharp angles (venetian blinds, windows, railroad tracks) and
strong contrasts between light and dark. Most of us have a collective
impression of film noir as having certain essentials: a femme fatale,
some tough criminals, an equally tough cop or private eye, an urban
environment, and night . . . endless night. There are bars, nightclubs,
menacing alleys, seedy hotel rooms.
While it may be comforting to recognize these elements as the very
defi­ni­tion of film noir, it is as simplistic a view as that which limits the
mystery ­genre to detective fiction, failing to accept the numerous other
elements of that rich literature, such as the crime novel and suspense
stories.
Certainly the golden age of film noir occurred in those dec­ades, the
’40s and ’50s, but there were superb examples in the 1930s, such as M
(1931), in which Peter Lorre had his first starring role, and Freaks (1932),
Tod Browning’s unforgettable biopic in which the principal actors were
ac­tual carnival “human curiosities.” And no one is likely to dispute that
the noir motion picture continued into the 1960s and beyond, as evi-
denced by such classics as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Taxi
Driver (1976), Body Heat (1981), and L.A. Confidential (1997).
x Foreword

Much of film noir lacks some or all of the usual clichéd visual set
pieces of the ­genre, of course, but the absolutist elements by which the
films are known are less evident in the literature, which relies more on
plot, tone, and theme than on the chiaroscuro effects choreographed by
directors and cinematographers.
Allowing for the differences of the two mediums, I also believe that
most film and literary critics are entirely wrong about their defi­ni­tions
of noir, a ­genre which famously — but erroneously — has its roots in the
American hard-­boiled private eye novel. In fact, the two subcategories
of the mystery ­genre, private detective stories and noir fiction, are dia-
metrically opposed, with mutually exclusive philosophical prem­ises.
Noir works, whether films, novels, or short stories, are existential,
pessimistic tales about people, including (or especially) protagonists,
who are seriously flawed and morally questionable. The tone is gener-
ally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust, jealousy, and
alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes
inevitably go awry. Whether their motivation is as overt as a bank rob-
bery, or as subtle as the willingness to compromise integrity for personal
gain, the central fig­ures in noir stories are doomed to hopelessness.
They may be motivated by the pursuit of seemingly easy money or by
love — or, more commonly, physical desire — almost certainly for the
wrong member of the opposite sex. The machinations of their relentless
lust will cause them to lie, steal, cheat, and even kill as they become
more and more entangled in a web from which they cannot possibly
extricate themselves. And, while engaged in this hopeless quest, they
will be double-­crossed, betrayed, and, ultimately, ruined. The likelihood
of a happy ending in a noir story is remote, even if the protagonist’s own
view of a satisfactory resolution is the criterion for de­fin­ing happy. No,
it will end badly, because the characters are inherently corrupt and that
is the fate that inevitably awaits them.
The private detective story is a different matter entirely. Raymond
Chandler famously likened the private eye to a knight, a man who could
walk mean streets but not himself be mean, and this is true of the over-
whelming majority of those heroic fig­ures. They may well be brought
into an exceedingly dark situation, and encounter characters who are
deceptive, violent, paranoid, and lacking a moral center, but the Ameri-
can private detective retains his sense of honor in the face of all the ad-
versity and duplicity with which he must do battle. Sam Spade avenged
the murder of a partner because he knew he “was supposed to do some-
thing about it.” Mike Hammer found it easy to kill a woman to whom he
Foreword xi

had become attached because he learned she had murdered his friend.
Lew Archer, Spenser, Elvis Cole, and other iconic private eyes, as well as
policemen who, like Harry Bosch and Dave Robicheaux, often act as if
they are unconstrained by their of ­fi­cial positions, may bend (or break)
the law, but their own sense of morality will be used in the pursuit of
justice. Although not ­every one of their cases may have a happy conclu-
sion, the hero nonetheless will emerge with a clean ethical slate.
Film noir blurs the distinction between hard-­boiled private eye nar-
ratives and true noir stories by employing similar design and camera-
work techniques for both ­genres, though the discerning viewer will eas-
ily recognize the opposing life-­views of a moral, even heroic, often
romantic detective, and the lost characters in noir who are caught in the
inescapable prisons of their own construction, forever trapped by their
isolation from their own souls, as well as from society and the moral
restrictions that permit it to be regarded as civilized.
This massive collection seldom allows exceptions to these fundamen-
tal principles of noir stories. They are dark and often oppressive, failing
to allow redemption for most of the people who inhabit their sad, vio-
lent, amoral world. Carefully wrought plans crumble, lovers deceive,
normality morphs into dec­adence, and decency is scarce and unre-
warded. Nonetheless, the writers who toil in this oppressive landscape
have created stories of such relentless fascination that they rank among
the giants of the literary world. Some, like Cornell Woolrich, David
Goodis, and Jim Thompson, wrote prolifically but produced little that
did not fall into the noir category, accurately re­flect­ing their own trou-
bled, tragic lives. Others, like Elmore Leonard, Evan Hunter, and Law-
rence Block, have written across a more varied range of crime fiction,
from dark to light, from morose to hilarious. Just not in this volume. If
you find light and hilarity in these pages, I strongly recommend a visit
to a mental health professional.
Otto Penzler
May 2009
 INTRODUCTION

We created it, but they love it more in France than they do here. Noir is
the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-­boiled school of fiction. It’s
the long drop off the short pier, and the wrong man and the wrong
woman in perfect misalliance. It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big
dreams and the precise how and why of the all-­time sure thing that goes
bad. Noir is opportunity as fatality, social justice as sanctified shuck, and
sexual love as a one-­way ticket to hell. Noir indicts the other sub­genres
of the hard-­boiled school as sissified, and canonizes the inherent human
urge toward self-­destruction.
Noir sparked before the Big War and burned like a four-­coil hot plate
up to 1960. Cheap novels and cheap films about cheap people ran con-
current with American boosterism and yahooism and made a subver-
sive point just by being. They described a fully existing fringe America
and fed viewers and readers the demography of a Secret Pervert Repub-
lic. It was just garish enough to be laughed off as unreal and just pathetic
enough to be recognizably human. The concurrence said: Something is
wrong here. The subtext was: Malign fate has a great and unpredictable
power and none of us is safe.
The thrill of noir is the rush of moral forfeit and the abandonment to
titillation. The social importance of noir is its grounding in the big
themes of race, class, gender, and systemic corruption. The overarching
joy and lasting appeal of noir is that it makes doom fun.
The in­hab­i­tants of the Secret Pervert Republic are a gas. Their intran-
sigence and psychopathy are delightful. They relentlessly pursue the
score, big and small. They only succeed at a horrific cost that renders it
all futile. They are wildly delusional and possessed of verbal flair. Their
overall job de­scrip­tion is “grandiose lowlife.” They speak their own lan-
guage. Safecrackers are “box men” who employ explosive “soup.” Grift-
ers perfect the long con, the short con, and the dime hustle. Race-­wire
xiv Introduction

scams utilize teams of scouts who place last-­minute bets and relay infor-
mation to bookmaking networks. A twisted professionalism de­fines all
strata of the Secret Pervert Republic. This society grants ­women a
unique power to seduce and destroy. A six-­week chronology from first
kiss to gas chamber is common in noir.
The sub­genre of ­fi­cially died in 1960. New writer generations have
resurrected it and rede­fined it as a sub-­sub­genre, tailored to meet their
dramatic needs. Doom is fun. Great sex preceded the gas-­chamber
bounce. Older Secret Pervert Republicans blew their wads on mink
coats for evil ­women. Present-­day SPRs go broke on crack cocaine. Le-
thal injection has replaced the green room. Noir will never die — it’s too
dementedly funny not to flour­ish in the heads of hip writers who wish
they could time-­trip to 1948 and live postwar malaise and psychoses.
The young and feckless will inhabit the Secret Pervert Republic, rein-
vent it, wring it dry, and reinvent it all over again.
The short stories in this volume are a groove. Exercise your skeevy
curiosity and read ­every one. You’ll be repulsed and titillated. You’ll en-
dure moral forfeit. Doom is fun. You’re a perv for reading this introduc-
tion. Read the whole book and you’ll die on a gurney with a spike in
your arm.
James Ellroy
July 2009