Dispatches From Noir

“You seem to like long engagements, Tiger.” She wasn’t smiling now.

I said, “When it’s over. When we can walk and breathe without smelling death all the time or knowing the world is sitting on the lip of disaster. I don’t want you a widow before you’re married.”

“How do you know what I want, darling?”

“Oh, sure, you’ll take me now because you’re a broad and all broads want it now regardless of the consequences, but I’m not letting you stick your neck out in the middle of a mess like this. Crazy broad.”

“I despise that word.”

“You do? Well, you wear it well, baby. It’s a sign that you’re more than a woman. You’re a doll with everything going for her from a beautiful face to a wild body with a mind to match and I love you like hell. You have capabilities only I can appreciate and I want them all.”

[…]

“Do you always have to be like this?”

I paused in the middle of tucking my shirttail in. “You want me any other way?”

“Sometimes I think so.”

“Then screw you too, baby.”

Her face went flat, the pain of my words knocking the expression from it. “You didn’t have to say that.”

“No? Then keep out of my business. Otherwise you stop being a broad and become a dame. I’ll do what I want to do and sometimes what I have to do. One thing I won’t do is succumb to the sentimentality or the wishful thinking of a woman. When I’m working, stay off my back. You know my business so don’t try to steer me clear. The woman isn’t born and her mother’s already dead that can do that trick. I’ll run things my own way and if you don’t give me credit for being an old soldier type with twenty years over your fair head, then regroup your forces, kid, and find another guy who will bow and scrape and do it when you tell him to go potty. Clear?”

—Mickey Spillane in The By-Pass Control

I think the above illustrates the point in my reply to an ask from not long ago (also reproduced below by request). Granted, espionage master Tiger Mann is the protagonist of this Spillane volume, rather than PI Mike Hammer. But does anyone this Tiger says anything here that Hammer wouldn’t?

I can’t think of any corresponding passage in the works of Raymond Chandler, but please do let me know if there is one and I’ve missed it.

Anonymous asked: What do you think of the role of women in The Big Sleep? Do you think Marlowe’s Cynicism has anything to do with the way he views women?

This is an interesting question and once again confirms that I have (in the words of ordinarywonder) “the most well read, intelligent anons.”  I’m a bit mystified why anyone would ask such literate question anonymously, but I’m happy to answer all the same.

I think the role of women in Chandler’s novel’s is a product of cynicism rather than any prejudicial view of women.  Arguably that is not the case with all hardboiled fiction.  Spillane’s Mike Hammer takes some glee in the objectification of women.  And Travis McGee is a white knight who helps damsels in distress.  He not only vanquishes their tormentors, he can also cure all their hang-ups if they sleep with him.  

But I don’t find that in Chandler.  The women are pretty much like the men.  They all have an angle, and Marlowe’s unique virtue is that he is too stubborn to be a cog in anyone’s wheel.  He’s suspicious of everyone and resolutely self-contained.  

The women Marlowe comes across are unsavory, no doubt.  But are they all that different from the men?  In much of hardboiled crime fiction, I think so.  In Chandler’s case, I don’t think so.

I could be overlooking something, however.  Feel free to let me know what I missed.  And you might be interested in this profile of Chandler I wrote for Crime Fiction Lover last summer.

Morg Malden ambled into his tiny living room from his even tinier bedroom. Eleven o’clock. Good thing he didn’t have anything pressing today. Or the next day. Or the day after that.  He’d have to do something, sooner or later. But he’d get to that. 

Breakfast first. Morg flipped open a pizza box lying on the floor since the night before. God damn. Ants. This shouldn’t have been surprising. But Morg had been leaving pizza sitting on the floor overnight at least weekly for the past several years. Never had any problems. Oh, well. Live and learn. But he’d have to get that pizza out of here. Otherwise ants would just continue to congregate in the middle of the tatty carpet.

He threw out his breakfast, lunch and dinner, cursing at himself as he did. Now breakfast would be just beer. He thought back to his late grandfather. It was hard to believe Morg had been a kid. But he had. And his toy had broken. His grandfather had shrugged. “Life’s a gyp, kid.” That’s probably offensive now, Morg thought. Not that his grandfather would have cared.

Morg ambled over to the refrigerator. No pizza, no grandpa and nothing in the refrigerator besides beer. Oh, he had memories. Memories of his grandfather and memories of the pizza. Fat lot of good that did him. He reached for a cheap beer and cracked it open. Here was breakfast. He raised the open bottle to toast no one in particular. Life’s a gyp, kid.

They tell you never to burn bridges.  The investigation isn’t about you.  Act respectfully when you’re questioning someone.  You may need to get a little rough sometimes, but apologize after you get what you need.  Honey gets more flies than vinegar and all that.

It’s a good idea.  So I try to do do it that way.  But sometimes good ideas just get stretched to the breaking point.  This broad just wanted to lecture me.  The workers were all oppressed.  It was all about power, I had to realize that.  All I knew was that one worker’s head had been oppressed by a very large wrench.  I’d figure out all the oppression in the rest of the world later.

She didn’t like my priorities, but I needed priorities in my line of work.  She said she didn’t plan on getting a job and submitting to the oppression.  She wouldn’t get a job, that much was for sure.  

They say not to burn bridges.  They don’t say what to do if you don’t wanna cross those bridges ever again.They don’t tell you what to do with a bridge that doesn’t go anywhere.  All good ideas have exceptions.  She was a two-bit cunt.  So I told her so.