Mixed Relationships

[kent_allard_jr]

The GF and I were lying on the couch together, she leafing through my copy of Gotham while I began reading Emma. I found my book difficult to get into, and said as much to Kimberly. I then saw Hammett's Red Harvest nearby. "THIS is what writing SHOULD be!" I said to her, picking up the novel and reading the first couple of pages, with excerpts like this:

The first policeman I saw needed a shave. The second had a couple of buttons off his shabby uniform. The third stood in the center of the city's main intersection ... directing traffic, with a cigar in one corner of his mouth. After that I stopped checking them up.

And this fine piece of dialogue:

"What's the rumpus?" I asked him.
He looked at me carefully before he replied, as if he wanted to be sure the information was going into safe hands. His eyes were gray as his clothes, but not so soft.
"Don Willsson's gone to sit on the right hand of God, if God don't mind looking at bullet holes."
"Who shot him?" I asked.
The gray man scratched the back of his neck and said:
"Someone with a gun."

I asked Kim if she wanted to take some Continental Op stories on an upcoming trip.

"I don't know," she said. "I like books with emotion."
"Aw, there's plenty of emotion in Hammett novels."
"Like what?"
"Well, um ... there's contempt."

She laughed heartily, ending with a shake of the head and an "awwww, honey!" in that fine Southern voice of hers. No sale, I guess.