The Best American Noir of the Century

‘You ever been rowboating on the lake?’

Tigo looked across the table at him, his eyes wide. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘I went with Juana.’

‘Is it…is it any kicks?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s grand kicks. You mean you never been?’

‘No,’ Dave said.

‘Hey, you got to try it, man,’ Tigo said excitedly. ‘You’ll like it. Hey, you try it.’

‘Yeah, I was thinking maybe this Sunday I’d …’ He did not complete the sentence.

‘My spin,’ Tigo said wearily. He twirled the cylinder. ‘Here goes a good man,’ he said, and he put the revolver to his head and squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Dave smiled nervously. ‘No rest for the weary,’ he said.’ But, Jesus, you got heart. I don’t know if I can go through with it.’

‘Sure, you can,’ Tigo assured him. ‘Listen, what’s there to be afraid of?’ He slid the gun across the table.

‘We keep this up all night?’ Dave asked.

‘They said …you know …’

‘Well, it ain’t so bad. I mean, hell, we didn’t have this operation, we wouldn’ta got a chance to talk, huh?’ He grinned feebly.

‘Yeah,’ Tigo said, his face splitting in a wide grin. ‘It ain’t been so bad, huh?’

‘No, it’s been …well, you know, these guys on the club, who can talk to them?’

He picked up the gun.

‘We could …’ Tigo started.

‘What?’

‘We could say …well …like we kept shootin’ an’ nothing happened, so …” Tigo shrugged. ‘What the hell! We can’t do this all night, can we?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Let’s make this the last spin. Listen, they don’t like it, they can take a flying leap, you know?’

‘I don’t think they’ll like it. We supposed to settle for the clubs.’

‘Screw the clubs!’ Tigo said vehemently. ‘Can’t we pick our own …’ The word was hard coming. When it came, he said it softly, and his eyes did not leave Dave’s face. ‘…friends?’

‘Sure we can,’ Dave said fervently. ‘Sure we can! Why not?’

‘The last spin,’ Tigo said. ‘Come on, the last spin.’

‘Gone,’ Dave said. ‘Hey, you know, I’m glad they got this idea. You know that? I’m actually glad!’ He twirled the cylinder. ‘Look you want to go on the lake this Sunday? I mean, with your girl and mine? We could get two boats. Or even one if you want.’

‘Yeah, one boat,’ Tigo said. ‘Hey, your girl’ll like Juana, I mean it. She’s a swell chick.’

The cylinder stopped. Dave put the gun to his head quickly.

‘Here’s to Sunday,’ he said. He grinned at Tigo, and Tigo grinned back, and then Dave fired.

The explosion rocked the small basement room, ripping away half of Dave’s head, shattering his face. A small sharp cry escaped Tigo’s throat, and a look of incredulous shock knifed his eyes.

Then he put his head on the table and began weeping.

1960 JIM THOMPSON FOREVER AFTER

Jim (James Meyers) Thompson (1906-1977) was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma Territory, and worked numerous hard, physical jobs, including as an oil-well and pipeline laborer (his father was a wildcatter), while trying to write. He received commissions from the Works Projects Administration Writers’ Project during the Depression, producing guidebooks of Oklahoma, among other works, and worked as a journalist, mainly covering crime stories.

His first novel, Now and on Earth (1942), is a tale of sex, sin, violence, and revenge. The book most readers regard as his masterpiece, The Killer Inside Me (1952), was the first of sixteen paperback originals he produced during the 1950s, his only prolific era. His other critically successful novels during the ‘50s include Savage Night (1953), A Swell-Looking Babe (1954), and The Getaway (1959). After The Grifters (1963) and Pop. 1280 (1964), the quality of his work, already extremely erratic, declined rapidly. When he died in 1977, not a single book of his was in print in the United States until Quill included The Killer Inside Me in a series of classic hard-boiled novels in 1983; the following year, Black Lizard reprinted most of his other titles. While his bleak novels of psychopaths, losers, alcoholics, and unreliable narrators never achieved sales beyond a vocal cult following in his own country, he enjoyed substantial commercial and critical success in France, where he has often been regarded as America’s greatest hard-boiled writer. Several films were made from his work, with varying aesthetic success, including The Killer Inside Me, a dud filmed in 1976 with Stacy Keach as Sheriff Lou Ford; The Getaway, filmed twice (both with endings absurdly changed from very noir to happy), first in 1972 with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, then in 1994 with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger; and the superb The Grifters (1990), for which Donald E. Westlake’s screenplay received one of the film’s four Academy Award nominations. Directed by Stephen Frears, it starred John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening, and Pat Hingle. Thompson also wrote several screenplays, including the caper film The Killing (1956) and the antiwar film Paths of Glory (1957), both directed by Stanley Kubrick, but was cheated out of a screenwriting credit both times.

“Forever After” was published in the May i960 issue of Shock magazine.

It was a few minutes before five o’clock when Ardis Clinton unlocked the rear door of her apartment and admitted her lover. He was a cow-eyed young man with a wild mass of curly black hair. He worked as a dishwasher at Joe’s Diner, which was directly across the alley.

They embraced passionately. Her body pressed against the meat cleaver concealed inside his shirt, and Ardis shivered with delicious anticipation. Very soon now, it would all be over. That stupid ox, her husband, would be dead. He and his stupid cracks —- all the dullness and boredom — would be gone forever. And with the twenty thousand insurance money, ten thousand dollars double-indemnity…

“We’re going to be so happy, Tony,” she whispered. “You’ll have your own place, a real swank little restaurant with what they call one of those intimate bars. And you’ll just manage it, just kind of saunter around in a dress suit, and —”

“And we’ll live happily ever after,” Tony said. “Just me and you, baby, walking down life’s highway together.”

Ardis let out a gasp. She shoved him away from her, glaring up into his handsome empty face. “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t say things like that! I’ve told you and told you not to do it, and if I have to tell you again, I’ll —!”

“But what’d I say?” he protested. “I didn’t say nothin’.”

“Well …” She got control of herself, forcing a smile. “Never mind, darling. You haven’t had any opportunities and we’ve never really had a chance to know each other, so — so never mind. Things will be different after we’re married.” She patted his cheek, kissed him again. “You got away from the diner all right? No one saw you leave?”

“Huh-uh. I already took the stuff up to the steam-table for Joe, and the waitress was up front too, y’know, filling the sugar bowls and the salt and pepper shakers like she always does just before dinner. And—”

“Good. Now, suppose someone comes back to the kitchen and finds out you’re not there. What’s your story going to be?”