People In The Box #4

by

Ilya Rashap

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The Bell Jar

At that vague hour between dark and dawn, the sunroof of the Amazon was deserted.

Quiet as a burglar in my cornflower-sprigged bathrobe, I crept to the edge of the parapet. The parapet reached almost to my shoulders, so I dragged a folding chair from the stack against the wall, opened it, and climbed onto the precarious seat.

...

A stiff breeze lifted the hair from my head.  At my feat, the city doused its lights in sleep, its buildings blackened, as if for a funeral.

It was my last night.

I grasped the bundle I carried and pulled at a pale tail.  A strapless elasticized slip which, in the course of wear, had lost its elasticity, slumped into my hand.  I waved it, like a flag of truce, once, twice…. The breeze caught it, and I let go.

A white snow flake floated out into the night, and began its slow descent.  I wondered on what street or rooftop it would come to rest.

...

I tugged at the bundle again.

The wind made an effort, but failed, and a batlike shadow sank toward the roof garden of the penthouse opposite.

Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.

...

(From The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)

NTOFPAS

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Strange Embrace

Johnny Lane stood at a window and stared out over Central Park. He was a tall man with an athlete’s build and a strong chin. Usually his gray eyes were keen, penetrating. But now they held a vacant expression as he viewed the dark expanse that lay beyond the bright lights of Fifth Avenue.

Central Park, he thought. Muggings, stabbings and rapes. Come and bring the kiddies and we’ll all have fun.

He turned decisively from the window and walked with quick firm steps to a heavy Victorian wing chair beside a telephone. He sat down, hoisted the receiver to his ear, dialed a number. He listened impatiently to seven full rings, then slammed down the phone and slumped unhappily in the chair.

He heard the sound of a man clearing his throat.

Johnny turned his head. Ito was standing at his side, holding a small mahogany tray with a tumbler perched in its center. The slender man’s face was impassive but his eyes twinkled merrily.

"Master appears troubled," Ito said. "This servant has prepared special potion of esteemed medicinal value. Potion especially useful when user is troubled."

Johnny Lane grinned in spite of himself. "Cut the honorable-son routine," he said. "Save it for company. But thanks for the therapy—it’s just what the doctor ordered." He picked up the tumbler and sipped the straight bourbon it contained.

"The girl doesn’t answer?"

...

Johnny shook his head. "The girl doesn’t answer. The girl is supposed to be ready for two weeks of out-of-town rehearsals starting tomorrow, and it’s a quarter to two in the goddamn morning, and the girl doesn’t answer. Where in the name of hell the girl is, I do not know. Who in the name of Sarah Bernhardt the girl thinks she is..."

...

He broke off, shrugged angrily and drank more bourbon. Ito disappeared long enough to get rid of the tray, then returned. The perfect servant, Johnny thought. And every producer needed a perfect servant, just as every producer needed a well-stocked liquor cabinet. Both were essential safeguards against insanity.

He thought that over, tried to decide whether it was original on his part or a line from some play, and decided that it really didn’t matter. What mattered was the rest of the bourbon in the glass. He finished it off. He dialed the girl’s number again, listened to the phone ring its brains out, and replaced the receiver.

"Damn it," he said. "Now what in hell is the matter with that girl? Ito, it doesn’t add up at all. This is the first real part Elaine James has even been within yards of. She’s had a few small supporting roles off-Broadway but nothing worth a damn. Now she’s set up for the lead in A Touch of Squalor with Ernie Buell directing and Carter Tracy for a co-star. The play is a honey and the part couldn’t be better. And with all of seven hours before it’s time to grab a train to the hinterlands where is she?"

"I give up," Ito said. "Where is she?"

...

(From Strange Embrace by Lawrence Block)

OCTPFAS

Lemons Never Lie

The wrestler in the turtleneck shirt patted Grofield all over, while Grofield stood with legs slightly apart and arms ex­tended straight out at his sides, like an illustration in an ex­ercise book. The wrestler had bad breath. Grofield didn’t suggest anything to him, and after a minute the frisk was done and the wrestler said, "Okay, you’re clean."

"Naturally," Grofield said. "I came here to talk."

...

The wrestler made no response. He’d been hired as a door­man, and that was it. "They’re in the other room," he said.

Grofield went on into the other room, feeling pessimistic. First the three lemons at the airport, and now this. Myers, the organizer of this thing and a man Grofield didn’t know, had set himself up in a two-room suite in the tower section of one of the Strip hotels. Why would a man spend so much money on a meeting place? Why meet in Las Vegas in the first place? It hinted of a blowhard somewhere in the tapestry.

Grofield hoped not. He wasn’t going to permit his need to interfere with his common sense and his professional judg­ment, but the fact was, his need was great. Mary was back home in Indiana, sleeping on the stage. This trip was taking most of Grofield’s available capital, after a season of summer stock that any conglomerate would have been happy to have for their tax loss. If Myers turned out not to have anything, there were going to be some lean winter days until something did appear.

...

From Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark

OCTPFAS

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Seduction of the Innocent

The morning was overcast and cold, not terrible weather but hardly the best spring might offer Manhattan. I’d left the top up on my snazzy little white Kaiser-Darrin when I escorted Bob Price to the federal courthouse at Foley Square. At the Entertaining Funnies office on Lafayette Street, his partner Hal Feldman declined to come along.

"I’ve tried to talk him out of testifying,” Feldman had said. He looked like a cop who’d been trying for hours to talk a jumper in off a ledge. "He won’t hear it.”

"I know,” I said. "I tried, Maggie tried, even his shrink tried.”

"Stubborn jackass,” he said, his Brooklyn-tinged baritone ragged. "Well, I can’t watch it. I don’t go to public executions.”

Normally Hal was a dapper guy, but this morning his tailored blue suit seemed rumpled, his John Garfield-ish mug hadn’t seen a razor yet, and his wavy dark hair was like a squirmy nest of black snakes. In his mid-twenties, Feldman clearly had been sitting up all night. With a sick friend, as it turned out.

He sighed, grinned wearily, clasped my shoulder. "I’m just glad Bob’s got you to babysit him now, Jack.”

"Happy to, Hal. Just so everybody understands I don’t change diapers.” I checked my watch. "We ought to head out.”

The editor shook his head. "He’s still working on that goddamn opening statement.”

I frowned. "Hell, I thought sure he’d be finished by now. Hasn’t he been working on it for days?”

"More like weeks.” Feldman lighted up a Camel. His eyes were bloodshot. "All night, he’s been alternating NoDoz and that diet medication of his.”

"Dexedrine, you mean?”

Feldman nodded wearily. "He’s eager to go down there, Jack, into that lions’ den, can you buy it? Thinks he’s doing the right thing, the noble thing. Says he’s a friendly witness, and certainly these senators, as good patriotic Americans, will wanna do what’s right, too. You know, listen to reason.”

"That isn’t the way things work in real life.”

"Jesus,” Feldman said, rolling his eyes, "that ain’t even the way it works in our comic books.”

(From Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allen Collins)

OCTPFAS

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Books Written For Girls

The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society

 (OCTPFAS)

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Purple Stain

(Googled)
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