There was a girl on her back on a yellow towel a short distance from the pool. She had sunglasses on, big black things like Kennedy’s widow wore. As he crossed the lawn he tried to gauge from her breathing if she was asleep. He guessed not, but money said she had her eyes shut. Nobody watched an empty sky. If there were clouds he might have thought different. But if there were clouds she wouldn’t get much sunning done, would she?
And so what if she had her eyes open? She’d be curious about him, unsure at the very least. He’d still get close. If she was stupid and tried to scream, there was still a moment when the brain put that thought into action, still a moment when the lungs got ready for noise. He’d learned to do a lot in those moments.
But she had her eyes shut. And the grass softened his approach to the last. His shadow fell across her and he looked at it and thought of photos he’d seen of Central Park from the air. A big slab of one thing in the middle of something altogether different. Her skin goose-bumped where the sun was hidden. He waited for her to work it out.
*
She felt it, opened one eye. She knew he saw it. Bikinis might hide some things, she thought, but not this. He would have seen the second’s worth of tension, lines in the muscles, ligaments tightening, breath held for an instant too long. Any coolness after this would be for show. But she made with it anyway.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to see the man of the house.”
“If you mean Jerry he’s in his theatre. Watching movies.”
He stood over her a bit longer. He let her work out his story while he did the same number back.
Accent wasn’t Angeles. Nor the complexion. Bit too pink and plump for the cameras but she hadn’t found that out till she got here. Yeah. Probably taught at a nursery in Grand Forks, North Dakota somewhere hokey like that. Don't even do postcards of the place because all anyone ever does is leave. She got taught a lesson out West and rather than drag herself back where she belonged she fell into all this. It’s neither a landing or a crash.
*
His tune had to be something like ex-cop. Jerry had enough of them stop by the house on one payroll or another. Harrys or Hanks. At least one Buzz. They called guns ‘Roscoes’ or ‘heaters’ or ‘pieces’ and were muscle that had turned to fat. Not much fat on this guy, though. Suit was somewhere between old and new. That set him aside as well. Ex-cops just wore old. Old hats and old shoes.
He waited. He wanted to see if she’d break sweat. She didn’t. She knew she would soon enough so she spoke.
“You shouldn’t come round the back like that. You’re lucky the dogs didn’t come at you.”
“Your dogs are dead.”
*
Jerry liked the Dutch girl best. He had cut the reel so that she came in as the third tease. The two before would be ok. But just when the fellas might switch off he would drop her like a bomb. Then they all watch the rest hoping there’d be another as good as her. There wasn’t. Not in this bunch anyway. But there’d be that hope and that’d be good for business. He would need to find out from Heshie who she was and get her to do more. He’d ask if Heshie could make her look a bit more willing next time.
The door broke at the lock, broke at the hinges. It came with a noise that hurt. The projector lit up cyclones of dust and splinters. Jerry tried to look past the patterns suspended in the air but found he couldn’t. His brain wouldn’t change up a gear. That’s why his hand was reaching under his jacket still for a gun he knew wasn’t there. It just pumped away, opening and closing on nothing.
Detached from his body, unable to get any kind of sensible response from it, Jerry watched his execution as a spectator.The man. Jerry knew him as Wheeler, but not if that was Wheeler Something, or Something Wheeler. He’d never thought to ask before.
Wheeler drew a long-barrelled revolver from a shoulder holster, and without fully extending his arm, shot once; level with Jerry’s gut.
Jerry was astonished. He swore he felt the round come out, but not go in. Fancy that. He was well past stopping this. Dying was going to be like a science for him. His hands went to his middle just to find where he’d opened. Under the ribs. It had torn his tie.
The next one he felt all the way through. He felt bones break. He felt stuff tear. He felt like he’d had enough. Might have been an idea to fall down at this point, but his legs weren’t listening.
Last one had purpose. Wheeler put it where he wanted to. Jerry stopped processing events. He’d got stuck on fear. That’s all he could feel now as one final, unwelcome question got answered. The Dutch girl kept dancing.
*
Wheeler reloaded. He knew there’d be trouble. He went back outside to wait for it.
Tuesday 21 August 2007
Introduction.
Does the name Edmond Bayer ring a bell? Ellis Luther? How about Max Marshall Ford? Can you say you’ve ever heard of S.K. Constantine?
Probably not. But if you’d heard of one of them, you knew then of Lincoln Lee Varsey, for all of the above were pen-names used in his prolific career as a novelist and screen-writer. All of the above were the names on the covers of some of the most thrilling stories of the 20th Century
A versatile writer, he has been all but forgotten today. His books are out of print, and his name seldom mentioned in the company with which he belongs - Richard Matheson, Jim Thompson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, to name but a few.
Perhaps the breadth of fiction is to blame. For who would consider that vicious thug Wheeler, elegant secret agent John Harmsway, solemn warrior Aalaak: The Savage King, galactic champion Eli Echo, masked avenger The Dread Whisper and bickering gunmen Plomo and Plata were all creations of the same man? Different names on the spines – Edmond Bayer forever linked with Harmsway’s globe-trotting danger, Max Marshall Ford bound to the dust and treachery of his ‘pistoleros’ (even Emilio Bosso’s feature film trilogy ‘Lead and Silver’ ‘For the Bride and For the Husband’ and ‘Coins in the Sand’ (‘Kill Lead and Kill Silver’ in the US) have vanished into obscurity) – but all from the one mind.
And what of the man? I’d tell his history here, but so little of it is known. And it seems like few people can agree on what they do know. He was said to have served in WWII; there are accounts of him injuring his eye as a marine at Guadalcanal, but also stories of how he ruined his hand jumping from a plane above the English Channel (legend has it he typed all his work with the one hand. Quite an achievement when you consider a the height of his career he put out four novels a year.) His actual Military Record has never been revealed. Similarly details of his death are also contested, to the extent where fans aren’t even convinced he has died (The Washington Post published an obituary in 1980, which was little more than a list of work and a photograph believed to be Varsey, but later discovered to have been of Wayman Llewell, another author who had worked at Blue Label Mystery Magazine at the same time as Varsey)
What is known is his first writing job was for Top Notch Funnies in 1944 writing as Buzz Baker, and the first time he had his own creation published was at Blue Label, when the first 'Dread Whisper' strip ran, with art by Eli Biro (later the inspiration for the planet-hopping pilot first seen in 'Castles on Phobos') in 1946. His last published work was the crime novel ‘Never Too Deadly To Die’ in 1974. A masterwork that saw only one printing, in French. (Don't worry, I have the English manuscripts)
So far, with the help of other collectors and with access to the vaults at Callisto Publishing, I’ve been able to put together a formidable amount of Varsey’s work. The real treasures have been the unpublished material. Of which there is a considerable amount (an abandoned treatment for the last Lead and Silver film, which has a very, very different ending – I imagine there will be a lot of controversy over that.) with more and more gems uncovered each day.
I’ve been a fan since I picked up the first Edmond Bayer novel ‘The Tiger and Harmsway’ in Greenwich six years ago. I think I’ve held onto him as a secret joy for long enough. I’ve decided to go with 1964’s 'The Devil His Due' as the first reprint, not only because it’s the title of this blog, but also it’s the first thing published under his real name.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lincoln Lee Varsey.
Probably not. But if you’d heard of one of them, you knew then of Lincoln Lee Varsey, for all of the above were pen-names used in his prolific career as a novelist and screen-writer. All of the above were the names on the covers of some of the most thrilling stories of the 20th Century
A versatile writer, he has been all but forgotten today. His books are out of print, and his name seldom mentioned in the company with which he belongs - Richard Matheson, Jim Thompson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, to name but a few.
Perhaps the breadth of fiction is to blame. For who would consider that vicious thug Wheeler, elegant secret agent John Harmsway, solemn warrior Aalaak: The Savage King, galactic champion Eli Echo, masked avenger The Dread Whisper and bickering gunmen Plomo and Plata were all creations of the same man? Different names on the spines – Edmond Bayer forever linked with Harmsway’s globe-trotting danger, Max Marshall Ford bound to the dust and treachery of his ‘pistoleros’ (even Emilio Bosso’s feature film trilogy ‘Lead and Silver’ ‘For the Bride and For the Husband’ and ‘Coins in the Sand’ (‘Kill Lead and Kill Silver’ in the US) have vanished into obscurity) – but all from the one mind.
And what of the man? I’d tell his history here, but so little of it is known. And it seems like few people can agree on what they do know. He was said to have served in WWII; there are accounts of him injuring his eye as a marine at Guadalcanal, but also stories of how he ruined his hand jumping from a plane above the English Channel (legend has it he typed all his work with the one hand. Quite an achievement when you consider a the height of his career he put out four novels a year.) His actual Military Record has never been revealed. Similarly details of his death are also contested, to the extent where fans aren’t even convinced he has died (The Washington Post published an obituary in 1980, which was little more than a list of work and a photograph believed to be Varsey, but later discovered to have been of Wayman Llewell, another author who had worked at Blue Label Mystery Magazine at the same time as Varsey)
What is known is his first writing job was for Top Notch Funnies in 1944 writing as Buzz Baker, and the first time he had his own creation published was at Blue Label, when the first 'Dread Whisper' strip ran, with art by Eli Biro (later the inspiration for the planet-hopping pilot first seen in 'Castles on Phobos') in 1946. His last published work was the crime novel ‘Never Too Deadly To Die’ in 1974. A masterwork that saw only one printing, in French. (Don't worry, I have the English manuscripts)
So far, with the help of other collectors and with access to the vaults at Callisto Publishing, I’ve been able to put together a formidable amount of Varsey’s work. The real treasures have been the unpublished material. Of which there is a considerable amount (an abandoned treatment for the last Lead and Silver film, which has a very, very different ending – I imagine there will be a lot of controversy over that.) with more and more gems uncovered each day.
I’ve been a fan since I picked up the first Edmond Bayer novel ‘The Tiger and Harmsway’ in Greenwich six years ago. I think I’ve held onto him as a secret joy for long enough. I’ve decided to go with 1964’s 'The Devil His Due' as the first reprint, not only because it’s the title of this blog, but also it’s the first thing published under his real name.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lincoln Lee Varsey.
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