Killing didn’t bother Wheeler. Not this late in the day. Maybe in the war he felt something; regret, shame, sadness, but he couldn’t be sure. He only remembered the fact of it; that he had picked up his rifle and kept himself alive at the expense of others.
His head was always clear. Clear before, clear after. It wasn’t coldness as such. Once a woman had called him a fatalist, and he clung onto that. He didn’t think they had a name for it, but sure, fatalist was just about a perfect way to say it. When they put names, addresses and money in an envelope for him, he pocketed it. So long as he could kill someone, then it was their time to die.
It fit how he saw the world, before the war even. He had seen that man, trapped at the road’s edge by the weight of an upturned car. The people who had given up hope for him and stayed hoping for themselves when fire started, running away while he called out and cried. There were minutes between them all knowing it was too late and them all actually seeing it. Wheeler had sat on his bike and heard that man ask ‘Why?’ with a despair he’d heard a hundred times since. Back then he knew there was no such question as why. Not for dying.
But his body was never as clear on these things as his mind. It seemed to burn up more of him that he liked when he killed and he always felt spent and a little sick afterwards. Even if he’d done as little as line up one shot, just as soon as the man at the other end expired, Wheeler’s insides would go to smoke. He felt like bottled vapour and he never got used to it. Other men he’d seen at work sometimes got shakes, and Wheeler knew he was lucky not to get those. They cost men dearly, he’d seen that much. But all the same, he would have done anything to turn to solid rock when he felt ghosts inside.
Which is why he was lucky to sit across from the runaway.
Wheeler had driven north for about an hour and then stopped at a place to eat. He knew he had to eat, but there was nothing inside him but sickness and smoke and finding an appetite for grease or meat or salt sweat tastes was a trick and a half. He sat at the counter with the menu propped in front of him, not really reading, just making busy until he’d talked himself into ordering. It was then he saw the boy. A scruffy, skinny kid who had the collar of a shirt and two jackets turned up. He came with a kit back and rolled up blankets and it was Wheeler’s guess that he had run away from home. Maybe he wanted to join the Army or maybe he didn’t. The kid looked healthy enough, he can’t have been on the road all that long. Wheeler watched him, but the boy never noticed. The boy was too confident to care and Wheeler was too good to be caught. Wheeler knew the boy wasn’t trouble, but he seized him up like he was. The kid probably carried a switchblade, had a good reach and was likely quick and fierce. He had been in fights before and might even have won some of them. He was too thin to take any long punishment, and he was handsome, which meant he would back away if he could. Wheeler had no intention to fight him, these were checks he ran on anyone, the same way he knew the waitress would kick better than most men, and if the short order chef had a knife, Wheeler had better have a gun.
If Wheeler did have to fight, if this kid wanted cash, or the cops drew up outside, Wheeler wouldn’t be fit. Not with the ghosts.
The runaway ordered a Chocolate Malt. Wheeler found himself talking. Just into open air at first.
“Chocolate Malt?”
“What’s that pops?” the kid came back. Something dry about his voice.
“Nah, nothing.” Wheeler said. “Just haven’t had one of them since I was in short pants.”
“You looking to have some of mine?”
“No, son. I’m not looking for trouble either. Just talking.”
“Talking a whole lot about Chocolate Malt.”
“Guess I am. That all you’re having?”
“I got a lot of walking.” By now the shake had been set in front of him, and he took a long, indulgent slug of it and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “And not much cash. These things put the hunger back, you know what I mean? Feels like a meal, and tastes a damn sight better than some slop and cheese.”
“Smart.”
“Not enough not to be where I am. But maybe more than most.”
“Maybe.”
Something about it fit with Wheeler and he turned to the waitress, who was sizing them both up, and ordered. “I’ll have what the kids having.”
“You gonna pay for mine?”
“If I did, kid, you’d think something about me that just aint true.”
“Guess so.”
“And you’d do well do go without that kind of help, whether offered or asked for.”
The waitress smirked at this, which was something Wheeler didn’t like. The kid didn’t like it either and drank up in silence before leaving. Wheeler had wanted to say good luck, but whatever happened to the kid now was nothing to do with him. Instead he watched the waitress until she understood.
Wheeler took it all as an omen. The milkshake was his talisman. The thing had gone down thick and smooth and had dowsed fires and filled up everywhere he was empty. It was like a meal, and more. The ghosts disappeared and Wheeler was back on the road, repaired.
Monday, 21 July 2008
The Devil His Due. Chapter Two: The Borrowed Man
They had communicated with a man they thought was called John Teak. But he was not. He looked like John Teak in as much as he had a blank, flat face on a square head sat atop a slender body, with broad shoulders. John Teak was slightly taller, but that was fixed by lifts in the shoes. John Teak had smaller hands, but you could trust that very few would ever pick up on this. John Teak had short salt and pepper hair, and though this man was born blonde, he was salt and pepper today, and had been for four weeks, parted to the left, the same way John Teak did. This man had narrower eyes, and one of them did not contain the slight smudge of pigment in the right eye that made John Teak’s look like a drop of milk in black coffee. This was regrettable, but not problematic, as none of his employers had even met the real John Teak.
John Teak, the real John Teak was sunk somewhere in Florida. His head and his hands apart from the rest of him, but deep in the black stink of swamp all the same. This new John Teak had his wallet and his car, and four of his suits. He also had John Teak’s pipe, though he did not use it.
In New York they shook hands with him. They took him at his name because they lacked imagination. He felt a flicker of disgust at this, behind a door he seldom ever opened. Then the flicker was gone. It was fine, he reasoned. If these people had imagination, they would not need him. If people did not disgust him, he would have to think differently about his work.
John Teak, the new John Teak, cut a length of electrical cord from a lamp and curled either end around either fist. He curled the rest around the neck of Antonio Ceres.
When Mr. Ceres had stopped kicking, and his hands dropped, John Teak let go. Then he took from an envelope in his pocket $1,000 in $20 bills - the same sum Ceres had allegedly taken just to write down the address of the now late Archie Vander. The money was curled into a short pipe of paper and, as per New York’s orders, pushed into the open mouth of the dead man.
When the police later questioned the hotel staff on duty that day, they did not remember the man in the blue suit who had crossed the lobby in full view of most of them.
After this, the man pretending to be John Teak would have to pretend to be someone else. A routine precaution. At the airport he would watch for a man, a dull man of a similar build, hopefully alone and hopefully close to his looks. John Teak had lasted for three assignments and would have to retire. The man that travelled back to Geneva was yet to be found.
He called New York, and they made him hang up so they could call him back. He listened to what they had to say, which was panicked, excitable, noisy. They forgot to even thank him for the service he had just performed. Now they wanted to bully him into something else. He called Geneva, which was out of the ordinary, but New York had insisted he did. Geneva spoke coolly, without rushing into things, but the message was the same. His contract with New York was to carry over into this new item. They would pay him the same rate again, and then once more on top.
If he could kill a man called Wheeler.
John Teak, the real John Teak was sunk somewhere in Florida. His head and his hands apart from the rest of him, but deep in the black stink of swamp all the same. This new John Teak had his wallet and his car, and four of his suits. He also had John Teak’s pipe, though he did not use it.
In New York they shook hands with him. They took him at his name because they lacked imagination. He felt a flicker of disgust at this, behind a door he seldom ever opened. Then the flicker was gone. It was fine, he reasoned. If these people had imagination, they would not need him. If people did not disgust him, he would have to think differently about his work.
John Teak, the new John Teak, cut a length of electrical cord from a lamp and curled either end around either fist. He curled the rest around the neck of Antonio Ceres.
When Mr. Ceres had stopped kicking, and his hands dropped, John Teak let go. Then he took from an envelope in his pocket $1,000 in $20 bills - the same sum Ceres had allegedly taken just to write down the address of the now late Archie Vander. The money was curled into a short pipe of paper and, as per New York’s orders, pushed into the open mouth of the dead man.
When the police later questioned the hotel staff on duty that day, they did not remember the man in the blue suit who had crossed the lobby in full view of most of them.
After this, the man pretending to be John Teak would have to pretend to be someone else. A routine precaution. At the airport he would watch for a man, a dull man of a similar build, hopefully alone and hopefully close to his looks. John Teak had lasted for three assignments and would have to retire. The man that travelled back to Geneva was yet to be found.
He called New York, and they made him hang up so they could call him back. He listened to what they had to say, which was panicked, excitable, noisy. They forgot to even thank him for the service he had just performed. Now they wanted to bully him into something else. He called Geneva, which was out of the ordinary, but New York had insisted he did. Geneva spoke coolly, without rushing into things, but the message was the same. His contract with New York was to carry over into this new item. They would pay him the same rate again, and then once more on top.
If he could kill a man called Wheeler.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
The Devil His Due. Chapter One: Entrances and Exits.
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.
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.
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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