THE VICE CZAR MURDERS by Franklin Charles (Wilfred Funk
1941)
The reason I chose this novel for my kickoff to 1940s month
is that according to Hubin "Franklin Charles" is a
collaboration between Cleve F. Adams and Robert Leslie
Bellam. Adams was the creator of Rex McBride and other
extreme hard-boiled detectives remarkable for their
unappealing qualities. Adams seemed to delight in making his
characters hard to like. They managed to be cruel, violent
and stupid with hardly a breath of wit or intentional humor.
They operate in a world that is matter-of-factly fascist as
well as corrupt.
Cleve Adams has always fascinated me. He was an above average
writer and I have to wonder why he would delight in making
his characters hard to like. Despite his headliner role in
the pulps of the 1930s and 40s and the considerable number of
novels that made their way into hardback, he has never drawn
interest by the revivalists. And I understand the reasons for
that. When he is remembered at all, it is because of the
correspondence he maintained with his friend Raymond
Chandler.
Bellam is best known for his creation Dan Turner, the
Hollywood Detective, the hero of scores of screwball
novelettes. A Bellam story is as outrageously funny as an
Adams story is impossibly grim. So what do you get when you
combine the two? A pretty good novel, I discovered, well
worth searching out despite the flaws of a very complicated,
unlikely plot.
Adams plots were always impossibly complicated but then so
were Chandler's and many others from the golden age of the
hard-boiled novel. Our rescuers from the drawing room mystery
took us into the allies and gutters but too often brought
with them the numerous red herrings and the "everyone has a
motive" concept of Dame Agatha.
But combining Adams and Bellam resulted in a novel that
brings strengths from both writers. The tone is lighter,
there is some humor even while the overall theme is
serious.
The lead character is William Rock, an investigator with the
district attorneys office. The DA is under pressure from the
newspapers about vice in the city because the newspaper
publisher has a personal grudge against the DA. It is
unfortunate that the columnist Dan Corrigan, who is blasting
his boss, happens to be married to Rock's sister. The DA,
according to the newspaper, is ignoring the wide-open vice in
the city that ranges from high-priced, Hollywood star
look-alike prostitutes all the way to white slavery trade
shipping girls to South America.
The novel opens with Rock visiting a burlesque house in a
nasty mood typical of an Adams detective. "He sulked,
watching the gyrations of the sub-morons who made up the
chorus." But he manages to make a date to meet one of the
dancers later in the evening. When he walks into her room,
he's slugged and wakes up on the floor holding the pistol
that killed the girl. When he gets his eyes open, he is
looking up at a ring of cops. "They had nice whipcord
uniforms of olive drab and Sam Browne belts and everything.
Looking up at them from the floor they seemed very tall,
almost the supermen the commissioner liked to call
them."
The regular police hate the DA's men and Rock didn't blame
them. "It was the system that was responsible...His (the
DA's) natural alibi is the inefficiency of the police
department, and any investigating he does on his own account
is just an added slap in the face."
The lead cop on Rock's case is a lieutenant named Jack
Santanya who was
"pretty good" but had a "hair-trigger, uncertain temper."
Rock respects Santanya even while he is being smacked by him.
"I know which ball comes up after the seven," Rock said.
"Even looking at it from behind."
Rock manages to escape and is on the run for the rest of the
book. Oh, he's recaptured now and then and undergoes a
particularly brutal third degree.
"...He was more or less grateful to the guy for kicking him
on the chin. He didn't think the top of his head could have
stood anymore." But he always manages to escape or to be
rescued by a cabby he befriends named Smitty. I have to tip
my hat to Mike Nevins for pointing out that Adams loved
having smart-talking savvy cabbies on hand to rescue his
heroes.
There is a wealthy older woman nicknamed Diamond Annie, who
made her money in the vice trade but that was back in the
gold camp days and now is accorded respect by the DA, the
publisher, and the cops. Rock's sister becomes involved,
accused of one of the many murders, worried about her missing
journalist husband, and generally getting in Rock's way.
"This was what you got for having a family, he thought. No
wonder they preached birth control. The guys who started that
movement must have had sisters too."
The bodies pile up and so do the plot complications. Rock
tries to sort it out but it's tough to do between beatings
and shootings. "Rock dodged the blank wall at the end of this
train of thought and tackled something else."
He also has to battle the distractions of a blonde "wearing
an evening gown of clinging green lame that italicized her
sleek contours, and her stockings were two-thread chiffon
that must have cost five dollars a copy of somebody's money."
He's trying to question the blonde ("Hell's fire, will you
quit waving your legs and answer me?") when in walks his
girlfriend, his sister and her columnist husband. Pure Bellam
and a scene worthy of Thorne Smith.
I won't try to summarize the plot except to say that all
characters, friend and foe of Rock, are motivated by a
variety of personal interests rather than any public-spirited
desire to clean up the city. There was a vice ring operating
and it was being ignored by the DA but the publisher attacked
him because he hated the DA. Rock solves the mystery of who
is behind the vice ring because he has to in order to clear
his name and along the way save people close to him.
The attraction of the novel is the gritty feel of a corrupt
city, lots of action, funny bits and nice turns of phrase.
And more than anything else, the gallery of memorable
characters. I'll give you one more, a bad guy who walks in
the room after his confederates have Rock spread-eagled on a
bed, bound tightly head and foot.
"The other guy was tough. He'd been born tough and you could
see that the years hadn't softened him any. His round head
was a naked as a cue ball. The rest of his fact was an
assortment of twisted features and pockmarks, and there were
a couple of knife scars thrown in, just to make it harder. He
had kind eyes. The kind the Chinese put in their
dragons."
The tough guy ignores Rock while he talks to his comrades
about the ongoing interrogation. "Go right ahead," Rock said.
"Just pretend I'm not here. My feelings aren't easily
hurt."
"That's what you think," the baldheaded guy says as he leans
down to strike a match on Rock's trouser front to light his
cigarette.
Now that's a great scene!
Richard Moore
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