Noir

by Christopher Moore

“What do I call you, then, miss?” I asked the blonde, locking my baby blues on her cow browns, careful not to ogle her wares, as dames often do not care for that, even when it is evident that they have spent no little time and effort preparing their wares for ogling.

Definitely not PC.

“Okay,” I said, relatively sure this daffy broad was making up cheeses.

I like a dame who knows her Kipling, or any poetry, for that matter, as I am a sensitive and poetic soul. My dear ma was an English teacher, and from the time I squeaked out my first word she steeped me deeply in metaphor, simile, symbolism, alcoholism, and all the various iambs of the poetic tradition, all of which have served me greatly over the years

“Roswell, New Mexico,”

Uh oh.

The fog lay spread across the city like a drowned whore—damp, cold, smelling of salt and diesel—a sea-sodden streetwalker who’d just bonked a tugboat . . .

Carl, what on earth are you doing?

June gloom in the city, or as Mark Twain had put it, “Summer in Frisco makes a guy want to snatch a flounder up by the lapels and slap the damp off of him.” (One of Twain’s lesser-known quotes.)

most of them so wrinkled and desiccated they could have been constructed entirely of scrotal skin.

OMG he has a way with words.

I want to go to the pictures. There’s a new one down to the Alhambra, with Bogey and that skinny doll from To Have and Have Not, and it’s supposed to be shot right here on Telegraph Hill,

That would be "Dark Passage", a great Bogart/Bacall flick that starts with Bogey escaping from San Quentin.

That’s when the first kiss happened. It was the kind of kiss that he wanted to wake up to and keep refreshing periodically until he got one long last one, salty with tears, in his casket.

Down the other side of the hill wooden stairs zigged and zagged back and forth, joined by paths between gardens maintained by the people who lived in houses perched on the hillside, cozy cottages and modern Deco apartment buildings, none very tall, all wound up in trees and flowers and gravity, looking out on the bay.

Filbert Street steps! Just below the Art Deco building Bacall had the penthouse in from that movie.

“It’s French,” she said. “They designed it like a zoo—you know, keep ’em in, but give everyone a good look at ’em. Ah, I can’t get it, help.” She rolled onto her face to give him a good shot at the hooks in the back. “Free my people!” “I will. I am the Harriet Tubman of your breasts.”

“That Herb Caen guy at the Chronicle is probably covering it up. Commie bastard.”

Yeah, in 1947 Caen was doing his six-times-a-week column at the Chron. It wasn't until 1950 that he switched to the Examiner for most of a decade.

“Who shit in your tuba?” asked the cabbie.

How does he come up with this dialog? Inventive; sounds *almost* authentic.

“What’s buzzin’, cousin?” said Moo Shoes, chipper as a squirrel munching coffee beans.

I was lost. See, Chinatown is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a wonton, and fried.

“Why, what’s it mean?” “It means ‘cat,’ but the full nickname is Gao Mao Yow.” “So what does that mean?” “‘Cat fucker.’” “You’re kidding.” “No. It’s why he’s shunned by the family.” “Someone caught him—” “My father. Yes.” “And that’s not allowed?” “No! They were going to eat that cat.”

I wish he hadn't gone there.

“Pair of cluckberries, staring at ya!” Stilton called. “Burn some whisky and smear it with cow paste!”

Two eggs, sunnyside up, and buttered rye toast.

“Bow-wows and whistle berries!” Myrtle called into the window. “Two fat dagos in the straw! Bun pup, take a shit on it and make it cry!”

Franks and beans, two spaghetti and meatballs, and a chili dog with onions.

“Nah, I was just using it as a crutch.”

Ouch.

They were locals, and knew what the author Jack London had said about Ocean Beach in 1902: “Holy fuck, you couldn’t get a match lit here to save your life.”

Only during the summer.

the fog off the bay was streaming between the buildings like a scarf through a stripper’s legs, leaving everything damp and smelling of sailors’ broken dreams.

Bailey turned to see another agent coming down the stairs. “Potter,” said the new man. “Let’s get this one on board so I can get in the air.” Potter wore sunglasses, a black fedora, and a parachute pack. Over a blue suit. A blue suit. Bailey felt the order in his world spin into chaos.

A *blue* suit!?!

Eddie bounced his eyebrows in the manner of a guy who has wang-dang-doodled the dragon and can park in the Forbidden Palace anytime he likes, but as a gentleman, he changed the subject.

Don’t get me wrong, I got used to it, but them first few times—well—it was a surprise.”

Subject may have the ability to greatly enlarge lesbians. Extreme caution recommended in future,

I was comforted by the fact that a creature from outer space was helping my girlfriend sweep up two vaporized government murderers in our room, so it was highly unlikely that things were going to get much weirder in the near future.

“Can we just shoot him?” asked Hatch. “Sammy hit a guy so hard once, he pooped his kidneys out. Right out his butt.” Bailey wished for the tenth time since the morning that the giant lesbian hadn’t taken their guns.

“We will, but not right away. Let them get to know him.” “So they’ll feel sorry for him?” “Yeah, something like that. You ever read a story called ‘The Ransom of Red Chief’?”