Noir

by Christopher Moore

Not the scream of a startled little girl, mind you, but a manly scream: the scream of a fellow who has caught his enormous dong in a revolving door while charging in to save a baby that was on fire or something.

There are times in a guy’s life when he finds himself floating facedown in a sea of troubles, and as hope bubbles away, he thinks, How the hell did I get here?

She had the kind of legs that kept her butt from resting on her shoes—a

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 in pouring drinks, welding ships, bird-dogging broads, and waxing poetical on both this and that.

Sal knew his place was only a block out of Chinatown, and that the Chinese were in San Francisco long before the Italians, and that his Italian fisherman ancestors had been selling fish to Moo Shoes’s Chinese forefathers for five generations, but he chose to ignore that in favor of showing his patriotism to the general with indiscriminate discrimination.

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 . . .

“Fog’s a little slutty tonight,” said the cabbie, leaning against his hack at the curb outside Sal’s.

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.)

In short, he liked her, and by getting up and putting the chill on Sal and General Remy when she did, she’d showed him a kindness, although a sneaky and crooked kindness, which he also liked.

It led into a brick building jammed between two other buildings, the entire structure no more than eight feet wide, but going up the same four full stories as the buildings flanking it—as if someone had seen a very narrow alley and thought, Now that’s a place I’d like to stack some bricks, a place where they can’t possibly fall over.

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

“The fuck is jook?” “It’s rice porridge. Very hearty. This place is a jook house. Been here since we built the railroad. Guy’s working, runs in here, slurps some jook—maximum food, minimum time.”

“Wait, what’s gwai lo? That’s what all these guys said when we came in.” “Uh, it means ‘new friend.’” “I don’t think so,” said Sammy. The old guy next to Sammy leaned over and said, “‘White devil.’” “No,” said Eddie. “Don’t listen to him, he doesn’t even speak English.” “Can mean ‘ghost person,’” said the old guy on the other side of Moo. Sammy looked from one geezer to the other. “Hey, screw you guys! I am not a white devil!” “Calm down,” said Moo Shoes. “It’s just an expression. No one thinks you’re actually a white devil.” “White devil very touchy,” said the old guy next to Sammy.

The old guys had all pulled bills out and were waving them in the air at the noodle guy like guys calling out bets at a craps game. The guy with the glass box opened the hinged lid and the snakes all struck at his hand, missed, then slid back down into the liquid. He took a very long ladle with a bowl that held maybe a jigger, reached into the tank, scooped some of the amber liquid from the bottom, then poured it over the noodles the other guy was holding. The noodle guy then ran down the counter to the farthest guy and delivered the bowl to an ecstatic old man, then snatched the twenty-dollar bill out of the old guy’s hand.

old Chinese guys will eat and drink all kinds of weird stuff to get a boner. The stranger and more deadly the better. Those snakes are sea snakes, the most deadly in the world, so they give the best boners, but I’ve seen them with coral snakes, rattlesnakes, a cobra once. The more deadly, the better stiffy.”

“Why, I’ll bet my uncle Davey could take you out in the first round, ya macaroon.” “A macaroon is a cookie, kid.” “No it ain’t. You’re a dirty liar.”

“Well,” said Sal, “it is a well-known fact that pizza is invented in Naples, as well as pasta—” “And the douche bag,” I said. “Really? I never hear that,” said Sal. “Yeah,” said I, spinning up the engines. “In fact, when Leonardo da Vinci is in Naples he does the first early drawings of the douche bag. Naples is to douche bags what Kitty Hawk is to airplanes.”

“A preponderance?” “Yeah, it means a shitload.

The Bohemians were a fixture in San Francisco for quite a long time, and there was no little mystery about what went on at their camp up in the redwoods a couple of hours north of the city, but rumor was that very powerful guys from all walks of life gathered there to come up with some very influential capers having to do with running the world, such as the Manhattan Project and the New Deal and whatnot. It seemed that they had as members most of the last dozen or so presidents, as well as captains of industry and the odd artist or writer, which they kept around so their name wasn’t completely phony.

(Sal always said “Madame Mabel” with her title, like she was a doctor or senator or had received an advanced degree in Salami Concealment from a respected College of Floozie Management.)

or perhaps he was just a lowbrow mug who wouldn’t know how to treat a member of the gentler sex if she smacked him upside the head with a sack full of vaginas.

“Punani Toons.”

“Punani?” asked the big cop. “Father was Hawaiian. Pet name he had for my mother. No idea what it means. A type of orchid, I think.”

“Well, he’s as dim as a three-watt bulb, ain’t he? If you’re planning a caper, that’s the flatfoot you want flapping after you. That mug couldn’t catch a cough in a tire fire. Almost makes you want to go commit some crimes just ’cause you know you could get away with it.

It wasn’t love yet, so he might still escape, but he didn’t remember ever liking anyone quite as much as he found himself liking this broad, and with that he smiled like a dog at a barbecue for the blind.

“Nah, that’s not my game, Mabes. I need a dame.” “Color me surprised,” said Mabel. She fitted a cigarette into a long

ivory holder and waited for him to light it for her. “No luck at the hardware store and the barbershop, then? Thought you’d take a shot in the dark and stop in to my joint?”

“Look, Sal, I got a good business here, but it only runs at the pleasure of the powers that be, from the mayor to the cops. Some of the city supervisors are my best customers, so I got connections. Connections I use and connections I need. But the Bohemians, that’s a whole different level of juice. Those guys got power that runs countries. They eat mugs like Pookie O’Hara and the mayor for breakfast. Presidents, princes, scientists, artists, Nobel Prize mugs, the whole kit and caboodle. They say they hatched the atom bomb up at their little cookout—you do not fuck with guys like that. And from time to time, they throw a little business my way, and they pay extra for discretion, which they don’t have to, because if I don’t have discretion, my business caves like an accordion.

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.

until Sammy was stalled in a struggle with her bra and she pushed him back to give him a hand. “It doesn’t look like it should be that tough,” he explained, noting with a kiss that most of her was already spilling out the top when he’d started. “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.”

And they were off again. Oh yes, there were trains and tunnels, rockets blasting off, torpedoes clearing their tubes, pistons and cylinders, oil rigs pumping, bridges collapsing, stars exploding, galaxies expanding, and a squeaky part that sounded like angry mice. He was Romeo and she was Juliet, he was Heathcliff and she was Cathy, he was Tristan and she was Isolde, he was Ahab and she was Moby-Dick, she was the Titanic and he was the Iceberg, and they liked that so much that he was the Iceberg for a while and she was the Titanic. She

was Snow White and he was the Seven Dwarfs, he was the Scarecrow and she was the Flying Monkeys—it was an epic and divine disaster they acted out in that little crawl-space apartment, taking breaks to breathe, and drink gin and smoke, and they even dozed off together toward dawn.

Ya dirty solenoid.” “That’s not a thing, kid. A solenoid is a car part.” “No it ain’t. Whadda you know?”

When the Martians get here you’ll fold like a furlong.”

“That’s a unit of measure. Eighth of a mile.” “No it ain’t, and you’re a dirty lyin’ furlong for sayin’ it is.

“Struffoli,” I told him. “Pauley Struffoli.” “Well, Mr. St—Mr. Stru— What kind of name is that?” “It’s an Italian name. A proud Italian name, from a proud Italian dessert. Made of little balls of dough. It’s proud and delicious. My people went to war over struffoli, you ignorant fuck.” That was partially true. Struffoli is delicious.

Chinatown is a mystery wrapped in an enigma,

wrapped in a wonton, and fried.

and don’t call him Mao, call him Ho. Get in the habit. Mao is a nickname. Not a flattering one.” “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.”

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

“Is that what I ordered?” “You wanted two eggs, sunny-side up, and buttered rye toast, right?” “Yeah, but it didn’t sound like that.”

“We have our own professional language here, mister. Like lawyers and scientists.” “Crusty cow and frog sticks!” called Myrtle from down the counter. “Drag it through Wisconsin!” “What’s that?” asked the guy in front of Stilton. “Cheeseburger, well done, with fries.”

“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!” Sammy raised a questioning eyebrow to the Cheese.

“Franks and beans, two spaghetti and meatballs, and a chili dog with onions,” Stilton translated. “I think she just made that last one up to show off for you.”

“Hot baby puke, Phil! Squeeze a bunny over it!” She turned and grinned at Sammy. The beleaguered Phil stopped and put both hands on his side of the counter pass-through. “What in hell is that?” “Oatmeal with raisins,” she said coyly. “Everyone knows that.”

that and turned toward his grill. “Never mind!” said Stilton. “Cancel that, Phil. Instead, ax-murder a monkey and hump it three times!” Phil wheeled back to the window, a man who was just about reaching the end of his spatula. “Just messing with you, Philly,” said the Cheese. “But that’s a banana split, in case we get in the weeds.” “You girls do the ice cream,” said Phil. “I know, that’s why I was just messing with you.”

Chinatown had gone from a place for making a living to a place for having fun. A young man in possession of a ten-spot could get his future told, his belly filled, his back rubbed, his crank yanked, and leave with a jade Buddha on his key chain, all within a twenty-foot stretch of sidewalk.

They got off at Ocean Beach, between the Great Highway and Playland, where, as usual, a freezing wind whipped off the Pacific at about seven hundred miles per hour, whistling