Dick Tracy's Dark and Stormy Night

Last week I wrote about Mike Curtis and Joe Staton's homage to Sherlock Holmes (see: Dick Tracy's Final Problem). As in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original story, both the detective and his arch enemy were locked in a mortal struggle at the Reichenbach Falls, and both apparently tumbled to their doom.

Tracy, of course, survived and was nursed back to health by a mysterious figure.

Of course, I thought perhaps the figure was Dr. Watson. But that wasn't quite true.

Dr. Bulwer Lytton was a little delusional, but otherwise harmless (and by tending to Tracy's wounds quite helpful, actually). And if that name sounds somewhat familiar, it should.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was a well-known British novelist, playwright, poet, and politician of the Victorian Era. Some of his stories were used for operas -- Wagner's "Rienzi" is one of them. He's credited with coining phrases still in use, such as "the pen is mightier than the sword."

 But today he's remembered for the opening sentence from just one of his novels, "Paul Clifford" (1830) -- because it was used in Peanuts (first appearing in 1971, I believe).

From there, the phrase and the author became something of a joke. And now the creator of phrases like "the almighty dollar" and "the great unwashed," is memorialized by the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The goal is to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.

Kudos once again to Curtis and Staton for having a walk-on character with such rich connotations and associations.

Nanowrimo - is there an improvement?

For me, the National November Writing Month challenge wasn't quite as challenging. Could that possibly mean I'm getting better at this? Possibly. Although I should define what "this" is. The challenge is to turn off your inner editor/critic and write a 50,000 word novel over the course of 30 days.

It's not art -- just flat-out writing (sort of typing for a purpose). This year I actually started late (Nanowrimo - Late out of the gate), but by the middle of the month, I was about 25,000 words in -- exactly where I should have been (Nanowrimo -- Rounding the outside turn). In years past it's been a challenge to get those last few thousand words out, but not this time. I easily passed the 50,000 word mark, and I still have another chapter to go!

Finishing up the story feels like taking a victory lap after the race. Once I'm done, I'll give it a quick cleanup and add it to the other Nanowrimo tomes (An Anthology of Literature (Sort of)).

Yes, it's another Raven adventure, which made things easy -- the cast was set, and the story builds on the previous novels in the series. Still, this one just flowed.

So now just writing fiction isn't that difficult. But what about the actual content? This year's entry was another pulp adventure tale, set in the 1930's. The message? If you build a Diabolical Weapon, and think the authorities can't touch you, a costumed vigilante will bring about your demise.

As I like to say, great fun, but not great art. Perhaps next year I'll write a real novel about the human condition. Or maybe Raven will face another challenge from another supercrook that threatens the world...

Dent and Sail - Living up to potential, Part 2

Lester Dent was a prolific pulp magazine author, and a successful one (see part one for more details).  In 1936 Dent was writing a 40,000 word Doc Savage novel monthly, and getting paid $750 for each one (that's about $12,400 in 2913 dollars).

But Dent wanted to write something of substance, and Joseph P. Shaw, editor of Black Mask magazine, gave him that chance. Shaw forced Dent to produce the best writing of his career -- two stories about Miami-based private investigator Oscar Sail.

Angelfish - published December, 1936

As with the previous story about Oscar Sail, Dent begins by throwing the reader off balance.

She was a long, blue-eyed girl who lay squarely on her back with the sun shining in her mouth. Her teeth were small and her tongue was flat, not pointed, and there was about two whiskey glassfuls of scarlet liquid in her mouth.

As she tuned her head slowly to the side, the scarlet emptied out on the black asphalt walk, splashing her tan columnar neck and the shoulder of her white frock.

Oscar Sail stood beside her and kept looking at the gun in his hand.

Angelfish has two parallel stories -- one in the foreground, one in the background. The foreground story involved purloined documents, murder, and kidnapping -- and a considerable amount of mayhem to Oscar Sail's body. The background story is the hurricane that's rapidly approaching Miami.

Lester Dent was owned a sail boat -- as did his protagonist Oscar Sail -- and was quite familiar with the waters around Miami. He also knew quite well the real danger hurricanes present to boats.

In Angelfish the reader first hears of the storm through a radio broadcast playing in the background. As the story progresses, windows are shuttered, boats are taken to dry dock, and the city hunkers down as the storm approaches. But all of these activities are seemingly secondary to the main action. And as Oscar Sail is the only character who has nautical experience, he's also the only one who takes the approaching hurricane seriously.

At the climax, the villains (and supporting heroes) who've ignored the hurricane warnings are caught in the full fury of the storm. And Oscar Sail, who would have preferred to ride it out in safety, is stuck right in the middle of it with them.

Sail jockeyed the wheel and the stream of water moving past and pressing against the rudder caused the bugeye to swing on her chain in towards the power boat. He was facing the wind now. His polo shirt and trousers hugged one side of his body while ballooned out on the other. And he could see at all only when he held his open hand over his eyes and squinted between the fingers.

Dent's writing is fast-paced, and accurate. One can almost feel the fury of the storm as it hits.

Angelfish was published two months after Sail, and Dent was working on a third story Cay when Shaw was abruptly fired as editor of Black Mask. Dent abandoned the story, and at the same time abandoned the hope of making the move from pulp writer to literary writer.

As he said in a later interview,

[Shaw's firing] is what kept me from becoming a fine writer. Had I been exposed to the man's cunning hand for another year or two, I couldn't have missed. Instead I wrote reams of saleable crap which became my pattern and gradually there slipped away the bit of poetry Shaw had started awakening in me.

Editors can make a world of difference.

Living up to potential, part 1

Dent and Sail -- Living up to potential, Part 1

Sometimes an editor can make all the difference.

Lester Dent was a prolific and successful author of the 1930's. Beginning in 1926, just about everything Dent wrote sold. In 1932 he was contracted by Street and Smith to write a 40,000 word novel a month for their new character, Doc Savage.

Not only did Dent do so, but continued to write other stories under other aliases as well as his own name. Lester Dent developed a formula for writing fiction, and by sticking to it he could produce commercial fiction almost at will.

But as Dent himself admitted, little of it had any staying power.

Joseph P. Shaw, editor of Black Mask magazine brought the detective story into the realm of serious literature, and was responsible for developing the authors who defined the genre -- Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner (among many others).

Thanks to his encouragement, Lester Dent dug deep and produced two outstanding stories for Black Mask. These two mysteries are considered Dent's best writing (by both Dent and critics alike), and are (in my opinion) on par with the best stories produced under Shaw's leadership.

Lester Dent's writing paid well, and he owned a sailboat he enjoyed sailing to Florida. That first-hand knowledge of sailing was an integral part of "Sail" and "Angelfish," the two stories featuring Oscar Sail. The stories -- unlike the fantastic adventures of Doc Savage -- were thorough grounded in reality.

Sail - published October, 1936

The famous Dent formula is absent from Sail. There are actually two mysteries going on in this story. The one that Oscar Sail deals with is relatively straight-forward and simple. But the one Dent presents to the reader is a little more complex.

The story opens this way:

The fish trembled its tail as the knife cut off its head, thin red ran out of it and made a mess on the planks and spread enough to cover the wet red marks where two human hands had tried to hold to the dock edge.

This disturbing scene  has far more gore than the entire canon of 181 Doc Savage novels. Oscar Sail is the person gutting the fish -- and making sure its blood covers up the hand prints on the edge of the dock.

And that's the mystery for the reader. What happened, and why is this man trying to hide it? It's only about halfway through the story that we learn who Oscar Sail really is, and why he's acting the way he does.

It's masterful writing. Dent's style was always somewhat spare, but with Sail, he makes every word count. Consider his description of his hero:

The officer splashed light on Sail He saw the round jolly brown features of a thirtyish man who probably liked his food, who would put weight on until he was forty, and spend the rest of his life secretly trying to take it off.

That's a lot of characterization in one sentence.

Unlike a lot of Dent's work, Sail was revised and rewritten several times before being accepted for publication. But that's where Shaw's editorial genius came in. He knew what Dent was capable of, and wouldn't accept anything less than his best. And the esteem Sail holds among mystery scholars over 80 years after its publication attests to Shaw's success.

Living up to potential, Part 2

An Updated Directory of Literature (sort of)

As promised, I'm posting my latest National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) novel. I finally finished with the preliminary editing, so here it is. By preliminary, I mean all I did was correct the spellings and the typos, made the character names consistent, and cleaned up the grammar a little.

This is writing in the raw, but that's part of the fun of NaNoWriMo -- producing a 50,000 word novel in a month. This particular piece, The Commissar Commands, continues the adventures of Raven. Raven is a mysterious crime fighter of the 1930's, and has been the subject of all my NaNoWriMo projects.

I've always enjoyed the pulp literature of the 1930's, and the breakneck speed at which most of it was written seemed very close to the NaNoWriMo spirit.

Below are links to all the novels. One thing to keep in mind: while the writing is done, the editing has yet to start in earnest on any of these. I've tried to clean up as many mistakes as I can find, but there may be some plot points that need fixing, chronologies that need tweaking, and other structural issues a professional editor would see and correct. It's only after they've been edited that I will officially offer them to the world (and you'll see them on Amazon).

Murder Squad
Men mysteriously die of a weapon that doesn't fire bullets! Toy police badges are left at the scene of the crime! What does it mean? Can Raven solve the puzzle before becoming the next victim?

The Crimson Cypher
A dead thief found in an isolated farm yard clutches a coded message in his hand -- a message that pits Raven and Crow against a merciless army of killers in an international race to rescue Police Commissioner Rowland from certain death and save America from saboteurs!

Death in Five States
A beautiful young heiress is trapped in an express train full of killers! Can Raven and Crow reach her in time as the train of doom hurtles across the country, leaving a trail of murder behind it?


The Purple Doom
A mysterious figure holds sway over New York society. His demands are simple: pay to live, or die the horrible death known as the Purple Doom! And after Commissioner Rowland and MacGuffey are attacked, Raven must fight alone to stop the Purple Doom from destroying an entire city! 

The Crime Broker
Business is booming in the underworld. Someone is investing in crime, and the police are overwhelmed. Can Raven help stem the tide of lawlessness and stop a powerful supercrook from taking over the city?

When the Commissar Commands
Who is behind the concerted attack on American industry? A vital new weapon to Uncle Sam's arsenal is in jeopardy, and even the Federal authorities are helpless. Can Raven stop a nest of spies and unmask their leader before the weapon is stolen?

The Literary Dick Tracy 2

I've written before about how the new creative team for Dick Tracy (Mike Curtis, writer; Joe Staton, artist) has really jump-started this moribund strip. In the sequence below, Curtis has put in yet another hip literary reference (see The Literary Dick Tracy). And it's a good one. (click on image to enlarge)

"So long, and thanks for all the fish," is a familiar quote to fans of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series (it's the dolphin's final message to mankind when they leave Earth). So this aside should score big points with science fiction readers (and there's a big overlap between comics and SF, so that's not a bad thing).

Note also that Sam Ketchem delivers the line. Sam was the one talking about books in my earlier citation. Mike Curtis is doing interesting things with this character. Can't wait to discover what's next on Sam's reading list!

Ellery Queen and the Passage of Time

A colleague of mine is a professionally published mystery writer. When I told that I had always wanted to write John Dickson Carr-style locked room mysteries, she was quick to inform me that times had changed. While Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle books are still in print and still widely admired, tastes have changed. Modern readers are not interested in English tea cozies or locked room puzzles or even hard-boiled detectives. If I was serious about being a mystery writer, I needed to read current authors to understand what the public wants (and what publishers are likely to take a chance on).

Well, I can't say I want to be a mystery writer -- a mystery reader is good enough for now. I never thought Carr and the other authors I read were necessarily old-hat, but rather timeless (like Doyle). But after reading an Ellery Queen novel, I think I understand what my author friend was trying to tell me.

Ellery Queen (actually cousins  Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee) were wildly popular from their initial appearance in the 1930's. The books are admired for their "play fair" puzzles. That is, by the time you get to the reveal, you have had all the facts placed before you to make the right deduction yourself.

Great concept. But execution was something else. I suspect that when detective stories were new, there was a certain amount of shorthand involved. The reader knew  a large cast of characters were present just to give one many choices for the guilty party. Characters would do mysterious, suspicious and/or counter-productive things primarily to confuse the reader. And the puzzle was the thing.

In the hands of a talented writer (like John Dickson Carr), it's all woven into the narrative and you don't notice the seams. For Ellery Queen, though, it's different. The characters move about as directed with no natural or rational motivation. Worse yet, they don't behave consistently. All of which just calls attention to the rather pedestrian prose telling basically a word problem.

In the Chinese Orange Mystery , a man is killed in the waiting room of an office suite and then posed in a bizarre fashion. Two spears from the waiting room he was murdered in are thrust through the legs of his clothes, forming a brace. All of his clothes have been removed and put on backwards. Every chair, bookcase, and desk has been turned around. Every loose item that could has been placed upside down.

Now by the end of the mystery, there is an explanation for everything. The spears are necessary for a locked room illusion, while the backwards-turning of everything is there to hide a backwards-turned article of clothing that would have given everrything away.

(I'm being deliberately vague in case you actually want to read this mystery for yourself.)

Sure, all the clues are there -- but no rational person would ever put them together in the way the great detective did. Further, the turning everything backwards ruse was a last-minute improvisation that the killer came up with to hide a damning fact. Now really. The murderer has committed this crime in an office suite with people in other rooms across the hall, and even an attendant in the hall. Silent kill? No problem. But the whole of the killer's plan depends on only being absent from the others for a short while.

So what happens when you start moving furniture around? I don't know how it works in Ellery Queen land, but around here it's a noisy process. And a time-consuming one. And a very physical one. Yet the killer was neither out of breath (or had even worked up a sweat) when seen shortly after the murder, and no one heard a thing.

Back when the fashion was all about the puzzle, I'm sure this was a ripping yarn. But read in a different era, it just seems silly and contrived.

I guess fashions do change.

Milton Caniff - Master Cartoonist

For Christmas, I received The Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 3: 1939-1940 -- another volume in IDW's excellent Library of American Comics series. These are wonderful books, printed on high-quality paper so the artwork can be reproduced with crisp, sharp detail. And that's good -- because in Caniff's case, it's artwork worth studying.

Take this panel, for example. (click on image to enlarge)

With the continually shrinking size of comic strip panels, it's unlikely we'll see such a drawing again. In this one scene, Caniff depicts the clashing of two armies, and the way he salves many different problems simultaneously is nothing short of a tour-de-force.

First off, "Terry and the Pirates" was published in family newspapers, so Caniff was limited in how much -- and how graphically -- he could depict the violence (Dick Tracy had a corner on the Tarentino-style stuff). So if you look closely, you'll see that this panel is remarkably bloodless (even the bayonet running through the officer in the center of the panel is clean). And yet it still conveys the power of two armies clashing.

How is this possible?

One way is by composition. No one's standing around here. All of the figures are in motion, most off-balance, which adds to the energy of their poses. There's also the dynamic of the overall scene.

Caniff uses the knowledge that the reader's eye will travel from left to right to his advantage. Moving from left to right, we start with a pair of figures, one standing over the other with a rock. Then there are two fighters in closer foreground, forcing the eye to refocus. Then in the center, there's the officer getting run through, back on the same plane as the first pair.

And then the action picks up. The figures become more jumbled, the action confused, and an explosion punctuates the last third of the panel. We're also looking at the line of combat at an angle, and the figures get smaller as we near the end of the panel. Not only does this suggest depth, and give us the idea that there are many more people involved in this struggle than we can see, but it also provides closure to the scene.

Just as a song fading out signifies the end (while suggesting it keeps on going), the perspective shortening of the figures also diminish the pull on the eye, so that by the time it reaches the end of the panel, the eye is almost stationary.

And note also the judicious use of black. The left third of the panel has a white cloud behind it, the center has a black sky. The right third is punctuated by an explosion which shows more white space (but not as much as the left third) and the remainder of the panel has a big black sky. So from left to right there's a transition from a big white space to a big black space -- you can bet that was intentional.

There's much more I could write about this one panel, such as the undulating line that runs through the heads of the figures. But I'll leave the rest to the reader. Just look it over, and then think about what you're seeing. Caniff certainly did, which is why his work merits deluxe collections eighty years after the fact.

#NaNoWriMo It's Over

Recently I posted that, while the National November Writing Month challenge had ended successfully for me in once sense, in another it hadn't. The primary goal was to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. I hit the word count in the deadline given, but I still had another chapter to go.

Well, now it's done.

Below is a link to the PDF of "The Crime Broker," my 2011 NaNoWriMo project.

There are a some caveats, though. First, this is an unedited manuscript. The only think I did before posting was do a quick correction of typos and spelling errors -- that's it. Even just skimming it, I can see that the middle is pretty weak. I need to bring out more of the subplot in order for things to make more sense at the end. I also know that I use the same phrases over and over. And for some reason, I seemed to prefer the letter "W" for last names. Editing will clean all that up, I'm sure.

Still, if you want to see what happens when someone turns off their inner editor (or should I say inner critic) and just starts pounding out words, well, here it is.

If you give this a read, please let me know what you think. My long-term goal is to edit and revives this and the previous stories in the Raven series for possible e-publication. All feedback would be most helpful!


The Crime Broker - A Raven Novel by Ralph Graves

#NaNoWriMo - It's not over till it's over

Well, the National November Writing Month challenge is over. The challenge was to write 50,000 words in 30 days, and once again, I was able to do so -- but the novel, per se, isn't quite finished. Is till have a few more thousand words to write. So I'll be writing for a few days more!

And when it's finished, I'll post it with my other manuscripts from the NaNoWriMo challenge. It was a fun month, and for the first time the words flowed easily. Maybe there's something to this practice makes perfect thing...

#NaNoWriMo

Minimally Successful

There were two things I wanted to accomplish as a young man:

1) Have my music performed and recorded professionally.

2) Have my creative writings published professionally.

Well, as of today both those things happened -- but I have to say if there's a way to accomplish these goals in the smallest way possible, I managed to do it.

The music
As a classical composer, I've written over forty works, including a symphony, some smaller pieces for string orchestra, two string quartets, several collections of short piano pieces, and some chamber music as well. And some of it has been performed by professional ensembles.

But only one of my compositions has been recorded professionally. It's an early work of mine entitled "Three Etudes," Op. 2. They are three very short (each one is under a minute) little pieces for piano, written primarily as a composition exercise. The etudes were originally recorded by Robert Ian Winstin for the ERM label, and appeared on his release Piano Art. Very nice, but it's out of print.

Pianist Leanne Rees really liked the etudes, or at least the third one. She performed it in concert for a while, and was kind enough to include it on her album Women Composers & the Men In Their Lives released on Fleur de Son.

The writing
As readers of this blog know, I write continually. Professionally, I write articles, reviews, and other technical copy. I enjoy it, but it's not creative writing. Yes, I've written six novels, but they're definitely not ready for prime time.

But I do participate in the #operaplot contest, and have placed in the finals two years running. And that earned me my second goal. Because the contest winners were published as part of the Best Music Writing 2011 by Dacapo Press. Which means that I am now a published author (I got paid, and I'll get a copy of the book, so there).

So there it is.

I've now technically accomplished both my goals with a one-minute piano piece and a 140-character tweet.

Somehow, I don't have the feeling of accomplishment I thought I would....

Nanowrimo - Halfway through, and halfway there

Today marks the halfway point for the National November Writing Month challenge. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I've done this before, and every year the experience has been a little bit different (I'm hoping that these experiences will collectively make me a better writer).

This year, the words have just flowed. I've been diligently writing every morning, and in an hour and half session manage about 16,000 words -- a little over 500 words a half hour. And halfway through the challenge, I've written 25,188 words. So I'm right on track.

Of course, this is a challenge about quantity, not quality. I suspect when I get finished, I'll have a solid 30,000 word book buried in there somewhere. But that's alright. Because one of the points of this event is to turn off the internal editor that blocks the free flow of ideas and just get them out on  paper (or screen) to work with.

"The Crime Broker" is significantly off track from my outline. Oh, I'll hit the key points -- but characters have blended together, events have shifted around, and one of the recurring characters in this series I wanted to use just doesn't seem to fit in with the story as its moving right now.

To celebrate the halfway point, here's the chapter I just finished. If you check the outline, you'll see it's not there. But it does continue the thread started by the arrival of Ned Callahan. Gosh, I wonder how it will all end....


(Remember: this is a first draft with no edits. Also, this is an homage to the pulp adventure magazines of the 1930's so picture the action taking place in the New York City of the old black-and-white gangster movies.)





The Crime Broker
by Ralph Graves

Chapter 14 – Desperate Race

Raven slipped into the dark alley across the street from Palentino’s apartment. He had waited until the three thugs had departed. He heard a soft footfall behind him. It was Crow.

“I couldn’t signal the last part of the plan,” he said, not turning around. 

Crow came up behind him. “I contacted MacGuffey,” Crow said, “He’s ready and waiting.”

“Not for what’s coming,” replied Raven. “C’mon. I’ll fill you in. We’ve got to stop an ambulance!”

MacGuffey had hand-picked each man who accompanied him that evening. Every one a seasoned veteran of the force. When he captured the man who killed Ned Callahan, he didn’t want any slip-ups – or any more fatalities.

The trucks were to travel a winding route to the garment district. MacGuffey was familiar with the area the hijacking was to take place. It was an industrial area, with blocks of light manufacturing and warehouses. Plenty of places to hide in ambush, and plenty of large, double-door structures that could hide away the stolen trucks.

The truck he was riding jostled him gently as it moved down the street. Mac had to concede that Palentino had a good plan – but he had a better one.

Two black roadsters sped towards Bankroft Memorial Hospital. In the front car was Raven. He had been unable to reach Mac, and with the lead Tom and Butch had, the only option was to intercept them. Crow drove the second. The two didn’t really have a plan – but years of training had attuned the two so that they worked as a team even in the most surprising of circumstances.

Raven glanced at the dashboard’s clock. 7:10. Within five minutes Butch and Tom were scheduled to steal the ambulance, and he and Crow were still seven minutes away! Raven’s foot bore down on the gas pedal. He wove the roadster through the slow-moving traffic with the expert handling of a race  car driver. Crow remained right on his tail.

Soon the small hospital was insight. Jut one block more! As Raven approached the intersection, he saw an ambulance lurch out of the emergency exit and careen into the streets. It zoomed through the intersection, against the light. Tires squealed as surprised motorists slammed on their breaks. The ambulance made a hard right, and rocketed down a side street, its siren clearing the way ahead of it.

“Could it be – ?” Raven asked himself as the ambulance  sped past him. As if to answer, an orange flame sputtered from the right side of the ambulance, and storefront windows collapsed, their shattered glass cascading into the streets.

Raven flashed his lights and turned left in pursuit. Crow caught the signal and sped straight through the intersection and up a block. There he turned left as well, tearing down the parallel street at a breakneck pace.

The wailing siren of the runaway ambulance attracted the attention of pedestrians – the ugly snout of the machine gun sticking out the cab window sent them scurrying for cover. Tom laughed as he sprayed slugs out over the sidewalk.

Palentino dropped his cigarette to the cement floor of the warehouse and crushed it with his foot. The lookout at the dirt-encrusted window had just given him the high sign.

“OK, you mugs, pile in,” he said. The mobsters clambered into the two panel vans parked inside the warehouse. The lookout opened the warehouse doors, and hopped aboard the second van as it drove out into the street.

The large transports carrying the furs were easy to spot. They lumbered slowly up the block. Their sides bore the markings of a large trucking company, but Palentino had been given the truck numbers – the white numerals above the cabs told him these were the right ones.

The driver of the front transport saw two small panel vans approach on the left. In this area, trucks of all sizes were a common sight, but forewarned of the hijacking, he eyed the approaching vehicles with suspicion.

One pulled in line behind the two fur transports and the other swerved out and roared past the large trucks and slipped back into the lane just ahead of them.  The parade of four trucks continued for another block. At this point, the street narrowed. Once the trailing van had past the intersection, Palentino struck.

The lead van suddenly whipped to the left and stopped, completely blocking the street. The other van did the same. Armed men piled out of both vehicles. All had caps pulled down over their foreheads, with dark bandanas tied across the lower half of their faces.

The drivers of the two transports had no choice but to stop their vehicles. Even if the lead truck had smashed into the van blocking the street, at the slow rate of speed it was traveling, it couldn’t push the smaller truck aside and break free from the trap.

Brandishing their weapons, the robbers swarmed over the stalled convoy. Automatics were thrust through the cab windows. The drivers, with arms raised, were pulled from the trucks while gang members slide into their seats. The transport drivers were each slugged in the back of the head, and abandoned by the gang as they scurried back to their waiting van.

The bodies slumped to the pavement as the trucks were kicked back into gear. With sure command, the driver of the lead van whipped the vehicle back into the street and lead the three other trucks down the block.

At the next block, the van turned left into the waiting open doors of an abandoned warehouse. The two transport trucks roared in after them. The trailing van followed, and when it had cleared the entrance, the doors slid shut.

Within two minutes it was all over. Crime had struck, and a fortune in valuable furs had seemingly disappeared into thin air!

Raven cursed and tromped the accelerator to the floorboard. The roadster leaped forward with a sudden burst of speed. In a nondescript garage near the East Side, Raymond and Carlton maintained a special fleet of vehicles for Raven’s use. The roadsters that Raven and Crow drove in pursuit of the ambulance seemed to be ordinary cars, but inside their hoods were powerful motors designed for terrific speeds.

Within moments Raven was directly behind the ambulance. The white juggernaut hurtled down the avenue with seeming abandon, occasionally whipping into oncoming traffic, forcing cars to vere aside. A few hopped the curb, and one crashed into a street lamp, causing further mayhem.

When the ambulance next moved to the left to panic oncoming traffic, Raven made his move. His roadster surged ahead, to run parallel to the ambulance.

In the cab of the ambulance, Butch drove with intense concentration. Although causing accidents, he had kept the vehicle from being involved with one. But his skillful driving occupied all his attention.

Tom, on the other hand, seemingly enjoyed the wild ride with abandon. He had emptied his tommy gun indiscriminately out the side of the cab, punching holes in parked cars, chipping pavement and smashing windows. He hadn’t wounded a pedestrian yet, but hoped to have better luck with his next round of ammunition.

He laughed crazily as snapped the drum magazine into place on his smoking machine gun.

“Some fun, eh?” Tom shouted to Butch. Butch grunted. He swerved again into oncoming traffic and saw in the rear view mirror a dark roadster move to his right. Tom saw the roadster pull alongside just as he slung his tommy gun up. He aimed the weapon at the driver of the roadster.

His laughter abruptly cut short. As the two vehicles raced down the street, Tom could clearly see the face of the driver. He recognized the peculiar blue-black jacket and the black turtleneck sweater. He recognized the black, bushy hair and walrus mustache of the man. But more, he recognized the cold, steely gaze of Raven.

With a snarl, Tom pulled the trigger of his machine gun. Slugs splayed off the side of the roadster, and he realized in surprise that it was armored! He aimed a second burst straight at the face of Raven, smouldering with fury. The glass of the roadster’s door scratched and starred, but didn’t break.

Through the marred surface of the bullet-proof glass Tom could still see those cold eyes.

He turned to Butch. “It’s Raven! We gotta get outta here.”

Butch nodded and shifted gears. The ambulance started to pull slightly ahead.  Tom watched in horror as Raven calmly matched the vehicle’s speed, then turn slowly to the left. The roadster’s fenders ground against the side of the ambulance, sending off showers of sparks.

Butch fought desperately for control, trying to push the ambulance to the right. Raven gave ground, and the ambulance moved out of oncoming traffic. But the two vehicles remained locked together. Butch pulled the wheel to the right, hoping to force Raven into the curb. The roadster maintained its course.

He tried again, but without success. The two vehicles hurtled down the avenue at top speed, side by side. They neared an intersection. “Take a left here!” Tom said. “We’ve got to shake this guy!”

Butch nodded again, and crossed his arms over each other. When they reached the intersection, he would be prepared to spin the steering wheel, causing the ambulance to veer off suddenly – hopefully too suddenly for Raven to react.

Though the crooks had forgotten the ambulance’s sirens on, the wailing had helped clear the streets. Hearing the klaxon call, drivers had left the intersection open for the oncoming ambulance. As it entered the intersection, Raven stomped on the brakes. The roadster dropped away from ambulance.

Tom shouted a cry of triumph and Butch readied himself to make the turn. As he began to do so, he saw movement on his left. Another dark roadster came barreling down the side street.

There was no time to react. Butch saw the driver’s side door pop open and a figure roll out, then the roadster smashed into the ambulance, just as it turned into the path of the oncoming car.

The impact crumpled the front of the ambulance and sent it spinning clockwise back into the intersection. The roadster stopped cold, its radiator collapsed into the motor. Butch was hurtled across the cab by the impact, smashing into Tom who in turn was crushed against the right door.

The ambulance continued its spin, pivoting on its right rear wheel. As the tire ground against the pavement, it exploded, dropping the rear of the ambulance. The white juggernaut tilted slightly, then fell on its side as it completed the spin.

Raven’s roadster skidded to a halt halfway into the intersection. It had taken all of Crow’s skill to leap from his car and land in the street without injury. As his vehicle had crashed into the ambulance, he had rolled to the curb and onto his feet in one smooth motion. Without pause, he ran into the intersection and past the wreck.

A quick glance confirmed that both Butch and Tom were out cold. The distinct wail of a police siren meant the authorities were on their way. Crow ran to Raven’s car.

Just as the stunned onlookers began to react to the crash, Crow opened the door of the waiting roadster, and climbed in as the car roared off. Crime had been blocked!

Inside the warehouse, Palentino was giving orders. He had the transports pull alongside two other large trucks already parked in the cavernous structure.

“OK, boys, make it snappy. Get them bolt cutters and let’s get the locks off of those doors. We need to get them furs out of those trucks and into ours pronto. I want to be long gone before the cops start searching the neighborhood.”

Almost at the same moment, the bolt cutters bit through the links and the ruined locks clattered on the concrete floor of the warehouse. The crooks threw open the doors of the hijacked trucks. Palentino beheld the sight with satifaction. Rich, luxurious furs and ermines hung in racks, filling each truck.

His face broke out into a large, satisfied grin. A grin that quickly faded. Emerging from the forest of furs came uniformed policemen, armed with machine guns and riot guns. A grizzled plainclothes detective with unruly red hair stepped out from behind a fur coat, a large revolver gripped in his hand. His face was hard.

“You’re all under arrest,” he said in a quiet, menacing voice. Mac glared at Palentino and leveled his revolver at the crook. “You’d better come along quietly, because I am looking for any excuse to shoot you down the way you did Ned Callahan.”

Palentino blanched, and he slowly raised his hands. Sensing that Mac was deadly serious, the other crooks did the same.

#nanowrimo

Dick Tracy and the Phony Funny

Comic strips can provide a moment's entertainment. But skilled creators can make this simple art form multi-layered to appeal both to the casual reader, and those who look for more in their entertainment. (click on image to enlarge)

This particular sequence provided more than a few seconds of reading. Mike Curtis and Joe Staton worked something very clever into this one. You may recall that recently Tracy ran into Vera Alldid, former cartoonist, and referenced a discontinued comic strip. In a later sequence, Tracy called the Flash, bringing in yet another defunct classic comic. So when Sam Ketchum states his favorite strip was "Derby Dugan," I thought it was yet another reference to a Golden Age newspaper strip.

Except it was one I had never heard of.

That's not too exceptional. There were many comics that came and went since the format was introduced in the 1900's. Just take a look at the archives of Barnacle Press, for example - most of the titles are cyphers to me.

I was curious, though, so I researched Derby Dugan, and discovered the Easter Egg written into the strip. It turns out that Derby Dugan is the subject of a trilogy of novels by Tom De Haven. De Haven's narrative arc is set in the world of newspaper comics (and real life personalities) in the early part of the century (Funny Papers: A Novel ), the 1930's (Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies: A Novel ), and the 1960's (Dugan Under Ground: A Novel ). The books feature different heroes all involved (in some fashion) with the fictional comic strip "Derby Dugan."

A simply line in Dick Tracy, that helped me discover a new author (and series) I'm anxious to read. Not bad for a three panel daily!

Nanowrimo - Ringing those changes

The National November Writing Month Challenge's official motto is "Writing with Abandon."  And it's true. Trying to crank out a 50,0000-word novel while working a day job leaves little time to do more than type at a breakneck pace.

But that's what I like about it. Because of the time constraints, I have to turn off my internal editor and just write. It's a great exercise, and always produces some surprising results. I've posted a couple of times about a seemingly random character that popped up in chapter one of my novel. Ned Callahan came straight from my subconscious  mind --  he wasn't in my plot outline, and until my fingers typed out his name, he was just another anonymous spear-carrier.

Although  he was killed off in the second chapter, his death was not in vain. It's providing the personal motivation of one of the major characters to pursue the villain. You can read Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here.  I recently wrote this sequence in the middle of Chapter 7.

(Remember, what you're reading is the first draft, completely unedited. Also, my story, "The Crime Broker" is an homage to the adventure stories of the 1930's and hopes to capture the over-the-top writing style of the pulps.)

The doors of the restaurant burst open and a stream of uniformed officers poured in, guns drawn. The seedy establishment in the heart of the slums was a well-known underworld hangout. The diners – mostly hard-looking men, leaped from their chairs in surprise. A few instinctively reached for their guns.

“Don’t try it, boyo,” barked MacGuffey, storming in the door through the sea of policemen. He held a large revolver tightly in his fist. The belligerent thugs slowly lowered their hands.

“That’s better,” said MacGuffey, striding into the center of the room. He picked up an overturned chair and climbed up on it.

“Now listen, you mugs, and listen good. Someone’s bankrolling big time heists, and I want his name.”

The few gaudily-dressed women in the establishment looked nervously at their escorts, who pointedly ignored them. To a man, the assembled criminals in the room stared sullenly – and silently – up at the grizzled detective.

“So that’s the way it’s going to be, eh?” said MacGuffey. “Well get this, and get this good. In the last job a cop got bumped off, see? And you know what happens when there’s a cop-killer loose.”

He paused, and looked slowly around the room, returning glare for glare. “We take this town apart until we find him, that’s what.”

MacGuffey nodded contemptuously. “You birds think you’re smart. You think the guy we want’s going to make you big shots. Well, now he’s going to bring you nothing but trouble. You spread the word to your pals. We’ll be raiding joints like this every night until someone talks. And not just joints, either. Gambling houses, opium dens – whatever rackets you run, expect trouble and plenty.”

He hopped down from the chair. “Clancy, come here,” he said, motioning for the sergeant in charge of the squad. Mac took a cigar from his rumpled coat and pointed it at each man who had attempted to draw. “Take those birds down to headquarters. The charge is resisting arrest.” He pointed to the head waiter they had pushed aside when they entered. “Take him, too. And the rest of the staff. I have a feeling the health inspector will take one look at their kitchen and shut this joint down.”

Finally, he surveyed the crowd and pointed at five more men at random. “And take those guys, too. I just don’t like their looks.”

Policemen began hauling off the men singled out by MacGuffey, There was pandemonium as they loudly protested their innocence and demanded their lawyers. Some of the officers still stood facing the mobsters, holding them at bay.

“This is how it’s going to be,” shouted Mac to the remaining patrons. “This is how it’s going to be every night until I get a name.”

He turned and left the restaurant. The rest of the police squad backed out through the door, guns still trained on the mobsters.

“Yeah,” said Mac softly to himself. “This is how it’s going to be until I find the man who killed Ned Callahan.”

#nanowrimo

NaNoWriMo - A change for the.... better

So I was only one day into the National November Writing Month challenge when my novel jumped the tracks. As I outlined the problem in a previous post, a character popped up in the very first chapter who was not in the outline. I had no idea where he came from or why he was there.

But I do now.

By the end of Chapter Two, Ned Callahan was gone -- but he served his purpose.

Here's both chapters so you can see what happened.. Remember -- the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, not to edit it. So what you're reading is the first (and at the moment only) draft. And remember, this is an homage to the pulp adventure novels of the 1930's -- so read accordingly.


The Crime Broker

Chapter One – A City Besieged

Three police cars cut a swathe through late afternoon traffic in lower Manhattan, their blaring sirens creating a cacophony that echoed through the streets. Lieutenant Mike MacGuffey, riding in the lead car, leaned over to the driver. “Faster,” he said. The officer nodded and pushed the accelerator further into the floorboard.

The radio car surged forward, and the other two did likewise. MacGuffey chewed on an unlit cigar, his grizzled features scrunched together in worry. For the past two months, the city had been in the grip of crime. A series of robberies, each one more audacious than the last, had swept through New York.

MacGuffey absently scratched his head of coarse, rust-red hair. He and the officers of the three radio cars were responding to a silent alarm at Bennington’s, one of the city’s ritziest jewelers. If they could catch the thieves in the act, the police just might have a lead to the mastermind behind this crime wave.

“We’re four blocks away, Lieutenant,” said the driver. MacGuffey nodded and grabbed the radio microphone. “Attention Cars 7 and 23. Attention, Cars 7 and 23. This is Lieutenant MacGuffey. Turn off your sirens. I repeat. Turn off your sirens. We don’t want tip off those birds knocking over Bennington’s.”

The sound coming through the open car windows diminished somewhat. MacGuffey turned to glare at the driver. “You, too, knucklehead. Turn off that siren!”

The driver gulped nervously and complied. “Sorry, lieutenant, guess I wasn’t thinking.”

MacGuffey harrumphed, and the two policemen riding in the back grinned in anticipation. They had seen MacGuffey chew out patrolmen before, and knew he could make an art of it. Instead, the grizzled detective looked reflectively at the driver.

“New to the force?” he asked.

“Yes sir. I’ve been with the force three months, today.” The driver flashed a small smile, but did not take his eyes from the road as he continued to thread his way through lines of slower-moving vehicles.

“What’s your name, son?” asked MacGuffey.

“Ned Callahan,” he replied.

“Well, Callahan, a word of advice,” said MacGuffey. “We’re going into a very dangerous situation. Just keep your head about you, remember your training, and you’ll be fine.”

“Yes sir.”

“And one other thing,” added MacGuffey. “Follow my orders immediately.”

Callahan nodded.

The two other officers were a little disappointed, but not surprised at the exchange. In addition to being one of New York’s foremost detectives, MacGuffey had the distinction of being one of the best mentors on the force. Jim Rowland, the current police commissioner had trained under MacGuffey, and the two remained close. In fact, it was Rowland who had personally sent the red-headed detective out with the radio squad.

“Do what you can to bring them in alive, Mac,” the young commissioner had said. “We’ve got to stop this crime wave and fast.”

*  *  *
As the cars journeyed through Manhattan, Mac had outlined his plan via radio. Arriving at the block Bennington’s was on, the radio cars moved into position. Mac’s car, in the lead, drove to the end of the block and turned left to block traffic. The trailing car did the same, effectively sealing off the street. The middle car rolled up close to the curb in front of the store.

Mac and his men rolled out of their car. One of the officers walked forward into traffic to direct traffic away from the scene. Mac, Callahan, and the other policeman started up the block to the middle patrol car in a crouching run. The grizzled detective glanced up the block and noted with satisfaction that the men in the tail car had duplicated his actions. One remained behind, the other three made their way to the middle car.

The officers in that vehicle had exited through the left side, keeping the doors facing the jewelry store shut. They now huddled behind the patrol car with guns drawn, stealing an occasional glance over the hood or around the trunk.

Berrington’s storefront sported a modern, streamlined look. Rather than large plateglass windows, the store had inset polished black panels. Small windows in the panels displayed a few items of great value. The door had ornate chrome decoration and large, rounded bars for handles. The decoration served to obscure most of the view through the tinted glass door.

Nevertheless, it was possible to make out movement inside the store. Mac and his men arrived at the same time as the other three policemen. He peered over the still-warm car hood. Through the door he could see shadowy shapes in motion. Their outlines made it clear they were armed. One seemed to be patrolling the store, walking up and down, whirling unexpectedly from time to time as if startled. The other was making his way methodically down the row of display cases.

Filling a sack as he goes, no doubt, thought Mac. He looked more intently through the glass, taking a chance and rising up to get a better view. He quickly ducked down, and motioned the other officers close to him.

“Okay, I think I got the lay,” he said. “Two robbers; one’s grabbing the ice, the other’s guarding the customers and staff. It looks like they’re laying down on the floor.”

Callahan gulped nervously. “Are they dead?” he asked.

“Nah,” replied Mac. “If they were, that second jasper wouldn’t be looking around all the time – he’d be helping his partner load the loot. Our job is to keep them that way.”

“How we going to do that?”

Mac grinned. “Wait till they both come out, then grab ‘em. Remember,” he cautioned the men, “Rowland wants them alive, so easy with the rods, OK?”

The policemen reluctantly nodded their consent.

Suddenly the car radio came to life. “Calling all cars, calling all cars, hold-up in progress at Regent Jewelers, 34th and Park, Repeat, hold-up at Regent Jewelers, 34th and Park. All units respond.”

Callahan looked at MacGuffey with surprise. “That’s just two blocks away! We’ve got to respond.”

MacGuffey glared at the young officer, but he knew Callahan was right. Being the closest unit, they had to respond. But how could they prevent two crimes at once?

Chapter 2 – The law divided

One of the officers keeping tabs on the events inside Barrington’s nudged MacGuffey. “Looks like they’re about through,” he said.

The grizzled detective nodded decisively. “OK, here’s what we do.” He pointed to five of the police gathered around him. “You mugs take the lead patrol car and beat it over to Regents. But no sirens! Sergent Murphy, you’re in charge. Stop the robbery, but capture them alive if you can”

The police sergeant saluted curtly. “Right. Alright, men, let’s go.” He ran down the street with the four other policemen trailing behind him, all keeping low profiles as they hastened towards the patrol car.

“Look sharp, here they come,” called out one of the remaining officers. The silhouettes of the two men filled the door of Bennington’s. MacGuffey grabbed Callahan’s arm.

“Nervous, son?”

“A little,” the rookie admitted.

“Just follow my lead, and keep your head down,” Mac said.

The two crooks emerged from the store. Their features were hidden behind bandanas tied across their faces and caps pulled low over their eyes. One man wore a light brown overcoat over a pinstriped suit. The other had coarse black woolen sweater. Each had a bulging valese in one hand and a deadly-looking tommy gun in the other. They stopped short when they spotted the patrol car in the street. With a curse, they swung their weapons up.

“Give up,” shouted MacGuffey, “you haven’t got a chance.”

The crooks opened fire in unison, riddling the side of the patrol car with a hail of lead.

“Open fire,” said Mac, “but shoot to wound. I want those babies alive!”

The policemen’s revolvers spat tentative shots at the crooks. In the polished panels of Bennington’s bulletholes suddenly appeared with spiderweb patterns of cracks radiating out from them. Small shards of black glass sprinkled the street.

The crook with the overcoat dove for cover behind a mailbox on the curb. “Get to the car, Tom!” he barked, as he fired off another burst in the direction of the patrol car.

The man in the pullover jumped to the left and collapsed as a bullet piereced his left leg. Without losing his grip on either his machine gun or his valese, he pulled himself across the sidewalk to a low-slung coupe.

Seeing the wounded gangster move towards the car, Mac’s men redoubled their efforts. An officer leaned over the trunk of the car to get a better shot, and was immediately forced back by a barrage from the overcoated gunman. The sound of the slugs puncturing the metal sides of the patrol car was deafing.

Tom made it to the couple. He dropped his weapon and grabbed the door handle, using it as a grip to pull himself up as the door swung open.

Callahan started pumping shells into the coupe, completely emptying his gun’s chamber. Several of the shots went wild, clipping pieces of masonry off the building behind the vehicle. A few hit home, though. The right headlight disintegrated and sparks flew as two bullets richoted off the radiator grille.

Tom slid into the driver’s seat, his eyes almost level with the dashboard. The windshield sprouted three bullet holes in rapid succession before the glass shatted, spilling into the car. The coupe’s engine roared to life and the vehicle charged forward with an ear-splitting squeal as the rapidly spinning tires grabbed for purchase on the pavement.

The car stopped briefly in front of the mailbox, shielding it – and the gunman behind it – from the vengeful barrage of the police. The man abandoned his ad hoc fort and dove into the car.

Callahan was franticly reloading as Mac and the others fired at the coupe. With the lead patrol car no longer blocking the street, the way was open for the crooks to escape into the city.

“Aim for the tires!” commanded Mac. The officers, no longer pinned down by gunfire, stood and took aim. Most of them only had a shot or two left, and they wanted to make them count.

Then a motion caught Mac’s eye. Looking through the rear window of the coupe into the darkened interior, he saw the second crook swing his machine gun over the back of the set.

“Get down!” screamed Mac, dropping to his heels. At the same moment, Callahan slammed the now fully loaded chamber on his gun shut and jumped up on the running board with a shout of triumph.

The shout was cut short by machine gun fire. The coupe’s rear window exploded outwards and aa deadly rain of lead that cut through the top half of the patrol car like a scythe.

Callahan fell backwards into the street, his arms splayed outwards, his face frozen in a look of surprise. Mac rushed to him, ignoring the coupe that roared off into the late afternoon traffic. He barely heard the desultory shots fired by the policemen at the back of the retreating vehicle as he cradled the young rookie in his arms.

But there was nothing to be done. Callahan had died instantly.

“ Listen, and keep your head down,” whispered Mac, “that’s all you had to do.”

*  *  *
Murphy and the patrolmen in the lead car sped onto 34th Street. It had been just over a minute since they had left Bennington’s. The driver had kept the accelerator pushed to the floorboard. Murphy glanced around the interior of the car. All the men were alert and ready for action, their guns drawn and ready.

The patrol car took the corner on two wheels. In front of Regency Jewelers, a late model sedan sat idling, its driver scanning the streets as if waiting for something. When the police car appeared, the driver popped the clutch into gear and tromped on the accelerator.

He steered the sedan directly towards the approaching police car. Murphy’s eyes widened with horror as he saw the sedan speed towards them.

“Look out!” he gasped. The patrolman at the wheel desperately hit the brakes, but the police car had too much momentum to stop. The driver of the sedan dove out of the doomed vehicle just in the nick of time and hit the asphalt with a solid smack!

The two cars hurtled together with a terrific crash! Fenders crumpled and metal ground against metal with the impact. The chassis of the patrol car bend upwards, pitching Murphy and his men forward, then up. The car body crumpled in the middle, popping the doors open while pushing the seats together, pinning the men inside.

In a second it was all over. Murphy, dazed from the impact, feebly tried to push himself out of the wrecked patrol car, but to no avail. His chest was held between the dashboard and the back of the front seat like a vice. He could hear moaning behind him, but couldn’t turn his head to see who was making the sound. The police driver was pinned like Murphy. His head was pushed into the steering wheel, and a thin trickle of blood ran down his forehead and past his closed eyes.

Murphy groggily turned his head to look at Regents. The store was only ten feet away – yet for Murphy, helplessly trapped in the wreck of the patrol car, it might as well have been on the moon.

He could only watch helplessly as a gang of five crooks ran out of the store, each of them carrying some swag. A car parked at the end of the block turned over its engine and drove up to the group. Three got in, and two went to help the driver of the sedan. They half carried-half drug him into the car, which then pulled away at a stately pace.

Murphy cursed silently as he watched it travel two blocks, turn left, and disappear behind a row of buildings.

Two robberies within minutes of each other, and each successful! The law had failed to stop this wave of crime.


#nanowrimo

NaNoWriMo - A Change for the...?.

Well, one day into the NaNoWriMo challenge and already things have taken a change for the, well, either better or worse -- I can't tell. Writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days with only a sketchy outline is bad enough. But I'm already off- track!

Here's my plot outline for Chapter 1:

MacGuffy’s with the Flying Squad. A rash of high-profile robberies has hit the city. The alarm’s gone off at a jewelry store in Manhattan, and he’s rushing there to capture the crooks. He arrives in time to corner the crooks, resulting in a shootout.

But while that’s going on, another – and larger—heist happens on the next block. MacGuffey pulls back some of his men to respond, but the crooks get away. And in the confusion, the first group is able to escape, too.

And here's what I pounded out this morning (remember all of this is unedited -- you're reading raw first-draft text here):

Chapter One – A City Besieged

Three police cars cut a swathe through late afternoon traffic in lower Manhattan, their blaring sirens creating a cacophony that echoed through the streets. Lieutenant Mike MacGuffey, riding in the lead car, leaned over to the driver. “Faster,” he said. The officer nodded and pushed the accelerator further into the floorboard.

The radio car surged forward, and the other two did likewise. MacGuffey chewed on an unlit cigar, his grizzled features scrunched together in worry. For the past two months, the city had been in the grip of crime. A series of robberies, each one more audacious than the last, had swept through New York.

MacGuffey absently scratched his head of coarse, rust-red hair. He and the officers of the three radio cars were responding to a silent alarm at Bennington’s, one of the city’s ritziest jewelers. If they could catch the thieves in the act, the police just might have a lead to the mastermind behind this crime wave.

“We’re four blocks away, Lieutenant,” said the driver. MacGuffey nodded and grabbed the radio microphone. “Attention Cars 7 and 23. Attention, Cars 7 and 23. This is Lieutenant MacGuffey. Turn off your sirens. I repeat. Turn off your sirens. We don’t want tip off those birds knocking over Bennington’s.”

The sound coming through the open car windows diminished somewhat. MacGuffey turned to glare at the driver. “You, too, knucklehead. Turn off that siren!”

The driver gulped nervously and complied. “Sorry, lieutenant, guess I wasn’t thinking.”

MacGuffey harrumphed, and the two policemen riding in the back grinned in anticipation. They had seen MacGuffey chew out patrolmen before, and knew he could make an art of it. Instead, the grizzled detective looked reflectively at the driver.

“New to the force?” he asked.

“Yes sir. I’ve been with the force three months, today.” The driver flashed a small smile, but did not take his eyes from the road as he continued to thread his way through lines of slower-moving vehicles.

“What’s your name, son?” asked MacGuffey.

“Ned Callahan,” he replied.

“Well, Callahan, a word of advice,” said MacGuffey. “We’re going into a very dangerous situation. Just keep your head about you, remember your training, and you’ll be fine.”

“Yes sir.”

“And one other thing,” added MacGuffey. “Follow my orders immediately.”

Callahan nodded.

The two other officers were a little disappointed, but not surprised at the exchange. In addition to being one of New York’s foremost detectives, MacGuffey had the distinction of being one of the best mentors on the force. Jim Rowland, the current police commissioner had trained under MacGuffey, and the two remained close. In fact, it was Rowland to had personally sent the red-headed detective out with the radio squad.

“Do what you can to bring them in alive, Mac,” the young commissioner had said. “We’ve got to stop this crime wave and fast.”

As the cars journeyed through Manhattan, Mac had outlined his plan via radio. Arriving at the block Bennington’s was on, the radio cars moved into position. Mac’s car, in the lead, drove to the end of the block and turned left to block traffic. The trailing car did the same, effectively sealing off the street. The middle car rolled up close to the curb in front of the store.

Mac and his men rolled out of their car. One of the officers walked forward into traffic to direct traffic away from the scene. Mac, Callahan, and the other policeman started up the block to the middle patrol car in a crouching run. The grizzled detective glanced up the block and noted with satisfaction that the men in the tail car had duplicated his actions. One remained behind, the other three made their way to the middle car.

The officers in that vehicle had exited through the left side, keeping the doors facing the jewelry store shut. They now huddled behind the patrol car with guns drawn, stealing an occasional glance over the hood or around the trunk.

Berrington’s storefront sported a modern, streamlined look. Rather than large plate glass windows, the store had inset polished black panels. Small windows in the panels displayed a few items of great value. The door had ornate chrome decoration and large, rounded bars for handles. The decoration served to obscure most of the view through the tinted glass door.

Nevertheless, it was possible to make out movement inside the store. Mac and his men arrived at the same time as the other three policemen. He peered over the still-warm car hood. Through the door he could see shadowy shapes in motion. Their outlines made it clear they were armed. One seemed to be patrolling the store, walking up and down, whirling unexpectedly from time to time as if startled. The other was making his way methodically down the row of display cases.

Filling a sack as he goes, no doubt, thought Mac. He looked more intently through the glass, taking a chance and rising up to get a better view. He quickly ducked down, and motioned the other officers close to him.

“Okay, I think I got the lay,” he said. “Two robbers; one’s grabbing the ice, the other’s guarding the customers and staff. It looks like they’re laying down on the floor.”

Callahan gulped nervously. “Are they dead?” he asked.

“Nah,” replied Mac. “If they were, that second jasper wouldn’t be looking around all the time – he’d be helping his partner load the loot. Our job is to keep them that way.”

“How we going to do that?”

Mac grinned. “Wait till they both come out, then grab ‘em. Remember,” he cautioned the men, “Rowland wants them alive, so easy with the rods, OK?”

The policemen reluctantly nodded their consent.

Suddenly the car radio came to life. “Calling all cars, calling all cars, hold-up in progress at Regent Jewelers, 34^th and Park, Repeat, hold-up at Regent Jewelers, 34^th and Park. All units respond.”

Callahan looked at MacGuffey with surprise. “That’s just two blocks away! We’ve got to respond.”

MacGuffey glared at the young officer, but he knew Callahan was right. Being the closest unit, they had to respond. But how could they prevent two crimes at once?

***

So where did Ned Callahan come from? I didn't plan for him to be in the story at all. Obviously some part of me has a plan -- but darned if the rest of me knows what it is. Hope this new detail gets resolved by the time the main villain (who still doesn't have a name) makes his entrance. 

"Literary abandon," indeed!

#NaNoWriMo