When I was a kid, I read tons of mysteries, paperbacks, that fit in pockets on trips or drives or even walks. They could get slightly arched. They could be slightly arch. But they always had language running down into more language and a closed room where something beastly had occurred. Generally these detectives had cogitation to spare and some luck in other regions of their lives. Maybe there was a girlfriend waiting at home when the long day was done. Maybe there was a secretary who blossomed when she took off her glasses. I read many Perry Masons, or Erle Stanley Gardners, and marveled at the alliteration of their titles. Their plots swirled together after a little while: femmes who were fatale, money in safes in buildings in Los Angeles, tough talk, time of the essence. For at least a little while, I didn’t understand the first name. Not Perry. Erle. I was under the impression that it was the female spelling for the name “Earl.” I thought the books were written by a woman. Soon enough I was set straight. But I walked around with that idea in my mind for a long time, considered writing them, though that seemed stupid—a man writing a woman Perry Mason? Now and then I’ll come back to it.
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THE WOMAN WHO COULD NEITHER REMEMBER NOR FORGET
Her two best-known fictional detectives were French. Her two least-known fictional detectives were Italian. Her two best-known factual detectives were currently in the room with her, going through notes, one of them lamenting the fact that their profession had been “if not tarnished, at least lost luster as a result of the portrayal of the profession in They All Laughed — venal on the one hand, self-obsessed on the other, bumbling on the third,” and the other correcting as usual, Tweedledee to Tweedledum, pointing out that tarnished was the loss of luster and that the figure employed to illustrated the ways in which They All Laughed put the profession in a bad light had three hands, was that possible unless one was a false hand at the end of a false sling that permitted the detective to have a free hand under his coat for the punching of ne-er-do-wells or the pocketing of pool. At this, she flinched. She recoiled. Something stirred in the recesses of her generally competent, currently distracted mind. Tweedledee and Tweedledum did not correct one another. They did not contradict one another. They had one point of contention, the question of a stolen rattle, but that kerfuffle (fracas? brouhaha?) was forgotten when a crow flew down and frightened the brothers. Were they based on anyone Carroll knew? She vaguely remembered something about Byron or was it Byrom or was it Myron, the man who her father had worked for, the owner of a garment business that made mostly dresses, a few skirts, a hat. She was lost in her thoughts but found her way out. When she did the room was empty. “I am still here,” she said, loud enough that she could hear it. She verified the theory with a look in the mirror. She was still there. She had remembered that it was Byrom but forgotten which movie had so offended her first best-known factual detective. These weekly meetings, in which she let fact feed fiction, had become shorter and shorter. Was she losing her touch? She was for the moment confined to the world of real things. In her top drawer was a pistol which she held in her hand, feeling its comfortable weight. Today would be a bad day for Archibald Manifold, the corrupt mayor of Stooptown. [©2024 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas]