The Long-Legged Fly Read online

  Book One of the Lew Griffin Series

  There are those who vanish into the steaming New Orleans night - and it is part time Private Investigator, Repo-man and blues aficionado Lew Griffin’s job to find them. A prisoner of the bottle, his past and his skin, Griffin knows every hidden corner of Hell - and is on intimate terms with the demons that dwell there. But the disappearance of a militant woman activist is about to set Griffin on a roller-coaster ride towards rock bottom - carrying the brilliant, tormented PI ever closer to a nightmare that threatens to hit him where he lives - and more brutally than he ever imagined possible.

  James Sallis has published fourteen novels, multiple collections of short stories, essays, and poems, books of musicology, a biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau’s novel Saint Glinglin. He has written about books for the L.A. Times, New York Times, and Washington Post, and for some years served as a books columnist for the Boston Globe. In 2007 he received a lifetime achievement award from Bouchercon. In addition to Drive, the six Lew Griffin books are now in development as feature films. Jim teaches novel writing at Phoenix College and plays regularly with his string band, Three-Legged Dog. He stays busy.

  SELECTED WORKS BY JAMES SALLIS

  Novels Published by No Exit Press

  The Long-Legged Fly – Lew Griffin Book One, 1992

  Moth – Lew Griffin Book Two, 1993

  Black Hornet – Lew Griffin Book Three, 1994

  Death Will Have Your Eyes, 1997

  Eye of the Cricket – Lew Griffin Book Four, 1997

  Bluebottle – Lew Griffin Book Five, 1998

  Ghost of a Flea – Lew Griffin Book Six, 2001

  Cypress Grove – Turner Trilogy Book One, 2003

  Drive, 2005

  Cripple Creek – Turner Trilogy Book Two, 2006

  Salt River – Turner Trilogy Book Three, 2007

  The Killer Is Dying, 2011

  Driven, 2012

  Other Novels

  Renderings

  What You Have Left: The Turner Trilogy

  Stories

  A Few Last Words

  Limits of the Sensible World

  Time’s Hammers: Collected Stories

  A City Equal to my Desire

  Poems

  Sorrow’s Kitchen

  My Tongue In Other Cheeks: Selected Translations

  As Editor

  Ash of Stars: On the Writing of Samuel R. Delany

  Jazz Guitars

  The Guitar In Jazz

  Other

  The Guitar Players

  Difficult Lives

  Saint Glinglin by Raymond Queneau (translator)

  Chester Himes: A Life

  A James Sallis Reader

  Praise for The Long-Legged Fly

  ‘Haunting…a lyrical, unconventional suspense novel that reads like variations on a blues riff’

  – Publishers Weekly

  ‘Sallis has created in Lew Griffin one of the great literary characters and written what may very well be the last great detective novel’

  – Spinetingler Magazine

  ‘Not so much a detective story as a story about a detective, then – but one that exploits the conventions of the genre with quietly distinctive power’

  – Kirkus

  Praise for James Sallis

  ‘Sallis is an unsung genius of crime writing’

  – Independent on Sunday

  ‘James Sallis is a superb writer’

  – Times

  ‘James Sallis – he’s right up there, one of the best of the best… Sallis, also a poet, is capable of smart phrasing and moments of elegiac energy’

  – Ian Rankin, Guardian

  ‘[A] master of America noir…Sallis creates vivid images in very few words and his taut, pared down prose is distinctive and powerful’

  – Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Sallis’ spare, concrete prose achieves the level of poetry’

  – Telegraph

  ‘Sallis is a wonderful writer, dark, lyrical and compelling’

  – Spectator

  ‘Sallis is a fastidious man, intelligent and widely read. There’s nothing slapdash or merely strategic about his work’

  – London Review of Books‘

  Unlike those pretenders who play in dark alleys and think they’re tough, James Sallis writes from an authentic noir sensibility, a state of mind that hovers between amoral indifference and profound existential despair’

  – New York Times

  ‘carefully crafted, restrained and eloquent’

  – Times Literary Supplement

  ‘James Sallis is without doubt the most underrated novelist currently working in America’

  – Catholic Herald

  ‘Sallis writes crime novels that read like literature’

  – Los Angeles Times

  ‘Allusive and stylish, this stark metaphysical landscape will leave a resounding impression’

  – Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian

  ‘The brooding atmosphere and depth of characterisation mark this as superior mystery fare’

  – Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday

  ‘I’m brought back, yet again, to my conviction that the best American writers are hiding out like CIA sleepers, long forgotten fugitives from a discontinued campaign’

  – Iain Sinclair, London Review of Books

  ‘Classic American crime of the highest order’

  –Time Out

  www.noexit.co.uk

  To

  Karyn

  Contents

  Part One 1964

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Two 1970

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Three 1984

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Four 1990

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  James Sallis Collection

  Part One

  1964

  Chapter One

  “HELLO, HARRY.”

  His sick eyes slid in the light. He was wearing a corduroy coat over a denim shirt, chinos bagged out at knee and butt, pant legs too long, cuffs frayed. They’d all seen better days, clothes and man alike. Harry had always been a sharp dresser, people said; they even used the word natty. But now skag and his own errant heart had got him.

  “Carl?” His voice was an emphysematous whisper. Even now a cigarette dangled out the side of his mouth. It waggled up and down as he talked. “I got the money, man. Business as usual, right? Just like you said.” A rumbling cough deep in his chest.

  “No rush, Harry. Be cool, there’s plenty of time. Let up a little, enjoy life.” The yard lights were behind me and he squinted at the shadow moving toward him. Not that it would have made much difference. He didn’t know me from Ear
l Long. “And anyhow, first I want to tell you a story. You like stories, Harry?”

  Behind us, oil derricks heaved and rested, heaved and rested.

  “Magazine Street. Ten-fifteen, Saturday night, about a month ago. There was a girl from Mississippi, Harry. And a party. And you. Any of this beginning to sound familiar?”

  His eyes searched the darkness around him.

  “I’ve been looking for you a long time, Harry. It took a long time to find you. A man like you, with your needs, he shouldn’t be so hard to find.”

  He took the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it down. It lay there like a half-blind eye. I stepped out of the light and when he saw me he was scared for the first time, really scared. Old fears die hard.

  “It’s only a story, of course. Stories help us go on living. Stories can’t hurt anyone, can they, Harry?”

  I let him see the knife in my hand then, a leatherworker’s knife.

  “Big Black Sambo’s coming to get you, Harry. Nigger’s gonna carve you up like you did her. Nothing left for the pigs and chickens, not even enough for soul food.”

  His eyes moved. He knew escape was somewhere. But he also knew that like everything else in his life it was going to get away from him.

  “Look, man, I don’t know who you are, but you got it all wrong. You listen to me, it wasn’t my fault. I just fix things—arrange them, like—that’s all I ever done. It was those crazies, man. Goddamn long hair and kraut van. They’re the ones did that girl.”

  It tumbled out of him much as the world must have gone in: fitful starts, none of them connected; and underneath, everything blurring together.

  I raised the knife and light glinted on the curved blade.

  “Yeah, I know, Harry. Crazies on skag and smack feeding new monkeys, crazies on speed and booze and horse and the rush of a couple hundred dollars they just boosted out of some mom and pop’s till. But who got the stuff for them, Harry? Who gave it to them and started the party? How much of their stake did it cost them? And whose idea to bring the girl into that?”

  Fear lit his eyes like a torch. All around us oil derricks sighed, the last breaths of tired old men.

  He turned to run but fear tangled his legs. He fell. I let him crawl, a few yards. He was sobbing. Choking.

  “You didn’t even know her name, Harry.” I walked up slowly behind him, got a foot under and flipped him over. He flopped like something not human, and his eyes rolled. I let him have a good long look at my face, all the things that were in it.

  “Sleepy after your bedtime story?”

  Blood welled out of his throat and soaked denim, corduroy, ground. No light left behind those eyes now. No light anywhere.

  I searched his pockets and got the money—that was for the kid. Then I bent down and opened up his wasted belly with the knife.

  “That was for Angie,” I said.

  Behind us, oil derricks shushed any eulogy.

  Chapter Two

  I HADN’T BEEN TO THE APARTMENT IN THREE DAYS, the office in four, so it was a toss-up. Finally, cruising down St. Charles, I decided the office was closer so what the hell. I went around the block a few times. All the parking spaces were filled. I finally pulled the Cad into a towaway zone and raised the hood. Weak, but it might work. It had before.

  The bakery was doing hot business, but upstairs it looked like everybody had moved out. There was something peculiar about that at two-fifteen in the afternoon. Then I remembered it was Labor Day. Maybe I’d have to do some work to celebrate.

  I stopped in front of the door marked “Lewis Griffin, In estigations” (the v had escaped a year or so back; most days I envied it) and got out the key. There were a lot of notes tacked to the door—I had an informal arrangement with the bakery for taking messages. I ripped them off, turned the key and went on inside. The floor was littered with mail they’d dropped through the slot. I scooped it up and dropped it on the desk with the messages.

  There was a half-filled glass of bourbon and an almost empty bottle on the desk. A fly floated in what was left in the glass. I thought about it, fished the fly out with a letter-opener, drank, poured in the rest of the bottle. Then I sat down to go through all the junk.

  Most of it was just that. Circulars, subscription renewal notices, religious pamphlets. There were three letters from the bank that I was overdrawn and would I please at my earliest convenience drop by and see Mr. Whitney. There was also a telegram. I held it up, turning it over and over in my hands. Never liked those things.

  I finally ripped it open and looked. There was the usual salad of numbers and letters that meant nothing. Under that was the message.

  FATHER GRAVELY ILL STOP ASKING FOR YOU STOP BAPTIST MEMORIAL MEMPHIS STOP PLEASE CALL STOP LOVE MOTHER

  I sat there staring at the yellow paper. Ten minutes must have gone by. The old man and I had never been close, not for a long time anyhow, but now he was asking for me. Or was that just something Mom put in? And what the hell happened, anyhow? I couldn’t see anything short of a train or howitzer ever stopping the old horse.

  I got up and went to the window, taking the bourbon with me. I put it down in one gulp and put the glass on the sill. Down in the street a group of kids were playing what looked like cops and robbers. The robbers were winning.

  I went back to the desk and dialed LaVerne’s number. I didn’t really expect to catch her this time of day, but she got it on the third ring.

  “Lew? Listen, man, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all week. Your mother’s been calling me two, three times a day. I left messages all over this town.”

  “Yeah, I know, honey. Sorry. I’ve been away on business.”

  “But you always let me know …”

  “Didn’t know myself until the last minute.” I looked wistfully at the empty bottle on the desk (good word, wistfully), wondering if the drug-store across the street would be open. I hadn’t noticed. “But I’m back now and looking to see you.”

  “What is it, Lew? What’s wrong?”

  “Mom didn’t say?”

  “She wouldn’t even have told me who she was if she didn’t need something.”

  “My father’s sick. I don’t know, a heart attack, a stroke, maybe an accident—something, anyhow. ‘Gravely ill’ was what she said.”

  “Lew. You’ve gotta go up there. Next plane.”

  “And what would I use for money?”

  She paused. “I’ve got money.”

  “Like the man says, Thanks but no thanks.”

  Another pause. “Someday that pride of yours’ll kill you, Lew. The pride or the anger, I don’t know which’ll get you first. But look, it can be a loan, okay?”

  “Forget it, Verne. Besides, I’m on a case.” I was beginning to wonder why I had called her in the first place. But who else was there? “I’ll call tonight, find out what’s happening. And I’ll be in touch tomorrow. Hang in there.”

  “You too, Lew. You know where to find me. Bye.”

  “Yeah.”

  I put the receiver down and looked again at the empty bottle. Maybe Joe’s was the place for me tonight. I looked at my watch. Maybe eight, nine would be the best time to call. Maybe they’d know something by then. Maybe they knew something already.

  I threw the letters from the bank in the waste-basket and headed out the door.

  When I got to the street, my car was gone.

  Chapter Three

  AFTER BAILING THE CAR OUT DOWN by the river—$47.50; they required cash but I managed to hang some bad paper on them; they also required that I affix the new 1964 license plate I’d been carrying in the back seat before I left the lot—I drove to Joe’s.

  It’s off Decatur, but you won’t find it if you don’t know where to look. The barmaids are all pros; they migrated from bar to bar all through the downtown area before they found their way to Joe’s and settled in here, like old folks retiring to Florida.

  I sat down at the bar and Betty brought me a double bourbon. I sat there smoking and
putting down drink after drink. The ashtray was full and the bottle Betty was pouring out of was going down fast when Joe came in. He wanted to know what the Saints’ chances were. I told him. He said ain’t it the truth.

  Several working girls came in, gave me a quick eye and moved along. Betty told me about the latest problems with getting to see her kids.

  “What else’s going on?” I asked her at one point.

  “Tryin’ to stay out of trouble but people won’t let me,” she said.

  That’s about the size of it, I thought.

  At nine I walked over to the corner phone and placed a call to Baptist Hospital in Memphis, person-to-person for Mrs. Arthur Griffin, charging it to the office. I was routed through several operators and finally got a man who said, “Fifth-floor intensive care.”

  “Mrs. Arthur Griffin,” the operator said.

  “Just a minute. She may be with her husband; I’ll check.”

  The phone was quiet for some minutes. I watched them meander past like sheep on Joe’s revolving Schlitz clock above the bar. Finally a voice came on.

  “Lewis? Lewis, is that you?”

  “Go ahead,” the operator said.

  “Mom. Listen, what’s going on?”

  “It’s bad, Lewis. Where have you been? I been tryin’ to get you all week long. It’s bad. It’s a heart attack, Lewis. He’s had a heart attack. A bad one, the doctors say. Now let me get this right.” She was probably reading it off a piece of paper. “A myocardial infarction.”

  Somehow I’d known. “How’s he doing?”

  “Holding his own, Lewis, holding his own. They say the crisis comes in three days. If he passes that three days, then his chances get a lot better.”

  We had a bad connection. I could hear other, distant voices in the wires.

  “Mom, listen, is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”

  “Just he’s askin’ for you, Lewis. He wants to see his only boy. Lewis, he knows. He knows he’s dyin’. He wants to see you before that comes.”

  Betty motioned from the bar, wanting to know if I wanted another one. I nodded.

  “I can’t make it, Mom. Not now. I’m on a case. But if there’s anything I can do, anything at all… .” I left the rest unsaid. Of course there was nothing I could do. I had a feeling there was nothing anyone could do. Far back in the wires I heard someone say, “Well, then, Harold, when are you coming home?”