Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin
Read Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin Online
Authors: Gil Brewer
“[One] of the most adroit plot-spinners of the paperback era.”
—
Geoffrey O’Brien, Hardboiled America
“Gil Brewer has spent a long time in the shadows of his more famous contemporaries, but his best work—a noir blend of James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett and Ernest Hemingway—gives his rivals a run for their money. I’m delighted to see him making a comeback.”
—
Allan Guthrie
“There is a Woolrichian darkness and desperation in his best work. It stays with you a long, long time.”
—
Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins, A Century of Noir
“The prose is lean [yet] rich with raw emotion genuinely portrayed and felt.”
—
Bill Pronzini
“A short but full-packed story, pointed and restrained...an effective tale of an ordinary man trying to turn sharpie and destroying himself in the process.”
—
Anthony Boucher, The New York Times
“One of the most respected (and collected) of the Gold Medal writers.”
—
Murder Mystery Monthlies
“His style is simple and direct, with sharp dialogue and considerable passion and intensity; at times it takes on an almost Hemingwayesque flavor.”
—
St. James Guide To Crime & Mystery Writers
“Skillfully conveys the despair of a man with a lifelong dream after he succumbs to the temptation provided by a...fortune.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“One of the leading writers of paperback originals.”
—
Contemporary American Authors
“At his best, he hooked you in his first paragraph and never let you go.”
—
Ed Gorman
She pouted. “Please. I’d like a fire.”
She had the blankets spread all around the floor in front of the fireplace. I dumped the wood in a box, and set the fire with some old newspapers underneath the wood. It caught quickly, and the room became a chimera of fire and shadow.
When I turned around, she was naked, lying there on the blankets.
“Get the money, Jack.”
I didn’t say anything. I got the money bag and brought it back.
“Pour it out,” she said. “Here.” She slapped the blanket between us.
I opened the bag and turned it upside down. The money fell there on the blanket between us, piling up and piling up. I threw the small suitcase across the room, and knelt looking at it.
“It kind of makes you crazy,” I said. “Doesn’t it?”
“Undress,” she said. “Like me. Take your shirt off.”
The firelight was high now, and the flames danced across the ceiling and played like thin wicked fingers across the pile of money.
“Jesus, Jack
—
just look at it, will you?”
I felt a little crazy, right then. I couldn’t help it.
Shirley knelt by the money. She reached into it with both fists and tossed it into the air, and watched it flutter down. I lay there, watching her. She was beautiful, Christ, they didn’t come any more beautiful than Shirley Angela. Kneeling there with that big pile of money, and the firelight playing across her body, breasts, hip and thigh, her flesh sheened a little with perspiration from the heat so it mirrored the flames
—
there was never anything like it...
SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:
GRIFTER’S GAME
by Lawrence Block
FADE TO BLONDE
by Max Phillips
TOP OF THE HEAP
by Erle Stanley Gardner
LITTLE GIRL LOST
by Richard Aleas
TWO FOR THE MONEY
by Max Allan Collins
THE CONFESSION
by Domenic Stansberry
HOME IS THE SAILOR
by Day Keene
KISS HER GOODBYE
by Allan Guthrie
361
by Donald E. Westlake
PLUNDER OF THE SUN
by David Dodge
BRANDED WOMAN
by Wade Miller
DUTCH UNCLE
by Peter Pavia
THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART
by Lawrence Block
THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE
by Ed McBain
NIGHT WALKER
by Donald Hamilton
A TOUCH OF DEATH
by Charles Williams
SAY IT WITH BULLETS
by Richard Powell
WITNESS TO MYSELF
by Seymour Shubin
BUST
by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
STRAIGHT CUT
by Madison Smartt Bell
LEMONS NEVER LIE
by Richard Stark
THE LAST QUARRY
by Max Allan Collins
THE GUNS OF HEAVEN
by Pete Hamill
THE LAST MATCH
by David Dodge
GRAVE DESCEND
by John Lange
THE PEDDLER
by Richard S. Prather
LUCKY AT CARDS
by Lawrence Block
ROBBIE’S WIFE
by Russell Hill
VIRGIN
by
Gil Brewer
A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-030)
First Hard Case Crime edition: April 2007
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London
SE
1
0UP
in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 1958 by Gil Brewer
Cover painting copyright © 2006 by Gregory Manchess
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-374-8
E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-387-8
Cover design by Cooley Design Lab
Design direction by Max Phillips
Typeset by Swordsmith Productions
The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.
Printed in the United States of America
Visit us on the web at
www.HardCaseCrime.com
One
She wasn’t what you would call beautiful. She was just a red-haired girl with a lot of sock. She stood behind the screen door on the front porch, frowning at me.
“I’m Jack Ruxton,” I said. “From Ruxton’s TV. Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s all right.”
She was maybe seventeen or eighteen. The porch light was on. It was about eight o’clock on a Monday night. Looking past her, I could see through a long, broad living room, expensively furnished, and on into a brightly lighted bedroom. A man with iron-gray hair lay on a hospital bed under a sheet, with his toes sticking straight up. His head was flung back as if he were in a cramp. There was a lot of tricky-looking paraphernalia, rubber hoses and tanks and stuff, beside the bed. A fluorescent bedlight glared across his face. It was eerie.
“Well,” I said. “TV on the blink?”
“No. That’s not what I called you for, Mr. Ruxton.”
She caught on that it was uncomfortable with the screen door between us, gave it a shove with her knee. I backed away on the porch. She stepped out and closed the door.
“I’m Shirley Angela,” she said.
I nodded. She had on a red knitted thing, made of one piece. It was shorts and a top, without sleeves. The top was what I think they call a boat-neck, tight up against her throat. The whole thing was very tight on her. Her face seemed almost childlike, but she was no child.
She said, “Let’s go out back and talk.”
“Okay.”
“He’s sleeping. He only sleeps a few minutes. It might wake him if we went in now.”
“Okay.”
She brushed past me and walked down the sloping cement ramp built from the top of the porch to the front walk. There were no steps. The ramp was for wheelchair cases. I followed her.
The hair was shoulder length, and more auburn, close up. Her waist was extremely narrow. She walked on the balls of her feet, throwing her hips out in back. It was there to be looked at, and she must have known it.
“Out here, Mr. Ruxton.”
I grunted, and we came around the side of the house on a path of stepping stones. She could really do things on stepping stones. She flipped a switch on a pine tree, and floodlights came on out in the yard. We walked along that way, playing Indian, to where the path ended. She paused, but didn’t turn, and said, “There are just the two of us living here. I have to take care of everything.” Then she moved off again.
I didn’t say anything.
The lot was a big one, maybe two hundred by three hundred. It was wooded with Australian pine, a couple of big old water oaks, and royal palms. You could see soft lights in a house beyond a hedge next door. There was a sea wall down there by the Gulf, and the moon and floodlights gleamed on the water. Three weathered lawn chairs stood around a rusting steel-topped table that had once been white.