Cocktail Talk: To Kiss or Kill
It’s gotten all sorts of cloudy and rainy here (and it’s Monday, besides), which leads me to thinking of down-on-their-luck boxers embroiled in trouble, murder, at least one femme fatales, some tough cops, some dangerous political types, and dark nights and dark whiskey. Much like the main character in pulp-a-teer Day Keene’s To Kiss or Kill.
“The switchboard operator said impatiently, ‘Yes? May I help you?’
Mandell counted the crumpled bills in his pants pocket. ‘Send up a boy with a pint of rye. Old Overholt.’
He cradled the phone and sat on the bed. Then he lay back on it, thinking that if his brief set-to with the hood was a sample of what he had left, he was washed up as a fighter. He was just another meatball.”
–Day Keene, To Kiss or Kill
