I was sipping on a Martini with orange bitters added (a classic style of martini-ing) the other night, and while sipping was wracking my brain because I knew I’d read a quote in a classic pulpy book where a couple characters did just that, and it took for until the second cocktail to remember that it was Red Harvest! By legendary Dashiell Hammett! And the Continental Op (one of Hammett’s mainstay detectives) was one of the characters doing said sipping! It’s a grand book, one that any lover of last-century detective-etc. fiction should read, probably while drinking one of these. And while I’ve had the below quote on the Spiked Punch before, well, after the above moments, I decided it should be on here again.
When I came back she was mixing gin, vermouth and orange bitters in a quart shaker, not leaving a lot of space for them to move around in.
“Did you see anything?” she asked.
I sneered at her in a friendly way. We carried the cocktails into the dining room and played bottoms-up while the meal cooked. The drinks cheered her a lot. By the time we sat down to the food she had almost forgotten her fright. She wasn’t a very good cook, but we ate as if she were.
We put a couple of gin-gingerales in on top of the dinner.
Before jumping to the below Cocktail Talk quote, be sure to peep your peepers on the Skuldoggery Part I Cocktail Talk, to learn more about the mostly satiric, jolly, book itself, and also the author, Fletcher Flora (for that matter, and to see some more serious stuff from the normally noir-ish writer, check out all the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks). Then come back for more from Uncle Homer in the below quote, where he’s dealing with his “grief” Martini-style.
“As his only surviving son,” Uncle Hester said, “I am in no position to deny it. What I am in a position to do, however, is to offer everyone a nice Martini. Father, as you know, was drier than Woodrow Wilson, but I took the opportunity, immediately after his sad departure, to lay in a small stock of gin and vermouth. Just to see me through the difficult days of final arrangements, you understand. It’s in the kitchen and so I’ll just go and mix up a pitcher.”
We’ve had a fair amount of Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks, he being one of the pulp mag pulpsters I enjoy, and also being one who lived in Kansas, the state I grew up in (though he lived in Leavenworth, which is sorta fitting for someone who wrote a lot about crime), so, you know, connections. Like many who wrote for the mags and pocket-sized books, Mr. Flora’s oeuvre (so to speak) covers a fairly wide spectrum, though I tend to think of him of a slight tad more literary-minded than some, a bit off the beaten track in some of his subjects and narrators and such. But normally, those books of his I’ve read, slot nicely into a wider noir-crime area. Until Skuldoggery! While there may be light crimes committed (against good taste if nothing else), it’s way more a kind of comedic farce, with nearly all of the characters being, to be kind, idiots. There is a death of a patriarch, from natural causes, a rich one naturally. But one who leaves all his money to the care of his dog. A sentiment I can get on board with! But one which his descendants and relatives, a rum lot, aren’t as happy about. Which leads to Cocktail Talk moments, especially from Uncle Homer, who liked his gin even before the death of his father, and who, below, dreams a dream I’ve dreamt before.
Of all the mourners, though, the most impeccably impressive by far was Hester. Throughout the brief ceremony, her eyes were lifted to a cotton cloud drifting slowly across a pale blue sky as if Grandfather were riding it bareback into heaven and her face was so serene and lovely that Uncle Homer, observing it, felt a faint twinge in his leathery heart and was diverted for a few seconds from his dream of a five-to-one Martini.
It is almost silly to have an intro to A Study in Scarlet Cocktail Talk – I mean, is it the most famous detective story of all? Mayyyyybe not, and maybe not even the most famous Sherlock Holmes story (Baskerville, I suppose), but it is the first appearance of the most famous detective ever, and therefore has had not only bunches upon bunches written on it, but numerous versions on screen (and maybe stage?) and take offs and all. But! It is a bit weird and worth mention that even though I love Sherlock (though I wouldn’t call myself a Sherlockian or expert Holmesian or such), I have never had a Cocktail Talk from an ACD (Arthur Conan Doyle, natch) book on the Spiked Punch before – or that I can remember! There are lots of posts. But I was re-reading A Study in Scarlet and a few other Sherlock yarns, and came across the below quote, and figured it was about time the world’s only consulting detective made a showing here – or, at least, a quote from a story featuring him made a showing.
I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,’ he said. ‘My time is from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the White Hart; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher – him who has the Holland Grove beat – and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’s Presently – maybe about two or a little after – I thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a-strollin’ down, thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a heap, therefore, at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door-‘
In a past post, I gave a shout out to this particular episode of the original Perry Mason series, and in said post (as, perhaps, in others) I made mention of not being as big a fan of the Perry Mason books by Erle Stanley Gardner as I am of the series. This fact is still true. However! I have come around more to some of the books, and definitely understand their popularity, and have oodles of respect for the writing chops of the author. But, still, I like the show better. And watch it regularly. A lot, to be honest. There’s something about the combo of Raymond Burr (playing Perry naturally) William Talman, Ray Collins, William Hopper, and Barbara Hale (playing DA Hamilton Berger, cuddly Lieutenant Trask, dashing detective Paul Drake, and the lovely Della Street respectively) that just sings. And the black and white filming – chef’s kiss, as they say! So, yeah, I watch Perry Mason bunches. And just rewatched one of my favorite episodes, The Case of the Fancy Figures, about a cad who gets murdered, like in many episodes. But this one has the below quote, which is one of my top bar quotes of all time. Making it well-worthy of another Cocktail Talk.
If you have to wait, there’s nothing like a bar. After a few drinks, it becomes a fairyland. People are so kind and considerate.
I decided that I needed to have a second Cocktail Talk from the Georges Simenon novel Maigret’s Revolver (starring Inspector Maigret, as you might surmise). Be sure to read the Maigret’s Revolver Part I Cocktail Talk to get an overview of the book, and if you haven’t, read all the past Maigret Cocktail Talks, so you don’t miss a sip. Here, the sipping is a Pineau des Charentes, which I was chuffed to see as they tend to be delicious, and I like the idea of Maigret drinking a glass of it.
There was invariable a surprise at Pardon’s dinners, perhaps a special wine or liqueur, or in this case a Pineau des Charentes which a vineyard owner in Jonzac had sent him.
“None for me!” protested Madame Maigret, who was usually tipsy after a single glass.
The chatted over the wine. Here too, the windows were open; life was going on at a leisurely pace on the boulevard, the air was golden and the light gradually faded into a rosy glow.
My collecting of Inspector Maigret (the Parisian policeman made famous in an amazing array of novels by Georges Simenon) continues apace, as they say, if perhaps not at the speed they mean when saying it, most recently when I picked up a gem called Maigret’s Revolver. In it, a young nervous fella stops by to see our taciturn Inspector at home, but Maigret’s out. The cuddly Madame Maigret lets the young man wait, but when she’s out of the room, he lifts a revolver (a present from Americans, naturally) that Maigret had left out. From there, the chase is on, a chase the becomes more fervid when a murder victim turns up in trunk dropped off by the young man’s father – a victim that was shot, but with a different gun! Maigret eventually ends up in sunny London, after a fair amount of twists and turns. And Cocktail Talks (be sure to read the many past Maigret Cocktail Talks, too), including the below pastis sipping with an old colleague.
“Hello! What are you doing in Paris?”
Lourtie, one of his former inspectors, had recently transferred to the Flying Squad in Nice.
“Just passing through. I thought I might drop in, sniff the air of headquarters and shake hands with you. Do we have time for a pastis in the Brasserie Dauphine?”
“Yes, but it’ll have to be a quick one.”
He like Lourtis, a tall lanky fellow with the voice of a church cantor. In the brasserie, where they stood at the counter, there were already several other inspectors. They chattered about this and that. A pastis was exactly what was needed on a day like today. They had one, then another, then a third.
Here’s a swell quote from a swell old pocket book called Suddenly A Corpse, by the legal thriller/crime/pulp master Harold Q. Masur, or Hal Masur, or just old HQM, as his pals used to call him (I hope). It stars his regular, lawyer Scott Jordan, and is well worth tracking down. I could tell you more, but I’m not gonna. Cause I want to get to the quote, which I find is ideal for this time of year, the Thanksgiving time, the time when all of those who don’t have some sort of insane ability to skip seconds, end up being overfull. Or, because their stomachs, as below, were installed by . . . well, just go on reading.
She had another pull of rye that would have knocked me kicking. She might have been drinking water for all the effect it had. Her stomach, I thought, must have been installed by the Bethlehem Steel Company.
For a moment there I was busier than a drunk on a tightrope.
