We now to come to our last (for now, at least!) Cocktail Talk from the Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack (published by Wildside Press). We’ve had ones from the stories included therein called Kill Me Tomorrow and Hell Hath No Fury and The Tool, all pulp published nuggets from the crime and mystery and more writer once based in Leavenworth, KS (a fitting spot for a crime writer, due to the prison there), and today have a quote from a story called Sounds and Smells. In it, our narrator drinks an Ambrosia Highball, and for the life of me, I can’t discover a drink named that in my booze book library (I haven’t gone through that many books yet, however, between us). I will keep looking! And keep reading Fletcher Flora (who you will learn more about, and read more quotes from, when you go through the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks).
I was sitting at the bar drinking an Ambrosia Highball when Sherry came in. It was not the cocktail lounge of the Café Picardy by any means, but it was a pleasant place, and there was a talented and pretty girl who sat on a little dais and played pretty tunes on a concert harp. Sherry was certainly astonished to see me, and apparently uncertain whether to be happy or otherwise. Anyhow, she sat on a stool beside me.
We turn to a perfectly-made Martini in our third quote from the Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack (published by Wildside Press), the same tome of Fletcher Flora goodness that gave us the memorable and recently posted Kill Me Tomorrow Cocktail Talk and Hell Hath No Fury Cocktail Talk. Now, as today’s pulpy gem shouldn’t be rushed, much like a four-to-one Martini shouldn’t be, I’m going to skip any further intro (outside of telling you to read all the Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks to learn more about the author).
“Nettie likes you, I think, and it’s rarely that she likes anyone at all. It must be your irresistible charm. I’m having an early Martini. Will you have one?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“They’re in the pitcher on the table there. I remembered the ratio exactly. Four to one.”
“Good. Will you have another one with me?”
“Later, darling. Four-to-one Martinis shouldn’t be rushed, especially when they get an early start.”
Our second Cocktail Talk from the Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack comes from a story within that mighty tome of Flora-goodness (published by Wildside Press) called Kill Me Tomorrow. Before heading into a martini below, however, be sure to read the Hell Hath No Fury Cocktail Talk, to learn more about the Megapack and about Fletcher Flora – for that matter, don’t miss all the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks! Then come back for the below Martini fun.
She had lifted her glass to drink again, but the action was suspended suddenly with the edge of crystal just touching her lips. Her breath stirred slightly the gin and vermouth, and her eyes, wide and still and black in the contrived dusk, stared at him across the golden surface. After a moment, with a sad little sigh, she tipped the glass and set it down again.
“Poor dear. It’s always such an ordeal going to the dentist. You’d better have a drink at once.”
“I could use one, all right.”
He signaled a waiter and asked for bourbon and water. When it arrived, he drank half of it quickly.
Fletcher Flora is a last-century pulp/pocket book/noir/mystery/etc. writer who perhaps in my humble opinion (or imho, as they say) hasn’t always gotten his due as being in the upper echelon of such writers. He has, in his best work, an individual style (I have a hard time pinning it down in words. I read it called “off-beat” and that’s not a bad description, character-forward, wry in a way, you just have to read them), and he’s from KS, as I was, both of which drew me to him. Until recently, there weren’t a lot of reprints of his novels, and the stories were – like so many stories pubbed in the pulps – entirely impossible to get unless you were lucky enough to inherit a stack of said mags or the money to track them down. However! As with Day Keene and a few others, more recent years have provided a boon to those of us who enjoy a good yarn in the genres, as reprinting tech has been made easier, making it possible to rediscover more of the words written by worthy authors like Flora and Keene (very different writers in style, by the way). We’ve had a few Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks in the past as I’ve managed to score more books, and then recently I found on the Amazon a wonderful collection called The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack – funny enough, the First Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack wasn’t available when I was shopping, so I started with the second, though I’ll remedy that asap. The megapack (from Wildside Press – thanks by the way Wildside) has an assortment of stories from Mr. Flora, ranging in length, and while all slide into the crime and mystery shelf, the set-ups and characters and driving forces change enough to make it a swell read. They aren’t all of the same high quality as his best – he had to make a living and the pulps didn’t pay phenomenally well, so quantity mattered, too – but they’re all close enough that I was amazingly happy to get the collection, and to round out my Flora-fiction. I can’t wait to read more in the first megapack, if I can wrangle it! With all that preamble, I should say that there was lots of Cocktail Talking in the stories, so expect to hear more in the coming weeks. To start, a quote from a story called “Hell Hath No Fury.” In it, we step into a little dive bar, which Mr. Flora describes perfectly in a few short sentences, and then heads for the rye.
On Fifteenth, just off Wamego, The Peanut was a dismal, little bar which, like all bars in the morning, somehow gave the impression of having a hangover. In the shadowy interior, behind the peanut bowls, a bartender looked at me as if he wished he didn’t have to. Opposite the bar lining the wall, there was a string of booths, each with its own peanut bowl, and private remote-control box for the juke box in the rear. In the last booth, where the shadows were deepest, I caught a glimmer of platinum, the white movement of a lifted hand.
I told the bartender to bring me a shot of rye and went back to the booth and sat down.
Let’s have one more from the fine three-novels-in-one-book Fletcher Flora collection from Stark House. We’ve had quotes from the first two books in there (check out all of the Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks to see those – and more!), and to bring things all full circle and such, wanted to have one from the last book, Take Me Home. While it was probably my least favorite of the three, it, like the others especially when taken all together, shows the versatility and reach of Flora. Take Me Home is definitely still a good read, just leaning more towards noir-ish slice of life of a few characters in, if not desperate, awfully close, states. As opposed to the more mystery-side, or crime side, of the first two books. And the below quote about port is one no-one wants to miss.
“Dark port would be nice,” she said. “It’s not so dry as some of the others, and besides, it’s stronger than most of them.”
“You mean it has more alcohol?”
“Yes. Port has around twenty per cent and most of the dry wines have only twelve or fourteen.”
“That’s a good thing to know. I’ll remember that.”
“Oh yes. Port is six or eight percent stronger.”
“A bottle of dark port, please” Henry said to the clerk.
As I chatted with you about in our previous Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talk posts that were up here recently, I’ve been reading a three-pack book (meaning, it contains three novels) from this sadly lesser-known pulp/pocketbook star, and in the second book, Let Me Kill You, Sweetheart, you can really see what set him apart, as it has a level of creativity in how it approaches what should be a straightforward murder, with multiple narrators (including the killer, though we don’t know who it is until the last sentence, and the murder victim) and backstories. It’s pretty neat. And, it has a nice hotel bar where a fair amount of action – or in-action – takes place, including the drinking of Miller High Life! Now, way before the MHLife renaissance, my pals and I were big, big fans of the American beer, because it’s nice on a hot day, because it was a sort-of outsiders beer (and we were sort-of outsiders), because it didn’t cost a ton of $$ (and we didn’t have a ton of $$), and, well once we started, why stop? So, seeing a MHLife quote in a book from Fletcher Flora from 1958 was neat. And love that they call it Miller’s High Life. Read it, and you’ll agree:
An hour later, at eleven-thirty, the taproom of the Division Hotel was almost deserted. The only persons present were Bernie Juggins, the bartender, and Purvy Stubbs. Purvy sat on a stool and stared moodily into half a glass of Miller’s High Life that was going flat. He hadn’t drunk from the glass for quite a long time, and it looked like he sure as hell was never going to drink from it again, and for all Bernie could tell from looking at him, the fat bastard might be dead.
Well, when I posted an earlier Leave Her to Hell Cocktail Talk, I should have mentioned (or at least alluded to) that there might be more, but I wasn’t sure. However, in hindsight, why would I only want one, when there are multiple swell drinking scene in this book (which, as you learned when you read the earlier post, which you did read, right? but whichin you learned I’m reading via a you-should-own-it collection of three Fletcher Flora novels, said collection put out by Stark House). Heck, I’m guessing now that I’ll have even more from Kansas-born Mr. Fletcher (sadly gone from us a few years now), so you have that to look forward to (and if you need even more, see past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks, too). However, with that said, and with my admiration for said writer, I can’t completely agree with his final assertion in the below quote, which has three classic drinks in it. Three! Though, with novelists, you never know that the protagonist’s point of view is the authors, so really, maybe Mr. Flora loves an Alexander, and is having one right now at whatever afterworld bar he’s hanging at. Here’s hoping!
I looked right. A cocktail lounge was over that way, beyond a wide entrance and down a step. A number of people were drinking cocktails. There was no music. I recognized a Martini, which was all right, a Manhattan, which was better, and an Alexander, which you can have. Everything was very elegant, very sedate. Maybe someone saw me, maybe not.
I’ve only had one Cocktail Talk from the wonderfully-named Fletcher Flora, which makes some sense as until recently I had only read one of his books, Park Avenue Tramp (don’t miss the Park Avenue Tramp Cocktail Talk, by the by). Now, I’m diving into a three-pack of his novels, put out by the smashing Stark House, starting with the also wonderfully-named Leave Her to Hell. So, there may be more from this Kansas-born author, who is lesser-known than he should be, due to his more character-driven, a bit literary-minded at times, often a little different from the standard pulp-and-pocket-book style, and also (I found out in the book’s intro), due to a bad agent who sold his books to unreliable published. Agents are important, kids! Leave Her to Hell is a worthy read, too, with a neat detective lead (Percival Hand – wish there were more books with him), and a good story with quick dialogue. However, really, I picked this particular quote cause they’re about to be drinking gin-and-tonics, a normally fair-weather spring and summer sipper, and it’s really cold here, and snowy, and I like thinking about sunshine drinks when it’s cold!
“I like you, Mr. Hand,” she said. “I like your looks.”
“Thanks, I like yours, too.”
“Would you care for a drink?”
“Why not? It’s a warm day.”
“I had a gin and tonic before you came. Do you drink gin and tonic?”
“When it’s offered. A gin and tonic would be fine.”
As I chatted with you about in our previous 
