Bunker Stark

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84243-760-5
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

Oceanview, Los Angeles, 1962. Stark is a rat and a con-artist. Nobody's friend. The kind of guy Eddie Bunker met in San Quentin. Stark thinks he can beat the suckers and outsmart the cops. When a big score comes his way, he's lucky to escape with his life. Four others are not so lucky. Eddie Bunker described Stark as a story about a con man. Eddie didn't think much of con-men, because, as a rule, they preyed upon people weaker than themselves. But he understood them. Stark was Eddie Bunker's first novel, written in the early 60s and a harbinger of the books that brought him critical acclaim such as No Beast So Fierce. Never published during his life time, the manuscript was only rediscovered after his death and is published in English for the first time by No Exit.

Edward Bunker, Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs, was the author of No Beast So Fierce, Little Boy Blue, Dog Eat Dog, The Animal Factory and his autobiography, Mr Blue, all published by No Exit. He was co-screenwriter of the Oscar nominated movie, The Runaway Train, and appeared in over 30 feature films, including Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, the film of his book No Beast So Fierce. Edward Bunker died in 2005 and another novel, Stark, was discovered in his papers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bunker, Edward

Leseproben

2

Detective Lieutenant Patrick Crowley sat in the shadowed darkness of the unmarked police car. The street was squalid, lined with third-rate rooming houses. The neighborhood was the heart of Oceanview’s tenderloin. From where he sat, Crowley could see across the street the side door of the Panama Club, the doorway illuminated by a moth-haloed electric bulb. Crowley could see the action coming and going and hear faintly the sound of a jukebox repeating the same blues number over and over. The clarity of the music swelled and eddied in proportion to the other sounds carried by the night air; the burst of crude laughter, the whiskey-thickened voices rising in a gust of excitement. A yellow streetcar grumbled past, its bell ringing dully. A taxi paused to pick up a fare and disappeared into elsewhere.

Crowley glanced at his wristwatch and his heavy lips formed a silent curse. He shook his head and again watched the doorway, unable to hold back a grin as a known prostitute steered out a trick to some cheap room. Crowley wasn’t interested in stopping vice. He was a narcotics cop. He was waiting for his rat.

The side door opened again and from it stepped a slender man in expensive sports clothes. A cigarette lighter flared in his hand. A moment later the headlights of the police car flashed for a second. The man finished lighting the cigarette and leisurely crossed the street. Crowley grunted in disgust and started the motor. It was Stark.

Stark’s eyes flicked up and down the street, into shadows and over his shoulder, but his movements were casual. He walked with one hand draped in a jacket pocket, the other with the cigarette swung in loose exaggeration at his side. He was tall, with slightly stooped shoulders and a certain feline grace, a hip swagger halfway between poise and a pose. He knew he was good-looking in an ascetic kind of way. He’d seen Humphrey Bogart walk this way in a movie. He came around the car and slipped through the passenger door. Slamming it closed behind himself, he extended his left arm along the back of the seat and leaned back in the corner.

Crowley was already spinning the car into an illegal U-turn. Stark looked at the overweight bulk behind the wheel and mused that seventeen years on the force had made Pat Crowley more a cop than the television stereotype.

When they were beyond the city limits, Stark made a face of pain.

“Man, couldn’t you have been cooler?” he asked. “Maybe parked down the street or something? If anybody saw me with you, my ass is grass. I live down here, and I don’t dig the idea of getting my throat cut. There’s suckers that do things like that.”

“You’ve been stalling,” Crowley said. “I get tired of waiting for your games. You were supposed to call me today. You didn’t, so I came for you. What’ve you got for me?”

“It ain’t as easy as you think, Pat.”

The detective turned his eyes from the highway to glare at Stark. “We’re not on a first name basis, punk.”

“Just trying to be friendly.”

“We’re not friends. This is business. We made a deal that you begged for… I wouldn’t press charges for the junk I found in your pocket, and you’d set up the big connection. You promised – I went for it. I’ll even take Mr. Momo Mendoza. He’s just one step over you. He might give up his supplier, if I could nail him with enough shit to put him away for twenty years.”

“I’ll get him, but I can’t if you crowd me. Just leave me to handle it.”

“You made the deal, but I make the rules. When I want you, you come. Otherwise you’ll talk to me from a cell. You won’t like going cold turkey. I’ve seen what it does to punks like you.”

“Okay, man.” Stark looked to the whirring scenery, the moon-silvered ocean rushing up the beach to break in foamy blue froth, mist filling the night with the smell of the sea. He cursed himself for his recklessness in taking a shot of the Beast from the East in the toilet of a gas station. The attendant had become suspicious and called the police, and when Stark came out, Lieutenant Pat Crowley was waiting. He hadn’t known that the toilet had become a favorite shooting gallery.

That had been a week ago. Now the pressure was on. He had tried to ignore his agreement with Crowley. In fact, he didn’t know how he was going to deliver. Momo was very secretive about his connection. Deadly secretive. He was also his pal and his connection. How the fuck did he ever get trapped into this deal? Momo never had his goods on him. He always went somewhere to get the customer’s order.

“Man,” Stark said, “this ain’t the supermarket. Momo’s not a fool. I can’t just ask him who his connection is. If I get too nosy, he’ll freeze me out. You’ve been in the game long enough to know the junkie world is paranoid. Nobody trusts anybody.”

“They shouldn’t. You’re all finks. I might as well lock you up, pinch Momo, and let him set up the big man. Find out where Momo hides his shit. We’ve already been through his place once.”

Stark kept silent. He knew that Momo was no fink. He’d go to prison first. It wouldn’t bother him. It was the price you paid for his kind of business.

“I want some results,” Crowley said. “If it was up to me, I’d lock you up. You think you’re slick, Stark, too goddamn slick for the world.”

“Well, you’re not slick,” he replied petulantly, “calling the Panama Club and making me meet you outside.”

“Keep your appointments.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Some whore…”

Stark didn’t answer. His jaw was set tight with futile resentment. “What do you want me to do now?”

“The same. Get next to Momo’s boss. Tell Momo you want to make some big money or some other story. You’re good at stories. Get to work on it. You have two days to come through. If something doesn’t happen by then, I’ll pick you up and turn the key.”

“Okay, okay. I got it. I’m working on an angle. I think the key guy may be Dummy, the mute. The guy’s a killer. Did you ever see his eyes? He scares me.”

“Bullshit. You got two days. Now fuck off.”

Stark exited the police car two blocks from the Panama Club. He stood in the thickening fog and watched the red taillights turn out of sight. His eyes gleamed with anger; his lean face twisted. He spat with fury, as if cleansing his mouth of filth.

“Big, tough cop,” he snarled. Suddenly the ugliness became laughter. Using two fingers of his left hand scissor-like, he fished a shriveled marijuana cigarette from a shirt pocket. “Yeah, copper, I had a felony in my pocket. You think you’ve got me, but I’ve got the whole world. All you hoosiers, suckers, coppers. Screw you. Screw Momo. And screw Mr. Big, whoever the fool is.”

A clock in the window of a cut-rate jewelry store gave the time as a few minutes past midnight. There was no hurry; the club stayed open until two.

Stark pinched free the twisted end of the cigarette, ran it over his tongue to dampen the paper, lit it, sucking deeply, and began to walk down the deserted street.

He wondered if pot could still give him the ride. The stick of grass had been a gift from the bartender. Stark hadn’t wanted it at the time, but didn’t want to offend the guy, who thought marijuana was the best kick in the world. His own attitude had been prejudiced long ago by a dope fiend, his pool-hustler father, the fast man who said: “I don’t need shitty weed to make me crazier. Man, I need God’s medicine to make me sane.” And then busted the vein with a needle while his son watched. His father had been a junkie. Stark vowed he’d never get hooked. Only suckers got hooked.

He dragged once more on the joint, and as he held his breath this time, the marijuana worked its magic. In seconds his mind zoomed to a higher level of perspective, at once more intense and yet distorted. Crowley’s face came to mind, bulldog and stupid. A sudden fit of laughter erupted. His laughter booming through the silence of the empty streets. He checked himself, aware that the grass was playing with his imagination. The lights were brighter, and the windows that had been ugly moments before seemed like rows of impressionist paintings hung by a great artist in the gallery of night. The thought brought another gust of insane laughter.

Trash cans, battered by use, lined the curbs, waiting for dawn. These, too, had meaning, especially a deformed washtub heaped to overflow by wine bottles. Stark stopped abruptly, leaned far forward and narrowed his bloodshot eyes.

“I’ll be goddamned,” he said in solemn awe. “It’s a bloody avant garde masterpiece…” He laughed at his own ridiculousness.

A black and white prowl car slid to the curb, its bright headlights bathing him. It immediately broke his mood. A policeman, featureless beneath the bill of his hat, popped his head from the window, like a puppet from a box.

“What’re ya doin’ out here, buddy? It’s late to be roaming.”

“Just digging the crazy art.”

“What?”

“Bringing out the rubbish.” He knew the officer had stopped to see if he was a drunk. The hustler straightened himself. “They pick it up early. I work nights so I brought it out. Glad to see you on the job. It makes me feel safer leaving my wife home alone.”

“Okay, mister. Don’t work too hard.”...