Out Of The 1940s Film Noir Night-With Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake’s This Gun For Hire In Mind –Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Raven was a piece of work a piece of work alright tough and mean, damn mean, if he had to be and gentle as a lamb when he wanted to be. Tough and mean on those guys who needed wasting, or who somebody thought needed to be wasted and had the dough to back that thought up. Big dough, now that the Raven was at the top of his class, a top “hit man” who guys sent airplane fare for just to talk to him about some proposition, and air fare back too whether he took the job or not, which he usually took since guys who had loose change for air fare had enough dough for what they wanted done. See too Raven had developed what he called a “code” and that code entailed the hard fact that in this wicked old world some guys, some guys with maybe more brains than smarts, or more hunger that what was good for them, deserved to be wasted for gumming up the works, the right order of things and if the guy in charge had the dough he was all ears. So he took a certain professional pride in his work, that and working as a loner, except when he needed a little frail company but that was just short stuff, a night pillow thing and move on, and that sense of style had seen him through some rough patches since he started out several years back as nothing but a back alley jack-roller. That possible fate got him thinking about the old days.

Yah, it was a tough break, a big bad tough break that Raven’s father had died in the Great War (World War I, the war to end all wars if anybody was asking, although he usually forgot to mention that his father’s death was by hanging by his own side since he had deserted his unit under fire) and his mother had died when he was young so he was nothing but an orphan. It was tough too that the aunt who took him in was nothing but a bitch, a devilish bitch that beat him mercilessly for the slightest infraction. Like once grabbing an off-hand piece of candy without permission from the candy dish on her dining room table. Of course she got hers, got hers good after he graduated from jack-roller school to the “bigs.”That was the only job he ever did for free, gratis, for nothing. He found that he liked that setting up the kill and then executing the plan, that he liked to waste people that needed wasting.

After that one though he got wise to the fact that if he was to survive and go to the head of the class, make the big hits and not wind up in stir for some crummy two-bit back alley jack-roll, it had to become impersonal and that was how he developed and honed his code. So it was easy to see where the Raven (he refused all the way, under all conditions, to give any other name and nobody, nobody who wanted to stay alive, bothered with the formalities of name once he settled that issue in his mind) was kind of destined to fall off the tracks from early on, to turn himself, his lonely self into nothing but a stone- cold killer, a professional hit man, a hired gun if you don’t want to put it so delicately. He wasn’t saying, in those very few reflective moments that he endured, that the dice were fixed but close enough and so he was what he was, and good at it too, very good for a long while without a hitch as such things go.

Very good that is until he hitched up with Willie James, a high-roller (self-advertised as such anyway). Raven thought he had a little too much woman in him all soft and fleshy, hiring guys, and maybe girls too, to get his kicks, including an off-hand hit or two. Always looking for the main chance, and the main chance just then was selling high- grade chemical formulas to the highest bidder regardless of nationality. He had a source, a two-bit chemist who worked for Associated Industries, the big chemical firm over in Long Beach, who wanted to live the high life with some honey and needed dough. Not an uncommon story. That Willie James predilection for high bidder might have meant nothing to anybody most times except for a funny little event, Pearl Harbor, where the slant-eyes, the Nips, the crazy yellow men bombed the hell out of the United States and thought nothing of it. See though Willie James thought nothing of it either and they, the Japanese, were willing to pay a very high price for a nice little formula, a poison gas formula if you want to know, to get it and use it during the current war, World War II for those who forgot.

Not everybody was happy to know that selling to the highest bidder was what Willie was about once they found out, and that chemist with the high life tastes was willing to sell him out to the feds no question without a big bonus to keep his trap shut. Willie however had other ideas, Raven ideas, and so he was gainfully employed by Willie to waste that errant associate and he did, did it very professionally if somewhat messily. Actually for a moment it was a classic job of the profession- the target fell easily but he happened to have his honey secretary with him although that was not part of the deal. She wasn’t supposed to be there. Bang. Sorry honey. Sweet. Willie however playing for high stakes and wary of an off-hand witness to his nefarious deeds paid the Raven off in counterfeit money to set him up for the frame, the big frame. Touché. Needless to say when Raven scoped to that hard fact, hard jail fact, he was ready to move heaven and earth once again to avenge his hurt, his long ago embedded hurt. His code be damned on this one, this was personal, maybe too personal, but the guy needed wasting, serious wasting.

Of course a woman goes with it, murder or not, a dame out of some old-time Hollywood film, Elena, a dame who looked like some angel if angels had their blonde hair pushed just a little over that right eye that year, could sing, do magic tricks, and be, well fetching. The Raven took to her right away right from the first moment he eyed her at the Neptune Club, Willie’s hangout where he was waiting to have a word or two with him as part of his plan. So he took a little time out from Willie to dig into her, to find out whether her tastes ran to hard guys, hard guys with chips on their shoulders, but just then looking for some pillow talk. He never had trouble with women, girls, all the way back to elementary school and he expected none now. Funny all the talk he had heard about women wanting a little home and hubby there by five and all civilized. Raven found out early that some women, and not all plain janes either, wanted to walk on the wild side as much as men, as much as him. This Elena had adventure and pillows written all over her. So he didn’t get any resistance, or any turn down, when he sent a drink over to her table at intermission. She thereafter waved him over.

After a few words, some in the air banter really, a couple of sly double- ententes and some dreamy pillow talk by her once she sized him up as a hard guy but maybe good for a fling they agreed to meet after the show. They did so, grabbed a cab, and went to her place. The next morning Raven shook off the night’s sweats and slumbers and after a shave and shower headed out before she awoke. He headed over to Willie’s place out on Sunset Boulevard and placed two beauties, two 38s, right between poor Willie Boy’s eyes. And had done his work very impersonally after the night’s exertions had settled him down, done it by the book just like he should have. He knew he would now have to be on the lam for a while so he called that last night beautiful and told her to meet him in Frisco town, yes, Frisco town. He hung up and had just the slightest smile on his face, a smile for such a good day’s work. Yes, he was a pro, a pro no question…