Bill Pronzini - Sleuths [short story collection]

Fergus OHara, Detective. Copyright 1974, 1990 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Alfred Hitchcocks Mystery Magazine.

The Desert Limited. Copyright 1995 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Louis LAmour Western Magazine.

Medium Rare. Copyright 1998 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine.

Jade. Copyright 1970 by H.S.D. Publications; revised version copyright 1999 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Alfred Hitchcocks Mystery Magazine as The Jade Figurine.

Vanishing Act. Copyright 1975 by H.S.D. Publications, Inc. First published in Alfred Hitchcocks Mystery Magazine.

The Desperate Ones. Copyright 1971, 1992 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

Blood Money. Copyright 1975, 1992 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Alfred Hitchcocks Mystery Magazine.

Dead Mans Slough. Copyright 1980, 1983 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Alfred Hitchcocks Mystery Magazine.

A Killing in Xanadu. Copyright 1980 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in a limited edition by Waves Press.

Stakeout. Copyright 1990 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Justice for Hire.

La Bellezza delle Bellezze. Copyright 1991 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Invitation to Murder.

Over the past thirty-some years Ive had the pleasure of creating a variety of fictional sleuths for both novels and short stories One of them has fared quite well, the others have been less successful, though a couple have had careers which exceeded my modest expectations. Each has led an interesting life (at least to me) and each has been different in fundamental ways.

Foremost among them, of course, is the fellow who has been around almost as long as I have my first story was published in 1966, his first recorded case a year later and who is better known than I am in spite of the fact that he doesnt have a name. The San Francisco private investigator dubbed the Nameless Detective (by a former editor, not by me) has appeared in twenty-five novels and numerous short stories spanning four decades.

My other series detectives run the gamut of fictional types: professional and amateur, historical and contemporary, humorous and deadly serious, honorable and notorious, soft-boiled, medium-boiled, and hard-boiled. There is Fergus OHara, a roguish individualist who, with his wife Hattie, plies his trade during the time of the Civil War. There are John Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter, an affectionately mismatched pair who operate a private agency called Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, in 1890s San Francisco. There is Dan Connell, ex-pilot and reformed black marketeer whose bailiwick is Singapore and Malaysia. There is Christopher Steele, magician extraordinary, who specializes in solving seemingly impossible crimes a joint creation with Michael Kurland. And there is Carmody, a freelance bodyguard and supplier of legal and extralegal services, who is based on the Mediterranean island of Majorca and whose adventures take him to such locales as Vienna, Venice, Amsterdam, North Africa, and Spains Costa del Sol.

Each of these characters, and his (and her) special brand of detection, is represented here a sort of detectives round table. You may not like all of them or their methods, but I hope youll find their company stimulating. None of them gave me a dull moment, anyway...

Bill Pronzini

Petaluma, California

On a balmy March afternoon in the third full year of the War Between the States, while that conflict continued to rage bloodily some two thousand miles distant, Fergus and Hattie OHara jostled their way along San Franciscos Embarcadero toward Long Wharf and the riverboat Delta Star. The half-plank, half-dirt roads and plank walks were choked with horses, mules, cargo-laden wagons and with all manner of humanity: bearded miners and burly roustabouts and sun-darkened farmers; rope-muscled Kanakas and Filipino laborers and coolie-hatted Chinese; shrewd-eyed merchants and ruffle-shirted gamblers and bonneted ladies who might have been the wives of prominent citizens or trollops on their way to the gold fields of the Mother Lode. Both the pace and the din were furious. At exactly four P.M. some twenty steamers would leave the waterfront, bound upriver for Sacramento and Stockton and points in between.

OHara clung to their carpetbags and Hattie clung to OHara as they pushed through the throng. They could see the Delta Star the moment they reached Long Wharf. She was an impressive side-wheeler, one of the floating palaces that had adorned the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers for more than ten years. Powered by a single-cylinder, vertical-beam engine, she was 245 feet long and had slim, graceful lines. The long rows of windows running full length both starboard and larboard along her deckhouse, where the Gentlemens and Dining Saloons and most of the staterooms were located, refracted jewellike the rays of the afternoon sun. Above, to the stern, was the weather deck, on which stretched the texas; this housed luxury staterooms and cabins for the packets officers. Some distance forward of the texas was the oblong glassed-in structure of the pilothouse.

Smiling as they approached, OHara said, Now aint she a fine lady? He spoke with a careless brogue, the result of a strict ethnic upbringing in the Irish Channel section of New Orleans. At times this caused certain individuals to underestimate his capabilities and intelligence, which in his profession was a major asset.

She is fine, Fergus, Hattie agreed. As fine as any on the Mississippi before the war. How far did you say it was to Stockton?

OHara laughed. A hundred twenty-seven miles. One night in the lap of luxury is all well be having this trip, me lady.

Pity, Hattie said. She was in her late twenties, five years younger than her husband; dark-complected, buxom. Thick black hair, worn in ringlets, was covered by a lace-decorated bonnet. She wore a gray serge traveling dress, the hem of which was now coated with dust.

OHara was tall and plump, and sported a luxuriant red beard of which he was inordinately proud and on which he doted every morning with scissors and comb. Like Hattie, he had mild blue eyes; unlike Hattie, and as a result of a fondness for spirits, he possessed a nose that approximated the color of his beard. He was dressed in a black frock coat, striped trousers, and a flowered vest. He carried no visible weapons, but in a holster inside his coat was a double-action revolver.

The Delta Stars stageplank, set aft to the main deck, was jammed with passengers and wagons; it was not twenty till four. A large group of nankeen-dressed men were congregated near the foot of the plank. All of them wore green felt shamrocks pinned to the lapels of their coats, and several were smoking thin, long-nine seegars. Fluttering above them on a pole held by one was a green banner with the words Mulrooney Guards, San Francisco Company A crudely printed on it in white.

Four of the group were struggling to lift a massive wooden crate that appeared to be quite heavy. They managed to get it aloft, grunting, and began to stagger with it to the plank. As they started up, two members of the Delta Stars deck crew came down and blocked their way. One of them said, Before you go any farther, gents, show us your manifest on that box.

One of the other Mulrooneys stepped up the plank. What manifest? he demanded. This aint cargo, its personal belongings.