Murdering Americans by Ruth Edwards

Author:Ruth Edwards [Edwards, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, FICTION, Mystery & Detective, Suspense
ISBN: 9781615950638
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2007-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

‘So what’s a nice couple like you doing in a job like this?’

‘My dad was a P.I.,’ said Vera, ‘and I joined him when I finished high school. I’d still be there in Chicago if I hadn’t met Mike, who had just graduated and was moving to New Paddington to go to graduate school. He wanted me, I wanted him, and he needed work so we set up M and V.’

‘What made you want to go to Freeman, Mike?’ asked the baroness.

‘I wanted to do film studies and my college was crap at it. Freeman had a good reputation.’

‘You amaze me.’

Robinson sighed, and swallowed more coffee. ‘There was a really great two-year course in noir P.I. films.’

‘Was? You mean you’ve finished it.’

‘It’s more like it finished me. I loved the first year, but then our prof was pushed out and a moron took over. This past year we’ve being going almost still by still through great movies and the books they’re based on looking for racism and sexism. Can you imagine?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Philip Marlowe uses words like negro and mocks Indians, Sam Spade turns a woman in even though she’ll get the electric chair, all the heroes are violent, they all see women as sex-objects and are substance abusers, Sidney Greenstreet’s fatness was portrayed negatively, and Peter Lorre was always being ridiculed for being short.’

‘I see. So you decided to ape Mike Hammer just to wind the moron up?’

‘You got it. Do you remember the end of I,The Jury?’

‘No.’

‘“How c-could you?” she gasped. I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in. ‘It was easy,’ I said.”’

‘Not a sentimentalist, Mickey Spillane.’

‘When I said that showed the integrity and innate justice and moral sense of Hammer, I thought Dr. Pappas-Lott would explode.’

‘Pappas-Lott? What was she doing teaching you? She’s the Dean.’

‘She took over the course to use it for what she called a series of master classes. There are always instructors there being shown how to teach.’

‘Can she teach?’

‘If you think grading students by how many unacceptable words or actions they can ferret out of a book or a film is teaching, then she sure can.’

Vera took his hand and patted it. ‘Never mind, Maurice-Mike, what good would a master’s be to you anyway?’

‘Didn’t you finish?’ asked the baroness.

‘I was disqualified for inappropriate behaviour and language and I couldn’t be bothered appealing. Freeman means nothing to me: I just went to classes. And who wants to be an academic anyway? Through Vera-Velda I’ve found a job I love. We’ll move out of New Paddington soon and go somewhere there’ll be work.’

***

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