The Paul Cain Omnibus Read Free

forerunners of both Lee Marvin in Point Blank (1967) and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon (1987).
    Cain’s virtuosity extends to his perfectly pitched depictions of disparate social strata. His narratives move effortlessly from the Roosevelt Hotel to a dirty flophouse, and his characters react to these shifts in various ways. “St. Nick” Green circulates among “legman, Park Avenue debutantes, pickpockets, touts, bank robbers and bank presidents, wardheelers, and international confidence men,” but remains a parvenu , spending “more of his time in night courts than in nightclubs.” Whereas Druse, a mysterious retired judge in “Pigeon Blood” (November 1933), exudes an elegance and sophistication alien to most of Cain’s protagonists: “Druse leaned forward. ‘I am not a fixer,’ he said. ‘My acquaintance is wide and varied—I am fortunate in being able to wield certain influences.’” There is a great deal of reserve in Druse’s speech; it may be the reticence of a man guarding old wounds.
    Only a writer freely exploring the boundaries of his genre could have produced such a variety of stories in so short a time. It is, in a sense, fitting that the man behind this protean achievement was himself so protean.
    * * *
    On November 2, 1986 the  Los Angeles Times  ran the following ad in the classifieds:
    Information Sought
    I am writing a biography of the
hard-boiled novelist Paul Cain
(a.k.a. Peter Ruric/George Sims),
author of the classic Los Angeles
gangster novel “Fast One” (1933).
I would appreciate hearing from
anyone with letters or biographical
information.
    DAVID A. BOWMAN
    Bowman never did produce his book-length biography. He could only scrape so much together, and much of what he found couldn’t be verified. Along with essays by E. R. Hagemann and Peter Gunn, and book chapters by David E. Wilt and Woody Haut, Bowman’s introduction to the 1987 Black Lizard edition of  Fast One  is still one of the best sources on Cain’s life. Recent work by Lynn F. Myers Jr. and Max Allan Collins has added to Bowman’s portrait. And yet, thanks largely to his own efforts, Cain has remained a cipher.
    The photo that originally appeared on Fast One ’s jacket is a high-angle, ¾ portrait of Cain’s bearded face, with a diagonal white bar across his eyes. It’s the only published picture we have of him, and might as well have been taken by Man Ray. The white band is an obvious but striking feature. So is his first self-­obliterating, deflective, yet spasmodically revealing autobiographical sketch, which begins:
    PAUL CAIN
    isn ’ t his real name.
    is slender, blond, usually bearded.
    has wasted his first thirty years as a
    matter of course and principle; wan-
    dered over South America, Europe,
    northern Africa and the Near East;
    been a buson ’ s-mate, Dada painter,
    gambler, and a “ no ” -man in Holly-
    wood.
    likes Mercedes motor-cars, peanut
    butter, Gstaad, and phonograph
    records of Leslie Hutchinson, Scotch
    whiskey, some of the paintings of
    Chirico, gardenias, vegetables and
    sour cream, Garbo, Richebourg
    1904, and Little Pam.
    dislikes parsnips, the color pink,
    sopranos, men who wear white silk
    sox, backgammon, cigars and a great
    many men, women, and children.
    Cain’s lies—and many were to follow in subsequent autobiographical statements—form a predictable pattern: unlikely ports of call, unbelievable occupations, and preposterous literary accomplishments. He never completed “a new novel of crime and blood and thunder, tentatively titled  Three in the Dark ,” and no library in the world holds “a melodramatic farce” titled  Young Man Sees God , or any of his other supposed titles:  Hypersensualism: A Practical Philosophy for Acrobats ;  Syncopaen ;  The Naked Man ;  Advertisement for Death ;  Broad ;  The Cock-Eyed Angel ; or  Seven Men Named Caesar . Nor is it likely that anyone will ever track down the long-lost acetate reels of Cain’s “motion picture to end