JLW here. I’m taking the day off. But here’s a real treat for a guest column. Steve Hockensmith was one of the first people I asked to write a column for CRIMINAL BRIEF three years ago when Rob Lopresti and I were first developing it, but he passed because he was under deadline for a novel, and then as now, as he says below, he’s “been too busy with other projects to write much short fiction lately.” We saw each other at Bouchercon and caught up a little, but it was actually after Bouchercon that he wrote to Rob (they had somehow missed each other in San Francisco) asking if he could write a guest column for us. This is rather like Pericles asking if he can say a few words at the funeral. Anyway, here’s what Steve has to say for himself:

“Steve Hockensmith is the author of the “Holmes on the Range” mystery series as well as the New York Times bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. He recently collected his holiday stories in an e-book , Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime. You can learn more about it (or just leave Steve insulting messages) at www.stevehockensmith.com.”

IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR . . . FOR CRIME

by Steve Hockensmith

Ten years ago, I received my favorite Christmas gift ever: an acceptance letter from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Sure, it came in June or July. Yet still— it was definitely a Christmas present. I wouldn’t have cracked EQMM without a little help from Santa.

I’d been writing mystery stories for a couple years at that point, and though I’d managed to sell one to Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen was resisting my charms. The rejections were very nice, very encouraging, but still . . . rejections. I was close without a cigar.

So how did Santa help me lay hands on a stogie? I drafted him for a story. It’s a little trick I now recommend to anyone looking to sell genre short fiction: Go seasonal. After all, if an editor’s trying to fill an autumn issue with a picture of a murdered pilgrim on the cover, isn’t she going to look a little more favorably on a story about, say, a Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with stolen jewels? If she’s got some space left in the issue coming out around Independence Day, isn’t a story about murder-by-roman-candle at a fireworks display going to have a leg up on the competition? When she’s planning her annual Arbor Day special, wouldn’t that be the perfect time to hit her with a story about . . . ummm . . . the suspicious death of . . . oh, I don’t know . . . a lumberjack?

O.K., maybe it wouldn’t work for every holiday. But there’s always going to be a market for stories with an yuletide angle. The proof in the Christmas pudding: In the years after selling that first holiday story—about a mall elf going up against a very, very bad Santa—I sold eight more to EQMM and AHMM.

Sadly, I’ve been too busy with other projects to write much short fiction lately, so I haven’t produced a Christmas story in quite a while. But, hey—so much the better for you! Now there’s even less competition for those precious Christmas issue slots. Here’s how to nab one.

Each time I sat down to plot out a new holiday story, I started (appropriately enough) by making a list and checking it twice. The list: things I associate with Christmas. What I was checking for: ways those Christmasy things could be tied to a crime. My first list might have looked something like this.

• Mall Santas
• Caroling
• “Secret Santa” gift swaps
• Fruitcake
• “Black Friday” store stampedes/toy crazes
• The North Pole
• Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”
• Kids trying to find Mom’s stash of hidden presents
• Christmas Eve church services

If words like “caroling” or “fruitcake” don’t seem especially evocative of dark deeds and fiendish schemes, that’s O.K. With a little imagination, even the most innocent thing can be made to look menacing and malicious. Just ask Glenn Beck. Ba-da-BING!!!

Actually, I’ve never gotten a good vibe from fruitcake anyway, so let’s use caroling as our example. It’s a charming tradition. [CUE OMINOUS MUSIC] Or is it? Total strangers knock on your door, and when you answer they start demanding, en masse, something called “figgy pudding”?

“We won’t go until we get some,” they bellow at you, “so bring it right here!”

Well, obviously, this is extortion—a yuletide shakedown.

“All I’ve got are Fig Newtons,” you sob. “Please . . . just take them and go!”

But noooooo. Now the bastards want a “cup of good cheer.” Who are these maniacs?

That question became a story of mine: “Naughty.” In it, the carolers weren’t going door to door to spread the Christmas spirit (or strong-arm their way to dessert). They were crooks scouring a ritzy neighborhood in search of a mark—a man they knew had some particularly pricey items under his Christmas tree.

See how easy it is? And there are plenty of holiday staples I never got around to writing about. I always wanted to hide a body in a snowman, for instance. And wouldn’t an icicle have made a great, undetectable murder weapon back in the days before everyone went all CSI on us? And aren’t there certain songs that could drive an otherwise stable, peaceful person to murder? “I didn’t mean to do it, Lieutenant. But he just wouldn’t stop singing ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,’ and before I knew it the garland was around his neck.”

It would be great if those stories popped up in EQMM or AHMM one of these days. And if they do, I hope they have your name on them.

Because then you’d owe me some money. Well, maybe just a shout-out on Twitter. At least remember to send me a Christmas card.

Saaaaaaaay, Christmas cards! No one’s done those yet, so far as I know. Hmmm. Maybe a guy’s murdered while taking his cards to the post office . . . and he I.D.s his own killer by clutching the card he was going to send her? Nah. Too corny. There’s got to be another angle, though.

I leave it to you to find it.

Happy holidays!

PROFESSIONAL TIPS– Lemony Snicket

by Leigh Lundin

You’re a fan of crime writing and you haven’t heard of Lemony Snicket?

Leigh at Borders (2005)

Lemony Snicket might be accused of the crime of writing, which would undoubtedly please Lemony no end. To be candid, I’ve read only one LS novel, The Bad Beginning from the tridecalogy A Series of Unfortunate Events. I read it in one sitting in a Borders Bookstore in Evansville, Indiana while I was waiting for… Well, never mind, I read all 13 chapters. In fact, all 13 books have 13 chapters. Lemony has a thing about the number 13.

When I began reading, I pictured Lemony Snicket as a jaundiced sick, sick, sick, sick adult of the female flavor, but as it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth. That is, I can’t imagine guys as ‘lemony’; limey or grapefruity, orangey maybe, perhaps pithy, but not lemony. Nevertheless, Lemony Snicket is the handle of Daniel Handler, not according to Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.

To be fair, his first novel, The Basic Eight, was rejected by 37 publishers for its subject matter and tone, a dark view of a teenage girl’s life. This dude has serious issues, which is right up our alley. Snicket’s mission is to successfully warp 60 million children in 41 different languages. Impressive!

Now that I haven’t explained who Lemony Snicket isn’t, I offer the following professional encouragement personally eMailed me (and a few thousand friends) by Lemony in conjunction with NaNoWriMo, which Deborah described a few weeks ago. Read it and weep.

Dear Cohort,

Struggling with your novel? Paralyzed by the fear that it’s nowhere near good enough? Feeling caught in a trap of your own devising? You should probably give up.

Paralyzed by the fear, well… Normally, we wouldn’t direct you to another web site, but to avoid the spectre of copyright concerns, I found the letter on the NaNoWriMo web site. I urge you to read the missive in its entirety because it’s fun and sly and acidic and beautiful at once:

Clearly, the future is moving us proudly and zippily away from the written word, so writing a novel is actually interfering with the natural progress of modern society. It is old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy, a relic of a time when people took artistic expression seriously and found solace in a good story told well. We are in the process of disentangling ourselves from that kind of peace of mind, so it is rude for you to hinder the world by insisting on adhering to the beloved paradigms of the past. It is like sitting in a gondola, listening to the water carry you across the water, while everyone else is zooming over you in jetpacks, belching smoke into the sky. Stop it, is what the jet-packers would say to you. Stop it this instant, you in that beautiful craft of intricately-carved wood that is giving you such a pleasant journey.

We’re glad you’re still here, but consider a minute to visit the NaNoWriMo page with Lemony Snicket’s letter in full and enjoy the gondola trip, even if you have to strap on your jet pack later today. It’s worth the journey:

Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it. Blow it out, so our eyes will not be drawn to its power. Extinguish it so we can get some sleep. I plan to quit writing novels myself, sometime in the next hundred years.

– Lemony Snicket

UNORIGINAL SINS

by John M. Floyd

All of us, whether we’re writers or not, have pet peeves. One of mine is clichés. Or at least certain clichés.

Why do they bother me so? Think of it this way . . .

One of my favorite TV commercials of the past several years features a guy standing in his house flipping a switch on the wall, on and off, over and over again. While he’s doing this, he’s calling to his wife, who’s in the other room and paying no attention whatsoever, “Honey, what’s this switch for?” Meanwhile, somewhere down the street, an old lady is sitting horrified and wide-eyed in her car, watching her garage door crash down on her hood, raise up again, and crash down, in perfect time with Doofus’s switch-flipping.

The first time I saw that commercial, I howled like a hyena (is that a cliché?). I even laughed at it the second time, and probably the third. But after maybe the tenth viewing, the novelty was gone. It was still funny, and I appreciated the humor, but I barely chuckled, and pretty soon I got tired of watching it. After a couple months or so, I was sick of it.

Same thing happens with clichés. The first time we as readers/writers see a witty phrase in a story or a book, it’s catchy and interesting and impressive. Why? Because it’s new. It’s fresh. I wish I’d thought of that, we think. The next time we see it (or hear it, in a movie or a newscast or even an office conversation) it’s not as striking, and before long it becomes as boring as an old joke. In the literary world, the overuse of anything is risky — and besides, writers are expected to be original.

What are some of the worst clichés? That’s a matter of opinion. Here are some that I find particularly irritating:

Amazing. The other day I saw a contestant on a TV show tell the host, “I have an amazing boyfriend.” I couldn’t help wondering what made him so amazing. No one should say that except (possibly) Lois Lane.

A sense of closure. I cringe when I hear this one — and boy do I hear it a lot. I’ve told my writing students it better not show up in the manuscripts they give me to critique.

110 %. Someone needs to explain to me (and most sportscasters) how an athlete could ever give 110 % on the playing field. I suppose that would be truly amazing.

The whole enchilada/the whole nine yards/the whole ball of wax. I can’t even imagine how these got started, and I probably don’t want to know.

Ground zero. Anyone using this phrase should be forced to stand there during the explosion.

24/7. It seems I hear this one used 24/7.

All about . . . A while back I saw a campaign ad where the candidate gazed solemnly into the camera and said, “I’m all about the people.” I voted against him for that reason alone.

Serious as a heart attack. I wasn’t crazy about this one the first time I heard it. After the 100th time I was ready to gag myself with a spoon. (Oops, that’s a cliché too.)

Give it your best shot. Enough said.

Awesome. This one isn’t old old, like “groovy” or “swell,” but it’s getting there. The Grand Canyon (and maybe Chet Atkins’s guitar playing) is awesome. Your brother’s new iPod, or your date’s outfit, or your friend’s suggestion to go to the movies, probably isn’t.

Ratchet up. This is what you need to do to your self-editing skills, if you use this phrase.

What are the clichés you love to hate? All of us have a few.

And that’s the bottom line . . .

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. For today’s Bandersnatch, I’ve invited my son, Sam, to contribute an essay he wrote for school. His Language Arts assignment was to write—in letter form addressed to the teacher—an account of a book he read. I had recently recommended The Deep Blue Good-by (as the first of the “Travis McGee” novels by John D. MacDonald) to him. I had a feeling he’d like it, but had no idea how much. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed at how enthusiastic his praise was. I’ll let him speak for himself. Below is the report as he wrote it. As an indication of his tenacious independence, Sam wouldn’t let me proofread, or even preview, his report before submitting it to his teacher. Sam is thirteen years old. —Steve Steinbock

DEAR MRS. SMITH

by Sam Steinbock

Dear Mrs. Smith,

The most recent book I have read this school year is one that you have probably never read. It is called The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald. It falls in the genre of Murder Mystery. Not only is this book well written, but it is amazingly developed and well thought through all the way to the last words of the last chapter. It is the first of many books in the “Travis McGee” series, which are all books based on a man named Travis McGee, or as he prefers to be called, Trav.

I’ll tell you a little bit about Travis McGee. He is what really gives the Travis McGee novels their oomph. You see, what Trav does is quite complicated. I will try to put it as simply as possible. What Travis does is he finds things that people have lost. Most times this means money. Other people, let’s say person y, had money that they deserved but that money was taken away from them by person x. Then Travis comes in, person z, and he takes the money away from person y and returns it to person x for a fee, a fee of half the retrieved amount. This may seem like a lot, but the way he and person x see it, is that half of something is better than nothing of nothing.

In this specific story, Mr. McGee is asked by his friend to help out one of her new employees. This employee was not a very wealthy woman, and as it turned out, her father had stashed away a huge amount of money, but he had gone to jail and never been able to tell his family where the money was, or even that there was any money at all, before he died. But then a man came, telling the family that he knew their father/husband, and tricked the family into helping him find the stash, without the family even knowing. Now Trav just needs to find the man, and find the money.

The way John D. MacDonald writes is amazingly. He does so many things right. The thing he does that stands out the most is how he puts so much thought into the character Travis McGee. You really know what’s going on in his head. You could almost argue that you knew everything about him if the question were presented. You really know what’s going on in his head. Yes, I understand that most authors have a way of doing this, but I have never seen it done as well as John MacDonald does it in his writing.

The setting is also a key for greatness in this book. This book takes place in Florida, and for almost every scene I can remember, he is along the water. In fact, for many points in the book, he is cruising out in the ocean. You can tell that John D. MacDonald must have loved Florida, because the way he writes about it blows me away. He uses great description and development of the setting that I can picture the place so well. He doesn’t even have to take a long time on it, like some authors do. Some authors take a huge amount of time explaining the setting and trying, sometimes failing, to get you to picture the setting. But when it comes to John, he just says a few words and you instantly can picture everything around him.

One thing that I absolutely loved when reading The Deep Blue Good-by was that the ending didn’t leave me still thinking about some things that were missed or never explained. There was some sadness at the end, but when getting past that, the ending was fulfilling of its purpose. To wrap up the book and not leave the reader puzzled by anything. This was truly fantastic, because many of the previous books I read end up screwing up on the exact thing that really leaves you with a final impression of the book.

This book is like nothing I have ever read before. I believe it would be impossible to connect it to anything, literary or worldly, based on the fact that the ideals of this book are virtually unheard of by the real world (or at least most would think). It is amazing how John D. MacDonald just throws an idea out there and explains it so well that you can just grasp it and believe it from the start of the book. No Fictional book that I have ever read with such an outlier idea like this has ever grasped me so quickly. There is no way to describe or compare.

I absolutely loved this book. I would rate it of the utmost greatness, giving it a 10 out of 10. With all the great things that John D. MacDonald does, and how great a character Travis McGee is, this book has matched up with all the best books I have ever read. In fact, as I was writing this letter, I was also talking to my dad about it. As you may know, My dad has been out of town for over four weeks, and during that four weeks, he went to the World Mystery Convention, called Bouchercon. When his friends heard that I was reading The Deep Blue Good-by, they all thought greatly of me and said, “Man, you are raising a child the right way!”

If I were to recommend this book to anyone, it would most likely be adults, for there is a lot of content that is, putting it lightly, not at all what so ever kid friendly. Even so, this book is amazing, And anyone reading it would love it, Especially you!

Sincerely,
Samuel Steinbock

FEEDING THE SPIRIT

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

“You know that just before that first Thanksgiving dinner there was one wise, old Native American woman saying, ‘Don’t feed them. If you feed them, they’ll never leave.'” —Dylan Brody

Right about this time, I’m thinking I ate too much turkey and dressing and I haven’t even sliced a cake or pie. I am feeling in dire need of a nap, but while company—though most are family and the rest are as close as family—are here, it seems rude to disappear and catch some Z’s.

That doesn’t mean I can’t steal a few minutes for myself to regroup. Perhaps we need a brief mental exercise to recharge.

I’m in awe of the talented people who put together 5 Minute Mystery. In less than time it takes to carve a turkey, you can earn points for finding clues, deciding who is most likely guilty, and solving the case. Read the mystery, then select which clues incriminate or exonerate each suspect. Choose your culprit, and solve the case. New short mysteries are posted each Monday and Friday and are addictive, but at least it’s only five minutes. The relatives probably haven’t even had enough time to miss you yet.

We could grab the newest anthology (have you purchased John Floyd’s Clockwork or Tony Burton’s Mil-Spec For Murder yet?) This could be the perfect time to read a quick short story. Have our Alfred Hitchcock or Ellery Queen mystery magazines subscriptions just arrived in the mail? Perhaps Thanksgiving is an excellent time to choose a little Edgar Allen Poe.

Taking a break from the festivities allows a breather from the brother-in-law who wants to discuss politics (there’s always at least one who does—and of course, he doesn’t vote the way you do), or an aunt who has never let go of an argument someone had with her a decade ago and she wants to rehash. Occasionally, someone brings a date with whom everyone wants to share interesting and often embarrassing tidbits about her or his companion. For me, this is perfect timing to gather up a group of the children and either read or tell them a short story.

Sometimes I locate the children of all ages to sit with me in a circle on the floor and explain we are going to write a short mystery story together. I start with a prompt and each person in order will add a line to the story. (One popular one I’ve used is: No one knew who had stolen the last piece of pumpkin pie, but everyone knew . . . )

In the beginning, there is always a bit of reserve, but once the story takes off, we are apt to go anywhere. I like to videotape this portion as it is probably my better stab at attaining a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving moment than preparing the perfect meal. Someone always insists we have at least one dreadful recipe simply because “That’s how we’ve always done it,” and “Aunt Edna adores it.” (For one thing, Aunt Edna isn’t even coming this year.) It doesn’t matter that no one eats this but takes a small portion to make it look like they did. We then carefully wrap it up and refrigerate The Glop (my secret name for the hideous dish) until it grows moldy and finally can empty it into the garbage without any remorse. It seems like a wasted effort to me to prepare, much less serve, The Glop.

On Thanksgiving, we feed the spirit as much as the stomach. I’m thinking there’s nothing wrong with adding a sprinkling of mystery on the menu, too. (Just don’t make it a mystery meat. That’s just wrong.)

Wishing all of you a blessed day, a beautiful meal with those you love and a great story to make your day complete.

THANKS TO MR. GIBSON

by Rob Lopresti

Tomorrow millions of Americans will be chowing down on turkey and the trimmings, and that made me think of the Thanksgivings of my childhood. And those memories brought to mind a very unusual style of storytelling.

No, I am not referring to your Uncle Manny who regaled you every T-day with garbled stories of the time he scored the winning touchdown in high school. This is something from my own past.

Like a lot of families, mine had a special set of plates they only brought out for holiday meals. Ours had been a wedding present for my mother’s parents, way back in (gulp) 1905.

And each plate had a drawing on it. Here is an example of one of the plates (not my family’s copy, by the way).

When I was a kid these pictures fascinated me. Before dinner I would walk around the table, trying to see each of the drawings. Each showed the same young woman, and here is how Susan E. Meyer described her in America’s Great Illustrators: “She was taller than the other women currently seen in the pages of magazines.. infinitely more spirited and independent, yet altogether feminine. She appeared in a stiff shirtwaist, her soft hair piled into a chignon, topped by a big plumed hat. Her flowing skirt was hiked up in back with just a hint of a bustle. She was poised and patrician. Though always well bred, there often lurked a flash of mischief in her eyes.” (Thanks to the livelyroots website for that quote.)

Each plate showed her in a different setting, sometimes vaguely comic, sometimes quite gloomy. They seemed like illustrations for stories, but where were the stories? The captions were mostly self-evident while being enigmatic at the same time. Where was the book that these pictures accompanied?

Well, there was none. The drawings were part of a book of drawings (dare we say it was a graphic novel many decades before the term came along?) entitled A Widow And Her Friends. I guess that explains the gloomy tone of many of the drawings, not what I was used to in, essentially, cartoons.

The man behind the plate

Charles Dana Gibson published his first drawings in 1886. He created the iconic figure known as the Gibson Girl four years later and wound up both editor and owner of Life magazine (a comic rag at the time, not the photo show that came later.)

His focus was mostly on beautiful young people, especially those hourglass women, but he also loved wonderfully expressive faces of older people as well. For example, he did two drawings, one showing three men reacting to an exciting baseball situation – and then this one showing the same gents after their side had struck out.

The girl behind the girl

So, before we turn on the oven and start mashing ’taters, can we squeeze a crime element into this story? You bet.

Gibson supposedly had three models for his lovely girls. They were his wife, Irene Langhorne, her sister Nancy Astor, and chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit. The latter was the woman whose former husband, Harry Kendall Thaw, murdered her lover, architect Stanford White. (Remember the movie Ragtime?) Not an event that Gibson chose to commemorate, I am happy to say.

COSTCO, COFFINS, & BOGIE

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Our standard poodle peed on our new goose down duvet. Stripping the bed (and the dog) I decided we needed a back-up duvet, so with my writer friend Kathleen Sharp I ventured into Costco.

Grabbing a shopping cart about the size of a Smart car, I immediately become paralyzed from sensory overload. I am one of those people who takes in color, noise, movement, objects, people with no filter and before I can process it, I turn into a zombie. Kathleen, who is on a major deadline, and even though she has decided to take the day off, is still moving with the speed of a frantic writer with an editor waiting in New York. She grabs the cart from me and plunges into the piles of pants, jackets, sweatshirts, jewelry, tomatoes, dog food, plasma screens, jockey shorts, sports bras, towels, massive jars of cashews, and yells, “They have cashmere sweaters.” The Zombie follows her.

We rummage through them with all the intensity of homeless women trying to find something warm to wear on the bitter cold streets. The awful paradox is not lost on me, and I remember that I’m not here for a sweater which I don’t need, but a king size duvet. (I’m going to kill the dog.)

We maneuver around hoards of people with carts filled to the brim with prepared sliced apples, giant bags of chips and packages of toilet paper that are taller than a five year old.

“Duvets!” Kathleen is triumphant.

I peer at them. There is only one kind and one price. They are filled with goose down from a country named Krackelstien. Krackelstien? Where is that?

I am reminded of the old Soviet Union, one car one price, one loaf of bread one price. I find the king size and put it into the cart. It barely fills it. (I wonder how standard poodle would taste for Thanksgiving dinner.)

“Books!” Kathleen announces, and I follow her to an area with vast tables stacked neatly with books. All the other areas of clothing, towels and food products look as if they’ve been ransacked. The book tables are in perfect order, not one of the titles is out of place. I watch as people pick them up, scan, then set them gently back in the proper pile. There have a reverence for the books. Of course they don’t need to rummage for size or color, and they could toss them back where they don’t belong, but they don’t.

Kathleen turns to me and says, “Sarah Palin’s America By Heart, has a one million print run expected to go up to two million.” She is in her reporter mode. “And then there is a book out by a dead man who wrote down his thoughts. Its weighs four pounds, is seven hundred and sixty pages long, and is published by a small press, University of California. It started with a print run of about 7000 in 8-point type and now they are up two hundred-fifty thousand and can’t keep it on the shelf.” She cocks a knowing eyebrow at me. “The dead man is Mark Twain.”

I study her to see if she trying to make some kind of political point. But she’s not. She’s excited. “Isn’t that great?”

“Between the Coasts. Middle America is buying books,” I say.

She nods, then states, “Vitamin pills, You stay here with the cart.” She marches off.

I happily obey, I’m in a safe place. I run my hands over the top of the books and wander into the video section. Here the DVDs have been treated like the cashmere sweaters. There is not the same reverence for them.

And then I see it—a white box titled HUMPHREY BOGART: The Essential Collection. Bogart is on the front of the white box wearing a white dinner jacket, black trousers, shinny black shoes, and black bow tie. His dark hair is combed back and his dark eyebrows are thick above is deep inset eyes. Hands casually in his pant pockets, he looks dangerously elegant.

I snap it up. Kathleen returns holding a bottle the size of an oil can filled with golden-colored Vitamin C pills.

On our way out I glance to my right and stop. Sounding like Kathleen, I blurt, “Coffins.” She is far ahead, plunging toward the exit. I stare at the coffin display. It is samples of wood moldings like you might pick out for the remodel of your kitchen. Except the colors are pink with painted gold trimming, walnut with painted silver trimmings, and one sample is as white as a wedding dress. There is something garishly sad and touching about these pieces of wood. Next to the samples are the urns. They look like a gift your dreaded aunt gave you for Christmas to put the plastic flowers in that she gave you the year before. My God, I think, you can go from cradle to grave in this store. Clutching Bogart to my chest and my receipt tightly in my hand, I run for the exit.

At home, opening up the Bogart collection I tell Bones that he can’t buy my casket or urn (I haven’t made up my mind yet) at Costco. (But he can buy the poodle’s there. The pink one with the gold trimming.) I glare down into her big brown innocent eyes. She’s hoping food will fall out of the video box.

His head goes back. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, look,” I take out an envelope from the box and open it. Out comes small sized copies of Bogey’s movie posters along with copies of telegraphs and inter-office communications for the movie, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. The first memo I read is from Henry Blanke to Don Page. It says:

Dear Don,

Please get busy immediately on having three different wigs made for Humphrey Bogart. You know that he has practically no hair left and that therefore these wigs will be necessary. Before you contact Perc Westmore, please take this up with John Huston as we need the wigs in three different hair lengths. Maybe Westmore can make some sketches of the different phases which we can then okay before ordering them. But since wigs take along time to be made, please get Westmore busy on this immediately.

It is signed Henry Blanke.

Then these words are printed on the memo stationary: VERBAL MESSAGES CAUSE MISUNDERTANDINGS AND DELAYS (Please Put Them In Writing).

I look at Bogart’s image on the white box. The rugged icon of noir is wearing his toupee. I smile. God, I love Hollywood.

I wonder if Costco has toupees.