Survival Zero! by Mickey Spillane (1970)
"They had left him for dead in the middle of a pool of blood in his own bedroom, his belly slit open like gaping barn doors, the hilt of the knife wedged against his sternum. But the only trouble was that he had stayed alive somehow, his life pumping out, managing to knock the telephone off the little table and dial me. Now he was looking up at me with seconds left and all he could do was form out the words, 'Mike...there wasn't no reason.' "
The dead man was Lippy Sullivan, a hard-luck character who had gone to school with Mike Hammer before he dropped out in the ninth grade. He had Hammer had met up again when they bother served in the Army, then Lippy went back to his anonymous life in New York City. Hammer had gotten him a job two year ago checking our groceries in a wholesale warehouse. That was the last time Hammer had heard from Lippy...until the phone call. It was strange because Lippy had to have memorized Hammer's phone number, and Hammer had changed the number more than a year ago, so Lippy had had to have gotten Hammer's new phone number at some time and memorized it. Why?
Lippy had lived in a fleabag rooming house and had nothing worth stealing, yet his room had been professionally tossed. Again why? In Lippy's dying words, "There was no reason."
The police are willing to go through the motions, but just barely. They are too busy with other, more important, cases, such as the gangland slaying of a major mobster and the unidentified man found mysteriously dead on the subway. The government is keeping it quiet, but the unidentified man has died from a new and virulent pathogen, engineering and smuggled into America fifteen years before by the Stalin regime and held in abeyance until the time was right; the pathogen had the potential of destroying the entire country. Because the plot was Stalin's and because all records of it had long been erased, the current Russian government is working desperately and secretly with Washington to stop it. All anyone knows is that the virus will probably be released within two weeks. In order to avoid widespread ;panic, officials are working to prevent news of the plot being released.
Meanwhile, Hammer discovers evidence that Lippy might have been a pickpocket. Wallets of very ;prominent people, emptied of cash, have been found in the trash near Lippy's apartment. This lead Hammer to a powerful mob boss, a sexy actress, a wealthy business mogul and his oversexed assistant, and eventually, to the Russian plot. Beautiful women thrown themselves at him, and killers try to kill him, but he's Mike Hammer, confident in his arrogance, able to withstand threats, as well as the passions of sexy women, without damaging his sense of masculinity.
The end, of course, is violent, with only Hammer standing alive.
A male fantasy, where what needs to be done is done and the hell with all the rules in an ultimate libertarian world populated with the likes of James Bond, Jack Reacher, Parker, Quarry, endless action-adventure heroes a la The Executioner, and all the other literary characters who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. This is the world where many of us fantasize about, where the bad guys get their due. Where you have a secret button on your car that will fire a rocket ad the jackass who must cut you off. Where your co-worker, who is trying to stab you ion the back, gets his comeuppance. Where the woman who would not give you the time of day suddenly sees your intrinsic worth. Where all of your fantasies play out and you become the hero of all your stories. Where success is yours must because you are you. Sometimes I think it is in this fantasy world where the ultra-right wing currently resides. It's a nice, comforting, place to live for a while, but ultimately, you have to go back to the real world.
Spillane was a deceptive writer. Because of the male fantasyland he created, many people tend to overlook his talent and pure narrative power. But there is a reason why he was one of the most successful authors of his era. Survival Zero! was the eleventh published book in the Mike Hammer saga. After this, Spillane retired Hammer for 19 years before returning with 1989's The Killing Man. during that interim, and throughout his writing career, Spillane continued experimenting with the character, writing partial manuscripts and notes, which were completed and edited with Spillane's permission by his good friend Max Allan Collins to provide fifteen additional novels, a graphic novel, and numerous short stories.
Any story about Mike Hammer, whether by Spillane alone or in collaboration, is highly recommended by this fanboy.
No comments:
Post a Comment