Hardboiled Fridays!

Pug said, "I'm trying to think of the best way of knocking you off."

"The Chinese do it with rats" I said. 'They let 'em eat the victim."

"Where am I going to get the rats?"

"Well," I said, "there're three in the car now."

I don't know which one hit me; Pug or the guy with the garlic breath. It was the barrel of a pistol and it cooled me for a couple of minutes. When I came to we had stopped by a shack. I was alone with the guy on my left.

"On tap again?" he asked, poking his pistol in my side."

"Sure."

"You take it funny for a guy whose got no more'n ten minutes," he said.

My head hurt.

The Fifth Grave (a.k.a. Solomon's Vineyard)
by Jonathan Latimer
(Mystery Book Magazine, 1946)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"Something smashed into Sullivan's left shoulder; its brother dug hungrily into his left thigh, spinning him around. He fell, cursing with the pain in his wounds as he struck the stone stairway. He rolled down five steps, came to rest at a wide place where the stairs switched back—where a zig became a zag. He would have liked to lie there staring up at the stairs, the blue-white moon, resting, falling into the pit of darkness opening up in his mind... But he cursed himself and forced his right arm to prop him, his right leg to work. Summoning the rage that would ride roughshod over the pain, he got to his feet."

The Specialist #1: A Talent for Revenge
by John Cutter
(Signet, 1984)

Bonus points to anyone who knows the identity of "John Cutter."

Hardboiled Fridays!

"He reached down and squeezed his most famous feature through his tight leather pants. Then he punched me in the face. I wasn't out cold but it hurt like hell and everything went red and swimmy. I could feel rough hands on my body, wrenching my clothes and throwing me down on slick, crinkly plastic. Scratchy rope around my wrists and ankles and my first semi-delirious thought was, Bondage, are they crazy? You can't shoot bondage and sex in the same scene!"

Money Shot
by Christa Faust
(Hard Case Crime, 2008)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"The short guy came up at him from under the pole lamp. With one swift, slashing movement, he neutralized the nerve endings in both of Daredevil's legs, from the knees down. As his legs buckled Daredevil came forward and met the man's nose straight on with a right. He could hear the prod fly out of the little lock picker's grasp as the man toppled over backward onto the pole lamp."

Stan Lee Presents The Marvel Superheroes
edited by Lein Wein and Marv Wolfman
(Pocket, 1979)

Hardboiled Fridays! (Holiday Edition)

"The bar was a Fifty-second Street dive, full of small-time narcotic hustlers, marihuana smoke, and north-side thug disciples celebrating the holiday. It was the kind of place that Rocca might visit. It was also the kind of place that Owl Eyes Eddy visited. Eddy came in like a dog smelling a fire hydrant, sorting out the crowd through his new dark glasses. Mongo came out of the marihuana smoke beside him before he could get a good look at everybody. Mongo took him by the arm and smiled into the glasses.

'Listen real good, baby,' Mongo told him. 'Walk out of here ahead of me. And if you open your mouth, I'm going to gut-shoot you.'"

Mongo's Back in Town
by E. Richard Johnson
(Harper & Row, 1969)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"Instinctively Bolan was rolling for shadow and blindly returning fire, very much aware that he was bleeding from two places but also strongly aware that he'd cut the odds down to a much more manageable two-to-one. Some men die easily, passively, passing back through the gateway of life with a gentle sigh or despairing moan. Some die with great reluctance, angrily, snatching at everything within reach to block that narrow passageway and to seal themselves into the Life side. Bolan was one of those latter."

Panic in Philly
by Don Pendleton
(Pinnacle Books, March 1973)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"Where did you say you were going?"
"To mother—they've just taken her over to Polyclinic."
"Very well—then I'm going over to the Wakefield Hotel, where a gentleman has just invited me to live with him."
"What?"
"Grant, perhaps you've forgotten. This is our wedding night. You stay with me or I leave."
I opened the door and stepped away from it. "Take your choice. It's her or me."
He stood staring, his face working as though the door were some frightful object. Then he closed it, turned around and stared at me as though I were some frightful object. Then he broke into sobs, fell on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. I turned away, as it made me sick to look at him. Then I snapped the switch and turned out the light.

Shamless (a.k.a. The Root of Her Evil)
by James M. Cain
(Avon, 1951)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"You bastard, you! Foolin' with a kid!"
Snarled Eddie: "I'll show yuh!"
And he did.

His shoulders swung:
His fist drew back,
Shot out,
Struck
With a dull smack.
Back went the man's head:
He spun where he stood:
He fell flat, and lay there,
His face oozing blood.

The Wild Party
by Joseph Moncure March
(Covici-Friede, 1928)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"The dead Mexican lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. On the flat's close air still lingered the tang of gunpowder, but the unnatural angle of the Mexican's head suggested his Colt. 38 had been a poor idea. he had gotten off one shot, then had been knocked backward over the sprung worn sofa, had landed on the back of his neck and had died. The blond man flexed his hands once, like a wrestler who has thrown his opponent in the ring and is waiting for him to rise again."

Interface
by Joe Gores
(M. Evans and Company, 1974)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"He leaped up blind, hands out or claws out, he leaped up in a foam of stink and screams, no matter what next but up—

"It happened he touched the clerk first. The clerk was slow with disinterest. And when the man touched he found a great deal of final strength and with his hands clamped around the clerk's neck got dragged out of the box because the clerk was dragging and the captain tried to help drag the clerk free. Before this man from the box let go they had to hit him twice on the back of the head, with the wooden axe handle."

The Box
by Peter Rabe
(Gold Medal, 1962)

Hardboiled Fridays!

Ox turned and hit Smut full in the mouth. A little blood gushed out of Smut's lip and he looked surprised. Then he opened his mouth in a sideways grin. "Okay," Smut said, and let Ox have one in the pit of the belly. Ox put his hands to his belly, and that was when Smut let him have it on the chin. Ox went down like a stuck pig and the fight was over. Smut was panting a little. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood off his mouth. "Get him on home," Smut told Lefty. " I didn't want to hit him, but he was getting too rowdy."

They Don't Dance Much
by James Ross
(Signet abridged reprint, 1952)

Hardboiled Fridays!

"As Polynice slashed at me, I fell back and went through the glass and out the apartment window. I fell hard and fast, hitting the soggy pavement two stories below with a resounding crash and a shower of glass. The chair shattered, a couple of bones broke, and I lost some skin, but I was alive. I shook the ropes and shattered wood off and ran back in the building at full speed."

Guns, Drugs and Monsters
by Steve Niles
(IDW Publishing, 2002)

Hardboiled Fridays!

Ned Beaumont was driven back against the wall. The back of his head struck the wall first, then his body crashed flat against the wall, and he slid down the wall to the floor.

Rosy-cheeked Rusty, still holding his cards at the table, said gloomily, but without emotion: "Jesus, Jeff, you'll croak him."

Jeff said: "Him?" he indicated the man at his feet by kicking him not especially hard on the thigh. "You can't croak him. He's tough. He's a tough baby. He likes this."

The Glass Key
By Dashiell Hammett
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1931)