Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [0]
Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Published by Akashic Books
©2006 Akashic Books
Manhattan map by Sohrab Habibion
ePub ISBN 13: 978-1-936-07037-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-888451-95-5
ISBN-10: 1-888451-95-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005934818
All rights reserved
First printing
Printed in Canada
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
Akashic7@aol.com
www.akashicbooks.com
ALSO IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES:
Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin
Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Tim McLoughlin
D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos
Baltimore Noir, edited by Laura Lippman
Dublin Noir, edited by Ken Bruen
Chicago Noir, edited by Neal Pollack
San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis
FORTHCOMING:
Twin Cities Noir, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz
Los Angeles Noir, edited by Denise Hamilton
London Noir, edited by Cathi Unsworth
Wall Street Noir, edited by Peter Spiegelman
Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford
Havana Noir, edited by Achy Obejas
Bronx Noir, edited by S.J. Rozan
Lone Star Noir, edited by Edward Nawotka
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
CHARLES ARDAI Midtown
The Good Samaritan
CAROL LEA BENJAMIN Greenwich Village
The Last Supper
LAWRENCE BLOCK Clinton
If You Can’t Stand the Heat
THOMAS H. COOK Battery Park
Rain
JEFFERY DEAVER Hell’s Kitchen
A Nice Place to Visit
JIM FUSILLI George Washington Bridge
The Next Best Thing
ROBERT KNIGHTLY Garment District
Take the Man’s Pay
JOHN LUTZ Upper West Side
The Laundry Room
LIZ MARTÍNEZ Washington Heights
Freddie Prinze Is My Guardian Angel
MAAN MEYERS Lower East Side
The Organ Grinder
MARTIN MEYERS Yorkville
Why Do They Have to Hit?
S.J. ROZAN Harlem
Building
JUSTIN SCOTT Chelsea
The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York
C.J. SULLIVAN Inwood
The Last Round
XU XI Times Square
Crying with Audrey Hepburn
About the Contributors
INTRODUCTION
WELCOME TO A DARK CITY
The City.
See, that’s what we call it. The rest of the world calls it the Apple, or, more formally, the Big Apple, and we don’t object to the term. We just don’t use it very often. We call it the City and let it go at that.
And, while the official city of New York is composed of five boroughs, the City means Manhattan. “I’m going into the City tonight,” says a resident of Brooklyn or the Bronx, Queens or Staten Island. Everybody knows what he means. Nobody asks him which city, or points out that he’s already in the city. Because he’s not. He’s in one of the Outer Boroughs. Manhattan is the City.
A few years ago I was in San Francisco on a book tour. In conversation with a local I said that I lived in the City. “Oh, you call it that?” he said. “That’s what we call San Francisco. The City.”
I reported the conversation later to my friend Donald Westlake, whose house is around the corner from mine. “That’s cute,” he said. “Of course they’re wrong, but it’s cute.”
The City. It’s emblematic, I suppose, of a Manhattan arrogance, of which there’s a fair amount going around. Yet it’s a curious sort of arrogance, because for the most part it’s not the pride of the native. Most of us, you see, are originally from Somewhere Else.
All of New York—all five boroughs—is very much a city of immigrants. Close to half its inhabitants were born in another country—and the percentage would be higher if you could count the illegals. The flood of new arrivals has always kept the city well supplied with energy and edge.
Manhattan’s rents are such that few of its neighborhoods are available these days to most immigrants (though it remains the first choice of those fortunate enough to arrive with abundant funds). But it too is a city of newcomers, not so much from other countries as from other parts of the United States, and even from the city’s own suburbs and the