The First Quarry (Max Allan Collins, 2008)

Max Allan Collins takes us back to the early 70s on a ride with his anti-hero's debut assignment. Quarry is dispatched to some small college town in Iowa, where he's supposed to "take out" some asshole professor/writer working on a "non-fiction" book on Chicago's mobster. Two women are involved, and a gang war over the drug turf is taking place, so we know there will be plenty of sex and violence.

And since we are reading the Quarry book, we know it will be fun.

It moves forward rapidly, at times even too fast, as characters don't have time to fully evolve and breathe. Collins either drops them altogether (cute blonde at the very beginning) or Quarry simply kills them. There's this likeable private detective, Charlie, who brings few possibilities of mystery entanglement, but he too almost immediately ends up with an additional hole in his head, and storytelling goes back to linear mode. Which is cool, Quarry's novels are by their definition character driven, sometimes (like in this one) it's just too bad that the only character that drives them is Quarry and others are somehow neglected.

But, again, it's fun, especially after reading the initial few chapters and getting into the mood and into our protagonist's sense of humour. He's simply a cool guy and I'll give his first adventure an extra half point on account of how effectively he managed to finish this whole affair without "leaving any loose ends". Nice work indeed.

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero:
Quarry

Location:
Iowa City

Body count:

8

Dames: 
Dorothy "Dorrie" Byron, an asshole professor's abandoned wife and Annette Girard, artistic and slightly confused daughter of the mobster Lou Girardelli. Quarry fucks them both. Twice.

Blackouts: 

/

Title: 
Quarry's first assignment.

Cover:
Excellent one, done by Ken Laager. Liked its dark and sexy feel, and it's also very accurate - it depicts a scene from page 118. One small remark though - Quarry seems to be a bit lost in thoughts and uninterested, but in the book, he's actually horny as hell.

Cool lines:  
"I'm nothing to you but your 'girl' - I'm not a serious writer doing serious work!"
I wondered if a serious writer would use the word 'serious' twice in the same sentence.

She said, "I'm not in love with Professor Byron or anything. We're just good friends."
I could use a good friend who looked like her who would blow me.

[Before killing a guy]  He'd gone to the store. He had to eat, didn't he? Well, actually, he didn't, but he didn't know that.

"Do I look like I was born the fuck yesterday?"
For all the gunk on his hair, he might have been born the fuck a few seconds ago.[The Coolest!]

Pop. 1280 (Jim Thompson, 1964)

Straightforward story about a local sheriff of some godforsaken Texas hillbilly county. A simple-minded dude with simple problems concerning women, trying hard to be re-elected since being a local law enforcer is about the only thing in the world he feels he knows how to handle. See "cool lines" below and you'll get the picture.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. Although incredibly entertaining and easy to read and follow, Pop. 1280 is anything but a simple read. The story is quite complex, involving numerous characters and events that ultimately lead to a significant decrease in the initial population by the end. Plotting is superb, and tension build-up, together with the final twist, are good enough alone for the highest grade this total masterpiece gets from me.

But the real story and detective challenge (for the reader) takes place inside Nick's head. Who the hell is this guy? At the beginning, he's just a simplistic, clueless and almost retarded asshole driven by the desire to be re-elected. As the first bodies start to emerge, we realise that he's not exactly harmless, but he's almost cute, and in a way, we still find ourselves sympathetic towards him. At least I was, maybe because of his hilariously cunning scheming, or his incredible (ab)use of grammar, or simply his questionable luck with women. But there's just so much that man can take, and it becomes more and more clear that our main man is not exactly right in his head.

And this, for me, is the novel's main appeal - was he crazy all along or did something finally push him over the edge? We will get the answer, and it will be a creepy one. Also, an unexpected one, I couldn't see it coming at all.

Pottsville definitely deserves a few words. Cesspool of humanity it is, without a single likeable character around. Liars, cheaters, wife beaters, misogynists, people fucking their relatives (kids not excluded), nymphomaniacs, mentally retarded, simply mean, greedy and ignorant hillbillies (I caught him reading a book!) and most of them total racists. Racism is one of the prevailing themes and Thompson uses it as a tool to emphasize storytelling, sometimes even its humorous parts - I giggled at the scene when Nick spreads around the rumor that his election competitor Sam has "raped a little two year old nigger baby" but stuff like "niggers shouldn't be counted as a regular population since they have no souls" just makes you speechless and leaves you sad. No wonder Nick went a bit crazy in such an environment.

Cool thing - and another touch of maestro - is that Pottsville doesn't really feel like some big ass metaphor for America's little towns. At least not at the beginning, that is. I had the impression that Thompson simply enjoyed inventing these oddballs and playing with them. However, as the story progresses and darkens, it becomes increasingly clear that the author is a pessimist, suggesting that the only way out of this state of decay (Pottsville) is to become as insane (or religious) as the people living there. To put it into Nick's words: "There can't be no personal hell because there ain't no personal sins. They are all public."

This is unforgettable stuff; it should be made mandatory reading in primary schools.

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sheriff Nick Corey

Location:
Pottsville, 47th largest county of the state (of Texas, I assume)

Body count: 6

Dames: 
His mean, bitchy wife, Myra, plus mistresses Rose and Amy

Blackouts: 

/

Title: 
Pottsville has a population of 1280. But it could also be titled Pop. 1274...

Cover: 
The Orion edition's cover is hardly worth commenting on. I'm also including an older cover that I find interesting because it attempts to market this dark masterpiece as a light-hearted western comedy. Although when looking at the guy's facial expression long enough, you'll see a glimpse of psychotic tendencies in his eyes.

Cool lines:  
"Me?" I said. "I do my job all the time."
"You! You stupid silly spineless fool! You don't do anything!"
"Well, that's my job," I said. "Not doing nothing. I mean. That's why people elect me."

What I loved was myself, and I was willing to do anything I god-danged had to to go on lying and cheating and drinking whiskey and screwing women and going to church on Sunday with all the other respectable people.[The Coolest!]


"Can't very well run a town without one, right, Buck?"
"Right! Why if they wasn't any whores, the decent ladies wouldn't be safe on the streets."
"Kee-reck!"  Ken nodded. "Fellas would get all full of piss an' high spirits and take right off after 'em."

"The next time they even look like they're goin' to sass you, you just kick 'em in the balls as hard as you can."
"Huh?" I said. "But - but don't it hurt awful bad?"
"Pshaw, 'course it don't hurt. Not if you're wearin' a good pair o' boots without no holes in 'em."
"That's right," Buck said. "You just be sure you ain't got any toes stickin' out and it won't hurt you a-tall."

Lemons never Lie (Donald E. Westlake aka Richard Stark, 1971)

I'm not too keen on crime books in which heroes are ordinary people somehow sucked into the sinister underworld. True, occasionally this formula can function (can't remember a good example from the top of my head, though), but Lemons Never Lie is definitely not one of those instances.

Alan Grofield is a stage actor who runs summer theatre (whatever the hell that is?) in some rural godforsaken place. This requires money, and he finances this whole operation by occasional theft. Because, you see, he's also a professional thief.

Could a decent novel ever come out of such a moronic premise? I don't think so, not even when written by one of the genre's greatest craftsmen.

After initial setup, it turns into a cat-and-mouse kind of chase around the USA involving Grofield and some insane psychopathic asshole, Myers. It is written in a fast-paced and straightforward style, with a decent body count piling up, making it easy to read and follow. Quite fluent too, although on a few occasions the whole thing becomes simply laughable. I think I shall remember it by one of the most original torturing scenes - our main man Grofield strips down some poor schmuck and starts opening the front door. Since the outside is so cold, the guy gets terrified of catching pneumonia and immediately spills everything out to his ruthless torturer. I kid you not, read it yourself (page 193) if you don't believe me.

Not good, not bad. Something you take on a plane and forget about when you arrive at your destination and pick up the next book.

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
A member of a increasingly disappearing breed of professionals, Alan Grofield was an actor who limited himself to live performances before live audiences.

Location: 
Las Vegas, Mead Grove, Indiana, St. Louis, Monequois, New York

Body count: 6

Dames: 
None really. There's his understanding and artistic (also an actress) wife, but she hardly qualifies for a dame.

Blackouts: 
Yes, two of them. And since our hero is hardly some bad ass criminal (although he is professional) we can forgive him for the both of them. None is described particularly vividly - In the first one, "Grofield turned around and faced the wall. He knew what was coming, and hunched his head down into his neck, trying to make his skull soft and resilient. It didn't do any good. The lights went out very painfully." In the second one, he was simply hit in the face by a two-by-four and was subsequently out for a mere 5 minutes.

Title: 
One of those intriguing and funny wtf titles, but it has a really simple explanation. Right at the beginning, Grofield scores a jackpot (three lemons) on the slot machine and gets a little annoyed about it because he feels that he has used all his luck.

Cover:
Pretty cool, although the girl should be more in front. But very accurate, it depicts the corpse #3 and the fact that Grofield burns down the house to destroy all the evidence (I think) since he's such a professional. Credited to a guy R.B. Farrell, but a Google search on him didn't come back with anything useful.

Cool lines:  
Tired and aging mixed-race jazz quintet tried to figure out how to make transition to rock. So far, all they were sure of was the volume level; you couldn't hear yourself think. Looking at the conversations going on up and down the bar, and in the booths behind him, Grofield decided the place must be full of lip readers.

He Died with His Eyes Open (Derek Raymond, 1984)

This one is really unusual, almost weird. Not too surprising, since I picked it up because I remembered that Derek Raymond's name was mentioned by Mark E. Smith in his hilarious autobiography, Renegade. So welcome to the wonderful and frightening world of modern British noir!

Begins as yet another police procedural with a badly beaten body found in a dark alley of the dodgy part of London. The inspector in charge of the case discovers the victim's letters and some recorded tapes (ah, good old days!) and starts searching for the bad guys using these recordings.

Kind of. Our nameless sergeant works alone, at his own pace, using some pretty unconventional methods. His sense of justice and punishment is also strange, so his character resembles more of a classical PI than a policeman. So much for the police procedural clichés - which is, btw, just fine with me.

Letters and recordings also prove not to be much evidence. In fact, they serve just as a vehicle for telling a parallel story about our unfortunate victim. Which is cool since his background is really interesting. In fact, it is so fascinating that even our nameless detective becomes more interested in the man's story than the actual crime and begins to form a mental connection with him. I think.

This continues for the better part of the novel, and then it gradually becomes increasingly bizarre. Our hero tracks down and immediately afterwards starts fucking the victim's wife. He even moves with her into her apartment because (I guess) at this point, he's already connected mentally with her dead ex, so this means he can connect to her physically. Not sure again, but they also fall in love. Or something. In any case, he seems to have figured the whole thing (crime and fucking/loving part) out, so not much of an investigation will follow. There will be a shocking and bizarre (not only metaphorically) ending, but it is not entirely unexpected or surprising. Simply because there's no way that this strange novel could finish in the classical whodunnit style.

So we have two or three stories entwined, but the whole thing is anything but a mess. Very concise, Derek Raymond knew exactly what he was trying to tell and how to convey all those stories. Great storytelling with effortless shifts from hard-boiled, violent content to more mellow, psychological drama. Bleak and depressing at times (Staniland's journey and fate), but masterfully written. Not trying to be clever with tough one-liners, but still with a fair amount of sharp black humour and slang. Not really character- or action-driven, but still tense and compelling. It loses some of its charge towards the end, but it is still immensely enjoyable.

Unique and memorable. It got under my skin a bit, and I will definitely check out other Raymond titles.

4/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Nameless sergeant. Working for the Unexplained Deaths department - A14 branch, "the most unpopular one"

Location:
London

Body count: 

2

Dames:
Barbara/Babsie - Frigid iceberg with gross psychic problems and the mind of a petty criminal.

Blackouts: 

/

Title: 
Probably refers to the poor Charles, but I honestly cannot remember whether his body was found with its eyes actually open. Doesn't really matter; it's a cool-sounding title anyway.

Cover: 
A nice and intriguing one with great artwork. Also relevant: our hero is Nameless (faceless), he smokes (see cool lines below), and the tape recorder plays a significant role in the novel.

Cool lines:  
I lit a Palace filter. It tasted revolting; I only smoke them because I hope they might help me give it up.

"Good evening to you,"  he boomed heartily. "My wife tells me you've come about my brother Charles. What has he been up to this time?"
"Well, he's gone and died," I replied.

Nice and gentle way to break the bad news, but it needs to be said, it's still not nearly as cool as Hoke did it in New Hope for the Dead.

"Well, what about him?"
"Well, he's dead."
"As if I fucking cared," he said. "Who are you, you cunt?"
"I'm a police officer," I said. "And watch your tongue. One more slip like that with it, and I'll tear it out of your head."[The Coolest!]


"Look," he said furiously, when the penny had dropped, "do you want me to come out an round an give you some manners right in the mush?"
"Yes, why not" I said. "If you've got a spare face at home."

"Well, the vehicle wasn't marked." [traffic warden]
"There's a silly reason for that," I said, taking the ticket. It's because a lot of these modern villains can read.

City Primeval (Elmore Leonard, 1980)

The last of the grandmasters has passed away. Not exactly tragic considering his age and recent health problems, but still very sad. But fuck it - this is a hard-boiled blog, so instead of whining about it, I gave my respect to the main man by reading some of his brilliant stuff. I just went to the bookstore and picked up the book with the coolest cover (not an easy task, thanks to Tim Marrs) that I haven't read yet.

Starts very funny by quoting the report of "Investigation of the Judicial Tenure Commission" against Judge Alvin B. Guy. Hilarious reading! We know all about Leonard's crazy characters (and love them all!), but it needs to be said that this guy ranks high in his weirdness top ten chart. In short, he's an even bigger asshole than Maximum Bob.

It's too bad he doesn't last very long, though, because he gets killed right away in the next chapter by the mandatory psycho. In City Primeval this honour belongs to 'Oklahoma Wildman' Clement Mansell, who "likes to live dangerously and likes to kill people". He's an okay psychopath/sociopath, but my problem with him was that I just couldn't decide whether I liked him or not. Which is not a necessary bad thing, right?

However, I did have a much bigger problem with our hero detective, Raymond Cruz, who is assigned to investigate the judge's murder. Won't go into his family shit or macho bullshit or psychological crap, let's just say that he's simply not very convincing or interesting.

So, after a super promising judge asshole, we are left with a mediocre villain and a dull policeman. Plus the usual partner (btw Hunter is also cool but totally underused!), hot blonde pot-head bimbo, hot bitchy criminal lawyer and some shady underworld figures with ridiculous names (like Skender Lulgjaraj for fuck's sake!). Decent cast, but not great. At least not in Elmore Leonard's world.

The major flaw is the story itself and its lack of a compelling plot. Which is even more apparent since the whole thing is character-driven, so its foundations are not very strong to begin with. After the furious start (car chase, followed by the double killing), it just doesn't move anywhere. It gets stuck somewhere between character study and standard police procedural. Instead of some new events being introduced, Cruz falls for Carolyn and shit like that.

There was a moment, though, when I had hoped that pace was about to finally shift a gear up. When Albanian gangster Toma arrives at the scene, it's pretty obvious that he's a mean bastard who'll make things happen. Check out his exchange of Steven Seagal-like bad-ass one-liners with Raymond:

You do what you have to do, I do what I have to do.
No, it's not that simple, because I want him too.
...
You always look in their eyes?
If there's time.
...
It takes time.
No, it doesn't. Tell me where to find him. It takes only a few minutes.
...

A bit silly, but still cool enough. Only it goes on for too long and becomes a tedious game of whose dick is bigger. But must admit that the conclusion is cool because Hunter simply comments that "Fucking Albanians are crazy"

It is funny, there's some sex and there's some action, so even though it turns into a predictable thriller towards the end, it is still very enjoyable reading right up to the final showdown. Without giving away too much, let's just say I didn't choose the word showdown as a metaphor. I will admit I didn't see it coming in spite of warning signs (Gregory Peck), so both the ending and the final twist were surprising. But unfortunately, I was just surprised by how bad Maestro finished the novel.

3/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz

Location:
Detroit

Body count: 

3

Dames: 
Sandy - Not the type, at first glance, some management consultant would keep in his stylish apartment. But look again and see fun in her eyes. It gave a man feeling that if he turned her little motor on she'd whirl him back to his youth and take him places he'd never been.

Carolyn Wilder - Prosecuting attorneys referred to her as the iron cunt. [Fatale]

Blackouts: 

/

Title: 
Cool-sounding, but not very accurate, as Detroit City doesn't play a significant role. Probably "Primaeval Justice" would be more appropriate, considering the American Wild West sense of punishment. 

Cover:
Super cool collage of the city, car and Raymond in front. Done by Tim Marrs, who's also the author of other Leonard books published by Orion. Somehow tarnished by Ian Rankin's cover blurb, but luckily enough, my copy has one from the New York Times (An entertainer who can write circles around almost anyone), so it is merely damaged and not entirely ruined.

Cool lines: 
Better to take an extra twenty seconds to be sure than to do twenty years in Jackson.[The Coolest!]


Jesus, the man had nerve. ... Men with nerve died like anyone else if shot in the right place.

Four Novellas of Fear (Cornell Woolrich, 1936 - 1940, republished in 2010)

Reading The Vengeful Virgin got me nostalgic and put me in the perfect mood to read this short collection of four Woolrich stories republished recently. It has been sitting on my shelf for a few months, just waiting for the right moment.

As expected, not much of the asphalt jungle's bright city lights here with cynical detectives investigating complex plots involving dirty politicians, blackmail, or addicted celebrities doing porn flicks. These are simple stories about everyday people driven by simple pleasures, whose actions are motivated by the most basic instincts and feelings. Although fear is mentioned in the collection's title, greed is its most common theme.

Eyes That Watch You (1939)
A nasty and pretty hard-boiled one, even though its protagonist is an old, handicapped lady who cannot even speak. She overhears her daughter-in-law plotting the murder of her son, but she's (obviously) powerless to do anything about it. Everything takes place in this old secluded house which gives a novel great tone. The thing I liked the most about it was the great suspense. Woolrich plays a kind of cat-and-mouse game with his characters (and of course with the reader), and just when you think that poor sucker might get away, he actually gets killed. Nice!

Good story, masterfully written and executed - my favourite of the collection. It's such a good material that I find it a bit surprising it has never been made into a movie. Especially since (according to Wikipedia) Woolrich has had more books adapted into film noirs than any other author of that era.

The Night I Died (1936)
Greed again. And the plot of killing a close family member again. It even starts similarly to Eyes That Watch You, with our hero overhearing a sinister conspiracy about killing him. And once again, it is his greedy spouse, but in this one, he manages to escape the dark demise that she had arranged for him. But unfortunately, in the process, he crosses the line to the dark side, becoming a greedy, violent and paranoid asshole himself. Cool stuff and a good combination of hard-boiled story and psychological drama.

You'll Never See Me Again (1939)
Good opening line (It was the biscuits started it) that implies that once again there will be family trouble. Not murder this time (at least not yet), but a classic plot with an inexplicable wife disappearing and her hubby frantically trying to find her while becoming a prime suspect himself in the process. Fast-paced page turner at the beginning, but unfortunately, in the second half, it dissolves into a standard and predictable "run against the time" type thriller. With 70 pages (and only one corpse!), this is the longest entry of the collection and also, in my opinion, its weakest. Good story, but the plotting towards the end didn't work for me; some stuff was hard to believe.

Murder Always Gathers Momentum (1940)
Excellent and very promising title that indeed delivers (see body count section below!). This one is not so much about money or greed; it's more about cowardice and how it sucks our anti-hero into a spiral of crime. Actually pretty sad, and you really feel bad and sympathetic for the poor sucker. Reminded me of Mickey Rooney in Quicksand. Minus happy end (thank god!) plus cool final twist.

3.5/5

Facts:

Location:
Various small towns

Body count: 

1 + 1 + 1 + 6

Dames: 
Safe to say that only Vera from Eyes that Watch You qualifies as a dame:

She came, the murderess, in pink satin and foamy lace, like an angel of destruction, stroking her loosened hair with a silver-backed brush.  [Fatale]

Title: 
Cool sounding, but I think it would be more suitable to replace fear with greed.

Cover: 
Super eerie photo, unfortunately uncredited. This journey into the darkness with a meaningless speed limit is relevant to all four stories.

Cool lines:  

Eyes That Watch You:

- Are you sure everything's shaped up right?
- Yeah. He's insured up to his ears. All his stock's been bought in my name. The business has been doing pretty good, and there are no other relatives to horn in.

They exchanged a kiss. A blood-red kiss of death. 

The Night I Died

Then we turned in, one to a bed. "I'm dead," was the last thing he yawned.
"You betcha sweet life you are, brother!" I thought grimmly.

Murder Always Gathers Momentum 

He kept buying off time with bullets.[The Coolest!]

Sideswipe (Charles Willeford, 1987)

Another highly enjoyable ride full of thrills and quirky characters with my new best friend, Hoke Moseley. It continues from where New Hope for the Dead has finished. Hoke now lives together with pregnant Ellita Sanchez and his two teenage daughters, but for some reason, he has just had enough. It could be the pile of cold cases at work or a simple case of midlife crisis. Willeford thankfully doesn't even bother to tell us what exactly has made him so fed up with the world. One morning, he suffers a nervous breakdown (I think), so he decides that he needs to simplify his life. He moves to a small tourist resort and starts managing his father's small motel.

But there will be crime, of course. Parallel to Hoke's story, we follow the formation of a very peculiar gang, weird even by Willeford's high standard of craziness. Its leader, Troy, with reptilian looks, is a self-proclaimed criminal psychopath who, in prison, befriends an elderly Stanley. Also a psychopath but not yet a criminal one, as for the time being, he seems to be happy enough with occasional dog poisoning. These two men form some kind of weird father/son homosexual relationship and are joined by Troy's hot ex-stripper girlfriend with a disfigured face, who is a (failed) abstract artist.

Sideswipe feels like a combination of the first two Hoke's novels. The structure of mixing his personal story and the gang's job preparation is almost identical to the one from Miami Blues, and little episodes concerning his daughters keep the tone similar to New Hope for the Dead. There's once again a mandatory minor case that Hoke solves along the way. There's a robbery in the local hotel, and he helps the police force to find the thief.

Troy's gang is so colourful and such an insane bunch of characters that it almost threatens to steal the entire show from Hoke at times. Sometimes I could almost sense that Willeford was aware of this and would react by giving his hero an additional storyline to prove that he still was the main man. One of the novel's highlights is the episode where Hoke promptly ships his daughter to her mother on the first plane to L.A., immediately after he learns that she has some weird medical problems (bulimia) and doesn't have a clue how to deal with the situation. And she's accompanied by some lowlife teenager whom Hoke has just met 10 hours before. She informs his wife that she's a trained nurse, and to make sure they would stay together, he even handcuffs both girls together!

Don't like to repeat myself, but this is truly great stuff. Simple and effective. Funny but also ugly at times. Full of black humour but also compassion.

And it could also come with a message. Is life even possible to be simplified?

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sergeant Hoke Moseley

Location:
Miami and Ocean Mall, where Hoke is recuperating and trying to simplify his life.

Body count: 6 (plus one baby in the past)

Dames: 
Possibly Ellita Sanchez and questionably disfigured Dale Forrest, once Miss Bottlecapping Industry of Daytona Beach. And Hoke's daughter Sue Ellen is on the right track to become a real babe - she had grown a green mohawk and went to see Dead Kennedys gig (ticket costing 35$!!?).

Blackouts: 
None, unless we count that weird nervous breakdown.

Title: 
Another intriguing one that escapes my understanding. I checked a few online dictionaries, but couldn't find anything relevant. Any suggestions?

Cover:
Nice and in the same style as the rest of Penguin reprints of Hoke Moseley novels. Maybe a little too similar to Miami Blues.

Cool lines:  
As mentioned, Hoke is still our main man, but this time I will use cool lines to let Troy explain his complex personality:

I'm a professional criminal, what the shrinks call a criminal psychopath.[The Coolest!]

What it means is, I know the difference between right and wrong and all that, but I don't give a shit. That's the official version. Most men in prison are psychopaths, like me, and there are times - when we don't give a shit - when we act impulsively.

- I don't have time to go into all of the ramifications of my personality, it's too complex. I've been tested again and again, and it always comes out the same. Psychopath. And because I'm a criminal, I'm also a criminal psychopath. You follow me?

- Yeah, I think so. But if you aren't crazy, what are you?

- It's what I told you already. I know the difference between good and bad, but it makes no difference to me. If I see the right thing to do and want to do it, I do it, and if I see the wrong thing and want to do it, I do that too.
- You mean you can't help yourself then?
- Certainly I can. I'll put it another way. I can help myself, but I don't give a damn.
- And because you don't give a damn, you're a criminal psychopath, is that it?
- You've got it.
- But why don't you give a damn?
- Because I'm a criminal psychopath. Maybe, when they give you some tests, you might could be one, too.

Smoking comforts ordinary men, but I'm not an ordinary man. There aren't many like me left. And it's good thing for the world that there isn't. There'll always be a few of us in America, in every generation, because only a great country like America can produce men like me.I'm not a thinker, I'm a doer. I'm considered inarticulate, so I talk a lot to cover it up. [The Coolest!]