Stark Read online

  Winner of the Macallan Gold Dagger 2000 for non-fiction

  Oceanview, Los Angeles, 1962.

  Stark is a rat and a con-artist. Nobody’s friend. The kind of guy Eddie Bunker met in San Quentin. Stark thinks he can beat the suckers and outsmart the cops. When a big score comes his way, he’s lucky to escape with his life. Four others are not so lucky.

  Eddie Bunker described Stark as a story about a con man. Eddie didn’t think much of con-men, because, as a rule, they preyed upon people weaker than themselves. But he understood them.

  Stark was Eddie Bunker’s first novel, written in the early 60s and a harbinger of the books that brought him critical acclaim such as No Beast So Fierce. Never published during his life time, the manuscript was only rediscovered after his death and is published in English for the first time by No Exit.

  Edward Bunker, Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs, was the author of No Beast So Fierce, Little Boy Blue, Dog Eat Dog, The Animal Factory and his autobiography, Mr Blue, all published by No Exit. He was co-screenwriter of the Oscar nominated movie, The Runaway Train, and appeared in over 30 feature films, including Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, the film of his book No Beast So Fierce. Edward Bunker died in 2005 and another novel, Stark, was discovered in his papers. Along with some short stories published as Death Row Breakout.

  ‘Integrity, craftsmanship and moral passion…an artist with a unique and compelling voice’

  – William Styron

  ‘Edward Bunker is a true original of American letters. His books are criminal classics: novels about criminals, written by an ex-criminal, from the unregenerately criminal viewpoint.’

  – James Ellroy

  ‘At 40 Eddie Bunker was a hardened criminal with a substantial prison record. Twenty-five years later, he was hailed by his peers as America’s greatest living crimewriter’

  – Independent

  Stark

  Foreword by James Ellroy

  EDWARD BUNKER

  Afterword by

  Jennifer Steele

  www.noexit.co.uk

  Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  Afterword

  Copyright

  For

  Brendan Bunker

  Foreword

  Edward Bunker wrote journalistic pieces, short fiction and novels in and out of prison. His first efforts are reform-school newsletter entries circa 1950. Those pieces cannot be found today. Several early novel manuscripts written during Mr. Bunker’s San Quentin jolts cannot be found. The short novel, Stark, apparently of late-60s/early-70s vintage, was discovered after Mr. Bunker’s 2005 death.

  It’s thus a period book within a period book. Set in the early 60s in a Southern California beach town, it’s a wiiiiiild hybrid of 50s paperback-original pulp/noir and punk’s fantasy. It’s a prophecy of the fine writer Mr. Bunker would become.

  The title character is a hophead and a grifter out to fill his pockets with gelt – and fill his arm with big “H”. He’s run afoul of the fuzz. He’s out to screw the squarejohn world. He craves boss threads, fast rides, slick bitches. He’s bopping through the world of the quadruple cross. He’s hip. He’s so cool he’s freon frigid. He’s fatuously fatalistic. He knows it’s avant garde to assume your own doom. He’s trying to kill his way through a maze of pissed-off lowlifes and beat the green room at Big Q, laboring under parole restrictions and a heroin habit. It’s the creation of a young convict torqued on raisinjack, Mickey Spillane and frog existentialism – and it all works in the end.

  It’s kid-writer stuff that Eddie Bunker fans should dig on. It would have made the grade as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback original back in the 50s along with the work of John D. McDonald and Kurt Vonnegut. Read it. It will make you want to turn tricks and geez dope. I’m jonesing for some “Horse” right now. Fatalism is far-out. Hey, Big Dead Eddie – I grok your groove, Daddy-o!

  James Ellroy

  Stark

  1

  Ernie Stark was not the nicest guy you’d ever meet. Ask his friends. If he had any. He was a two-bit hustler who dreamt that the next score would be the big one. The one that would put him on easy street. But too often, he was outsmarted. If not by the sucker, then by the law.

  Look at the latest situation he was in. Because of a stupid bust while he was still on parole, he was in bed with the cops. Stark had done a lot of shady things, but being a rat, a stool pigeon for the cops, was not a role he enjoyed. It was either that or going back to the slammer. He’d rather be a rat – outside.

  The cops knew that his Hawaiian pal, Momo, was a dealer. Small time stuff. They didn’t want him; they wanted his supplier. If they arrested Momo, the next higher up on the drug chain would disappear. They’d even arrest Momo if they knew where his goods were.

  So, you hired a rat like Stark to get close to his pal and get the name of the supplier of Momo’s drugs. Easier said than done, mused Stark, sitting at the bar next to Momo in their favorite nightclub. It was 1962, and the Panama was the best popular club in Oceanview.

  Complicating things for Stark was that he was slowly getting hooked on heroin. Shit that his pal Momo was supplying at cut-rate prices to his buddy. He wasn’t hooked yet, but he was getting there. It was what had got him in this spot with the cops. He now had a twice-a-day habit. He had a growing monkey on his back.

  He also had to keep an eye on Dummy, a mute who everyone had avoided in the joint. He and Dummy had been in prison together. He for a bunko caper that went bad, Dummy for manslaughter. No con ever touched Dummy, after the one who tried to get too friendly and later wound up dead. Stark had even learned some basic phrases to sign to Dummy, but the guy read lips. You soon learned never to kid him – to his face.

  Dummy hung around the club, watching things. He had some sort of a deal with Momo. Stark guessed he was a runner. Maybe he could lead him to the Man?

  Stark looked at his watch. He was late. Crowley would be pissed. Fuck him. How was he going to make his meet, with Dummy watching his every move? Dummy was no friend. He almost never smiled. And when he did, somebody died.

  “I gotta see a guy,” he told Momo. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Save my seat.” Momo didn’t reply. He just waved him off. He didn’t expect a farewell pat from Dummy.

  2

  Detective Lieutenant Patrick Crowley sat in the shadowed darkness of the unmarked police car. The street was squalid, lined with third-rate rooming houses. The neighborhood was the heart of Oceanview’s tenderloin. From where he sat, Crowley could see across the street the side door of the Panama Club, the doorway illuminated by a moth-haloed electric bulb. Crowley could see the action coming and going and hear faintly the sound of a jukebox repeating the same blues number over and over. The clarity of the music swelled and eddied in proportion to the other sounds carried by the night air; the burst of crude laughter, the whiskey-thickened voices rising in a gust of excitement. A yellow streetcar grumbled past, its bell ringing dully. A taxi paused to pick up a fare and disappeared into elsewhere.

  Crowley glanced at his wristwatch and his heavy lips formed a silent curse. He shook his head and again watched the doorway, unable to hold back a grin as a known prostitute steered out a trick to some cheap room. Crowley wasn’t interested in stopping vice. He was a narcotics cop. He was waiting for his rat.

  The side door opened agai
n and from it stepped a slender man in expensive sports clothes. A cigarette lighter flared in his hand. A moment later the headlights of the police car flashed for a second. The man finished lighting the cigarette and leisurely crossed the street. Crowley grunted in disgust and started the motor. It was Stark.

  Stark’s eyes flicked up and down the street, into shadows and over his shoulder, but his movements were casual. He walked with one hand draped in a jacket pocket, the other with the cigarette swung in loose exaggeration at his side. He was tall, with slightly stooped shoulders and a certain feline grace, a hip swagger halfway between poise and a pose. He knew he was good-looking in an ascetic kind of way. He’d seen Humphrey Bogart walk this way in a movie. He came around the car and slipped through the passenger door. Slamming it closed behind himself, he extended his left arm along the back of the seat and leaned back in the corner.

  Crowley was already spinning the car into an illegal U-turn. Stark looked at the overweight bulk behind the wheel and mused that seventeen years on the force had made Pat Crowley more a cop than the television stereotype.

  When they were beyond the city limits, Stark made a face of pain.

  “Man, couldn’t you have been cooler?” he asked. “Maybe parked down the street or something? If anybody saw me with you, my ass is grass. I live down here, and I don’t dig the idea of getting my throat cut. There’s suckers that do things like that.”

  “You’ve been stalling,” Crowley said. “I get tired of waiting for your games. You were supposed to call me today. You didn’t, so I came for you. What’ve you got for me?”

  “It ain’t as easy as you think, Pat.”

  The detective turned his eyes from the highway to glare at Stark. “We’re not on a first name basis, punk.”

  “Just trying to be friendly.”

  “We’re not friends. This is business. We made a deal that you begged for… I wouldn’t press charges for the junk I found in your pocket, and you’d set up the big connection. You promised – I went for it. I’ll even take Mr. Momo Mendoza. He’s just one step over you. He might give up his supplier, if I could nail him with enough shit to put him away for twenty years.”

  “I’ll get him, but I can’t if you crowd me. Just leave me to handle it.”

  “You made the deal, but I make the rules. When I want you, you come. Otherwise you’ll talk to me from a cell. You won’t like going cold turkey. I’ve seen what it does to punks like you.”

  “Okay, man.” Stark looked to the whirring scenery, the moon-silvered ocean rushing up the beach to break in foamy blue froth, mist filling the night with the smell of the sea. He cursed himself for his recklessness in taking a shot of the Beast from the East in the toilet of a gas station. The attendant had become suspicious and called the police, and when Stark came out, Lieutenant Pat Crowley was waiting. He hadn’t known that the toilet had become a favorite shooting gallery.

  That had been a week ago. Now the pressure was on. He had tried to ignore his agreement with Crowley. In fact, he didn’t know how he was going to deliver. Momo was very secretive about his connection. Deadly secretive. He was also his pal and his connection. How the fuck did he ever get trapped into this deal? Momo never had his goods on him. He always went somewhere to get the customer’s order.

  “Man,” Stark said, “this ain’t the supermarket. Momo’s not a fool. I can’t just ask him who his connection is. If I get too nosy, he’ll freeze me out. You’ve been in the game long enough to know the junkie world is paranoid. Nobody trusts anybody.”

  “They shouldn’t. You’re all finks. I might as well lock you up, pinch Momo, and let him set up the big man. Find out where Momo hides his shit. We’ve already been through his place once.”

  Stark kept silent. He knew that Momo was no fink. He’d go to prison first. It wouldn’t bother him. It was the price you paid for his kind of business.

  “I want some results,” Crowley said. “If it was up to me, I’d lock you up. You think you’re slick, Stark, too goddamn slick for the world.”

  “Well, you’re not slick,” he replied petulantly, “calling the Panama Club and making me meet you outside.”

  “Keep your appointments.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Some whore…”

  Stark didn’t answer. His jaw was set tight with futile resentment. “What do you want me to do now?”

  “The same. Get next to Momo’s boss. Tell Momo you want to make some big money or some other story. You’re good at stories. Get to work on it. You have two days to come through. If something doesn’t happen by then, I’ll pick you up and turn the key.”

  “Okay, okay. I got it. I’m working on an angle. I think the key guy may be Dummy, the mute. The guy’s a killer. Did you ever see his eyes? He scares me.”

  “Bullshit. You got two days. Now fuck off.”

  Stark exited the police car two blocks from the Panama Club. He stood in the thickening fog and watched the red taillights turn out of sight. His eyes gleamed with anger; his lean face twisted. He spat with fury, as if cleansing his mouth of filth.

  “Big, tough cop,” he snarled. Suddenly the ugliness became laughter. Using two fingers of his left hand scissor-like, he fished a shriveled marijuana cigarette from a shirt pocket. “Yeah, copper, I had a felony in my pocket. You think you’ve got me, but I’ve got the whole world. All you hoosiers, suckers, coppers. Screw you. Screw Momo. And screw Mr. Big, whoever the fool is.”

  A clock in the window of a cut-rate jewelry store gave the time as a few minutes past midnight. There was no hurry; the club stayed open until two.

  Stark pinched free the twisted end of the cigarette, ran it over his tongue to dampen the paper, lit it, sucking deeply, and began to walk down the deserted street.

  He wondered if pot could still give him the ride. The stick of grass had been a gift from the bartender. Stark hadn’t wanted it at the time, but didn’t want to offend the guy, who thought marijuana was the best kick in the world. His own attitude had been prejudiced long ago by a dope fiend, his pool-hustler father, the fast man who said: “I don’t need shitty weed to make me crazier. Man, I need God’s medicine to make me sane.” And then busted the vein with a needle while his son watched. His father had been a junkie. Stark vowed he’d never get hooked. Only suckers got hooked.

  He dragged once more on the joint, and as he held his breath this time, the marijuana worked its magic. In seconds his mind zoomed to a higher level of perspective, at once more intense and yet distorted. Crowley’s face came to mind, bulldog and stupid. A sudden fit of laughter erupted. His laughter booming through the silence of the empty streets. He checked himself, aware that the grass was playing with his imagination. The lights were brighter, and the windows that had been ugly moments before seemed like rows of impressionist paintings hung by a great artist in the gallery of night. The thought brought another gust of insane laughter.

  Trash cans, battered by use, lined the curbs, waiting for dawn. These, too, had meaning, especially a deformed washtub heaped to overflow by wine bottles. Stark stopped abruptly, leaned far forward and narrowed his bloodshot eyes.

  “I’ll be goddamned,” he said in solemn awe. “It’s a bloody avant garde masterpiece…” He laughed at his own ridiculousness.

  A black and white prowl car slid to the curb, its bright headlights bathing him. It immediately broke his mood. A policeman, featureless beneath the bill of his hat, popped his head from the window, like a puppet from a box.

  “What’re ya doin’ out here, buddy? It’s late to be roaming.”

  “Just digging the crazy art.”

  “What?”

  “Bringing out the rubbish.” He knew the officer had stopped to see if he was a drunk. The hustler straightened himself. “They pick it up early. I work nights so I brought it out. Glad to see you on the job. It makes me feel safer leaving my wife home alone.”

  “Okay, mister. Don’t work too hard.” He looked pointedly down at the numerous wine bottles. “An
d watch your ulcers.”

  The police car slid away to prowl other places in the night. Stark watched it and sobered up. “Better be cool before this happy grass gets me locked up for laughing at the moon.”

  He quickened his pace toward the Panama Club.

  3

  Sounds of strident jukebox saxophone reached out to Stark as he neared the door of the Panama Club. A marine staggered out, shirt unbuttoned and hat askew, and stood wavering on the sidewalk as if debating which course his life should take. He was one of numberless servicemen who came from as far away as San Diego in search of liquor, laughter, and a lay.

  Stark detoured around the drunk and slipped inside. Blatant light, screaming percussion, and the odor of cigarette and perfume assaulted his senses simultaneously. He loved it all. It was his turf. He stood in the shadows while his eyes adjusted to the glare. He scanned the large, pulsating room – bar, small dance floor, the filled tables, crowded, though not as jammed as on weekends. Rock and roll boomed from the jukebox. A bleached B-girl and a rosy cheeked sailor were the only dancers.

  Through the haze and movement, Stark saw Momo and Dummy at the far end of the bar, just where he’d left them. Dummy was sharply dressed as always, wearing a salt and pepper sports coat. His handsome face was unlined. Momo was just the opposite. He was hulking, drab, unpressed; as soon as he put on clothes his blobbish figure wrinkled them. His face was swarthy, pockmarked, and shiny with sweat. What a pair, he thought.