By the Dawn's Early Light: A Matthew Scudder Story #3

By Lawrence Block

I began writing about Matthew Scudder in the mid-1970s. The first novel, The Sins of the Fathers, appeared in 1975, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff—the 17th and most recent—was published in 2011. Over the years Scudder has also been featured in 11 short works of fiction; By the Dawn's Early Light, which first appeared in Playboy in 1984, is the third of them.

I had thought Scudder's career was finished with the publication of the fifth novel, Eight Million Ways to Die. But I'd promised a short story to Bob Randisi for a private eye anthology (The Eyes Have It) and By the Dawn's Early Light was it; it got Scudder back in business, and in the process won an Edgar Allan Poe award and became my first story to appear in Playboy.

A year later, I saw a way to make a larger story out of it, adding a second plotline and giving the original story more dimension, and the result was When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, which many readers have chosen as their favorite Scudder novel. But it seems to me that the short story holds up, and I hope yu enjoy it.

By the Dawn's Early Light is included in The Night and the Music, my collection of all 11 Matthew Scudder short stories, available as an eBook and in handsome trade paperback form.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lawrence Block
• Release date: Apr 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301778638

Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

Book preview

By the Dawn’s Early Light

A Matthew Scudder Story

Lawrence Block

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 1984, Lawrence Block. First published, 1984, in Playboy; Reprinted, 2011, in The Night and the Music; All Rights Reserved.

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By The Dawn’s Early Light

All this happened a long time ago.

Abe Beame was living in Gracie Mansion, though even he seemed to have trouble believing he was really the mayor of the city of New York. Ali was in his prime, and the Knicks still had a year or so left in Bradley and DeBusschere. I was still drinking in those days, of course, and at the time it seemed to be doing more for me than it was doing to me.

I had already left my wife and kids, my home in Syosset, and the NYPD. I was living in the hotel on West Fifty-seventh Street where I still live, and I was doing most of my drinking around the corner in Jimmy Armstrong’s saloon. Billie was the nighttime bartender. A Filipino youth named Dennis was behind the stick most days.

And Tommy Tillary was one of the regulars.

He was big, probably 6’2", full in the chest, big in the belly, too. He rarely showed up in a suit but always wore a jacket and tie, usually a navy or burgundy blazer with gray-flannel slacks or white duck pants in warmer weather. He had a loud voice that boomed from his barrel chest, and a big, clean-shaven face that was innocent around the pouting mouth and knowing around the eyes. He was somewhere in his late forties and he drank a lot of top-shelf scotch. Chivas, as I remember it, but