Devil in Dungarees

By Albert Conroy

HALF THE LOOT was Police Detective Bonner’s price for masterminding the bank robbery. Bonner couldn’t keep a gorgeous young chick like Peg on his lousy cop’s salary. And he had to have Peg. That’s why the deal to knock over the Second City National Bank. Seven minutes was all it would. take. Seven little minutes against a lifetime of easy living and Peg. There was only one thing wrong. But Bonner didn’t know it until it was too late. He had sold his soul to a DEVIL IN DUNGAREES.

With a new introduction by David Rachels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Automat.Press
• Release date: Sep 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9780997015096

Book preview

Devil in Dungarees

Copyright ©1960, Albert Conroy

First CREST BOOKS printing, January 1960

Introduction ©2017 by David Rachels

All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduced this book or portions thereof.

All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

eISBN: 978-0-9970150-9-6

Automat Catalog #A012

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Published by

Automat.Press

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Austin, Texas USA

Introduction

Judging from its title, Walter Mosley’s classic hardboiled mystery Devil in a Blue Dress could have been published yesterday or fifty years ago or fifty years from now, but the title of Albert Conroy’s Devil in Dungarees dates it to the late 1950s or early ’60s. In this case, the devil is Peggy Jennett, a femme fatale who entices men with the challenge of what [is] revealed by her tight dungarees, so while dungarees may be dated, Peggy manages to use her wardrobe in a timeless fashion.

First appearing in the 17th century, the term dungaree denoted a type of rough, cheap calico from India. By the late 18th century, dungarees referred to pants made from this material, and by 1960, when Devil in Dungarees appeared, the word was synonymous with denim blue jeans, which were favored by rebellious youth. Today, when used at all, the word often as not refers to bib overalls of blue denim. Dungarees, therefore, have always been common clothes for common people, and certainly, no one would ever think of Peggy Jennett as high class. In 1960, devil in dungarees would have translated to juvenile delinquent.

Though Peggy claims to be twenty years old, her police detective lover, Walt Bonner, suspects that she must be younger, despite her carnal expertise. Walt has known Peggy for only a month and in that time she has used her sexuality to lead him into obsession and the commission of a crime. At first, we are not told the details of the crime. We know only that the crime will happen the next day and that Walt is getting nervous. These things are revealed in the novel’s first two pages, a quick beginning constructed with standard noir tropes: an ordinary man crosses paths with a dangerous woman and finds himself doing things he would never have imagined he could do. Often, as we learn our male protagonist’s backstory, he gains our sympathy as we begin to appreciate the factors that have pushed him into crime.

Conroy gives Walt’s history in one quick paragraph: He was a tennis phenom who was undone by the high life that came with celebrity, and now he’s bitter about what he threw away. Walt’s sense of entitlement, especially when sketched so quickly, will not win many readers to his cause. And this is what makes Devil in Dungarees so good. Repeatedly, Conroy subverts our expectations. Given the opening pages of the novel, we expect to follow Walt’s point of view throughout, but then, still in the first chapter, the narrative leaves Walt to follow one of his criminal co-conspirators, and these shifts in point of view continue throughout the book. The novel’s plot catches us off guard with its speedy resolution of many conflicts and the introduction of new conflicts to drive the narrative. With its constant surprises, Devil in Dungarees rises above its recycled noir tropes.

Albert Conroy was one of several pen names used by Marvin H. Albert, who chased his royalty checks writing crime, westerns, and more than twenty novelizations of movies such as Pillow Talk, The Pink Panther, and The Untouchables. Albert even co-wrote a successful parenting guide, Becoming a Mother, which went through several editions. In other words, if you paid Albert to write, he would write. Though he wrote several series—the longest-running featuring Pete Sawyer, a private eye in France known as Stone Angel—none was successful enough to earn him lasting fame or even reliable name recognition among fans of crime writing.

Albert Conroy was Marvin H. Albert’s pen name for standalone crime novels. Devil in Dungarees was the sixth of these. If Albert’s name, or Conroy’s name, ever becomes well known, Devil in Dungarees may well be the reason—if only the novel can overcome its title.

David Rachels

Newberry, South Carolina

David Rachels is chair of the Department of Humanities at Newberry College, where he teaches courses in writing and American literature with a special emphasis on crime fiction and literary psychopaths.

He edited a collection of short stories by crime writer Gil Brewer, Redheads Die Quickly and Other Stories, which was published by the University Press of Florida in 2012. He has also written numerous short stories for various crime fiction magazines and a book of poetry titled Verse Noir, also published by Automat.Press.

One

WALT BONNER stood in the motel bedroom and looked at what their passion had done to the big double bed. Remembered the ever-renewing feel of Peg’s squirming, demanding nakedness through the night.

It had been all right then. Her knowledgeable, insatiable lovemaking had kept the fear away.

Even when he’d been resting from her, half-dozing in the darkened room, he hadn’t been worried. He’d thought of what he was going to do this day with an unreasoning confidence—eager to get it done, sure they wouldn’t catch him. But now it was day, and they were no longer together in the bed. Now the beginning of nervousness was seeping into him.

In the bathroom, Peg turned off the shower. Walt Bonner heard, and paused in the act of belting his trousers. He turned his head slowly to stare at the closed bathroom door. He stood there listening beside the rumpled bed, his feet and torso bare—a sandy-haired man in his late twenties, with a strong, stocky build.

From inside the bathroom came the scrape of the shower curtain being drawn back. Bonner’s blunt features tightened; a choking fullness rose in his throat. He forced it down. His dark brown eyes slid away from the bathroom door to the ivory-colored bureau. The holstered Police Positive .38 lay there with his shoulder harness, amid her cosmetics. He raised his eyes and saw himself in the small oval mirror, then looked away quickly.

Bare feet sliding against the rough texture of the motel rug, he went to one of the windows. Pulled up one of the Venetian-blind slats and looked out.

Outside, thick traffic rushed past the motel cabins along the highway into the city. It didn’t look like late morning out there. A thick, darkening winter overcast hung low in the air, making a gray twilight. Some of the vehicles on the highway had their parking lights on. The window was open a crack. Through it, Bonner smelled the promise of cold rain in the damp air.

Behind him, the bathroom door opened. Bonner turned. Peggy Jennett stood there, her wet hair pinned high on her head, holding a white towel around her young, strong body. Her face was young, too—a bold, impudent face. She looked at him with a glint of humor in her blue eyes, her mouth quirking in a lazy smile. The desire rose in him again, heavily urgent.

She could do that to him. Every time. That was the crazy thing about it, this constant renewing of his physical need for her.

She knew how. Sometimes, in the month that he’d known her, Bonner had reflected savagely on her knowledge, on the ways in which she’d managed to acquire it so young. She claimed to be twenty. Bonner would have guessed she was even younger.

Holding the big white towel around her body, her face shiny from the steam of the shower, Peg observed him calculatively for a moment. Why so solemn, Walt? Are you worried about today?

No, be lied.

Don’t be, lover. It’ll go off smooth. No sweat. I know Hugh from way back. He wouldn’t be rigging a job like this with amateurs. They’ll do their part right. And if you do yours.…

Don’t you worry, Bonner snapped. I’ll be all right.

Sure you will, she soothed him. She drifted closer to him, eyes challenging him as she added softly: And when it’s done, after the heat dies down, you can quit and we’ll go away together. Cuba. I’ve never been there. We’ll have fun there, Walt. Even more than we’ve had here.

Bonner forced a slight smile. That’d be almost too much. It’s been pretty damn perfect right here.

Sure. But there you won’t have a job to keep us apart half the day, like here. You won’t be a cop any more.

No, he agreed thoughtfully, "I won’t. So what will I be?"

She grinned at him. "My man. I’ll take up all your time."

Yeah. As long as the dough lasts.

She didn’t bother to deny it. It’ll last a long time, lover. Remember, you get half the take. You and me.

But his face remained thoughtful and stiff. Seeing it, she deliberately opened the towel, held it out to him. Dry me, lover, she said huskily. I’m still damp.

Even after the night they’d had, the sight of her body hit him like a physical blow to the guts. It wasn’t just the shape of her figure that did it. It was the memory of its agile strength, its shameless talents.…

Everything else lost meaning. His mouth was dry as he took the towel in his hands and began to rub and pat her with it. His fingers felt swollen as they caressed her cushiony smoothness through the rough material of the towel. He knelt on the rug and dried her feet, rubbed her long, slim-curved legs, feeling her fingers in his hair, her nails digging into his scalp. Rising trancelike, he toweled the rest of her. He looked dazed.

My back, honey, she whispered dreamily, arching herself under his towel-covered hands. Along the spine. Still damp.

He was behind her when his hands went around her to towel the high fullness of her breasts, fingers kneading their youthful resilience. The silky smoothness of the skin of her back against his bare chest abruptly changed his intent. His arms tightened; his hands squeezed the captive breasts.

She gasped and twisted around in his bare, muscular arms, tilting her head back, lips opening under his devouring mouth. Blood surged in his brain, pounding—

She tore her mouth from his suddenly, pulling away in his embrace. Her voice was a moan: No, Walt! Wait. Hugh’ll be here any minute. We can’t—

Bonner’s arms tightened, dragging her marvelous body back to him. Rehm can go to—

Wait, honey, she whispered frantically, twisting. No … not now. She got her hands against his chest and pushed hard. Tonight. Wait till tonight. After it’s over, and they’ve gone.

For a moment he continued to hold her against her will. Then he let her go, his arms falling limply. He was shaking, his face dark.

She backed away a few steps and then stopped. Now that she’d succeeded in freeing herself, her confidence returned. And with it, her delight in her ability to arouse him.

Tonight, she murmured to him again. It’ll be worth waiting for.

Laboriously gathering control of himself, Bonner watched Peg get her dungarees from the bedside chair and slip into them. The dungarees were practically a uniform with her. He’d seldom seen her wear a skirt. Or panties. He watched her close the zipper and button the waistband. The dungarees were very tight, the material stretching over the provocative swelling of her firm buttocks, the flare of her hips below her narrow, supple waist.

Nude above the waist, she bent and picked up the fallen towel. Began drying her dark hair with it. Bonner watched, his throat aching with wanting her again. Her upraised hands kneaded the towel into her hair, making her full, pink-nippled breasts sway and dance with the motion of her arms. She eyed him devilishly as she did it.

It required an effort to keep his hands off her. She saw that—and grinned at him saucily. Save it for tonight, she purred. You just keep thinking about tonight. It’ll help get you through what you’ve got to do today.

A devil—that was how she looked to Bonner now. A tormenting, wanton young devil in dungarees.

She finished her hair-drying, put on her bra and tugged a red turtle-neck sweater over her head and down to cover her torso. With a last wicked glance at him, she went back into the bathroom.

For a while Bonner just stood there. When his breathing was again almost normal, he suddenly found himself grinning. She was a tormenting devil. Sometimes. But there were other times when she could be a damn satisfying one. He thought about last night … and tonight. And then he started thinking again about what he was going to have to do today—without fear this time. There was only an anxious wish to get to it, and get it over with.

He began getting into the rest of his clothes.

Peg was in front of the oval mirror over the bureau, finishing applying her lipstick, when the knock came at the motel cabin door. Bonner, seated in the chair by the windows smoking a cigarette while he watched Peg, reacted sharply to the knock. His hand jumped a little, involuntarily, toward the revolver hidden under his jacket beneath his armpit.

Peg turned and shook her head. That must be Hugh.

Bonner snubbed his cigarette out in the ash tray and rose to his feet as Peg crossed the door and opened it.

Hugh Rehm came inside with short, brisk steps, taking off his Homburg and using it to brush drops of moisture from the front of his well-tailored black overcoat. He was a tall, wide-shouldered, handsome man in his early fifties. His gray hair was thick and combed straight back from a widow’s peak in the middle of his forehead. His face, dominated by a strong hawk nose, was set in its usual calm expression, telling nothing. A gambler’s face.

It’s starting to drizzle out there, he told Bonner quietly, closing the door behind him. He didn’t look at Peg.

Let it pour, Bonner said. "It won’t hurt anything. Just means less people around to foul it up.