Hot Times

By William R. Cox

A novel about the Thirties—about a big town and hard times, about love and hate, violence and corruption, and about six people who made a game out of life. The gangsters, the floozies, money and sex. All caught up in a drama that can only spiral out of the control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005468033

William R. Cox

William Robert Cox, affectionately known as Bill, was born in Peapack, N.J. March 14 1901, worked in the family ice, coal, wood and fur businesses before becoming a freelance writer. A onetime president of the Western Writers of America, he was said to have averaged 600,000 published words a year for 14 years during the era of the pulp magazines.One of his first published novels was Make My Coffin Strong, published by Fawcett in the early 1950's. He wrote 80 novels encompassing sports, mystery and westerns. Doubleday published his biography of Luke Short in 1961.From 1951 Cox began working in TV and his first teleplay was for Fireside Theatre - an episode called Neutral Corner. It was in 1952 that he contributed his first Western screenplay called Bounty Jumpers for the series Western G-Men which had Pat Gallagher and his sidekick Stoney Crockett as Secret Service agents in the Old West, dispatched by the government to investigate crimes threatening the young nation. He went on to contribute to Jesse James' Women; Steve Donovan, Western Marshal; Broken Arrow; Wagon Train; Zane Grey Theater; Pony Express; Natchez Trace; Whispering Smith; Tales of Wells Fargo; The Virginian; Bonanza and Hec Ramsey.He wrote under at least six pseudonyms: Willard d'Arcy; Mike Frederic; John Parkhill; Joel Reeve; Roger G. Spellman and Jonas Ward (contributing to the Buchanan Western series).William R. Cox died of congestive heart failure Sunday at his home in Los Angeles in 1988. He was 87 years old. His wife, Casey, said he died at his typewriter while working on his 81st novel, Cemetery Jones and the Tombstone Wars. We are delighted to bring back his Cemetery Jones series for the first time in digital form.

Book preview

Chapter One

WHEN THEY WENT into the theater for the second show, the night had been clear and windy. They had stayed for the press preview, and it was now after one in the morning, and it was raining. No one was surprised.

Merced clung to the right elbow of Joel and the left elbow of Stash Haussling. They paused a moment under the marquee.

Stash said, "Talking pictures, I’ll never get used to them. Buster Keaton in Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath. A fongool. The great Buster Keaton in a Broadway-type farce. The man who made Hospitality and The General."

Buster can do no wrong, said Merced. But you’re not thinking of Buster, not tonight. You’re thinking of Helen Hayes dying in the hospital and Gary Cooper walking on the street in the rain.

Stash said, They should never try and put Hemingway on the screen.

Joel Harper shook his head. You’re wrong, Stash. They did a good job.

Stash ducked, turned toward them. They could see moisture behind the eyeglasses. He blinked his pale blue eyes at them and said, Ah, screw it. I’ve got to write the goddam review. All of a sudden we got sound, we treat movies as though they were plays.

It was a good picture, Stash, said Joel. The newspaperman gestured and they watched the hurrying, blocky form going toward Chelsea Street, near the offices and plant of the Orbit. And he knows it, said Joel.

The slim crowd, those privileged to see the preview, melted into the rain. The city lay sulky beneath the lamplight; the rain marched up and down Branford Place. Everyone who saw it was reliving that last scene, Joel thought. It had grace and it had power.

He remembered the book in one of those clear moments of insight which the mind sometimes allows; he had not liked the beginning but had begun to catch up with it somewhere along the line. The ending in the book was bound to be a classic in the future. There could not be a better ending.

Merced was saying, Let’s go to Muley’s. I don’t want to stay with that deathbed scene.

She was a tall girl with long, slim arms and legs. Her face was small, fine-boned; her eyes were slanted, oriental. She wore a small brown hat on one side of her head and her hair was in a page bob, glinting a little from the rain and the lights. It was black at night, with red undertones in sunlight. He knew her hair and he loved it.

He said, This has got to stop. How did you know I was thinking of that scene?

What else would you be thinking of?

I hadn’t ought to stay up late, he said. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and it looks like it will be a mean one, and people call early and demand service.

The coal and fuel oil and the little logs of wood will be delivered whether you are early or late. I won’t be depressed. Come on, Joel.

They walked, turning up coat collars. She wore fur, which she should not have allowed to get wet, but Merced never thought about things like that. His Chrysler was parked on Chelsea Street opposite the Orbit, and they could see Stash upstairs at his typewriter.

She said, He looks so lonesome.

He’s mad for you, that’s his trouble.

I know. She shivered. I shouldn’t say that, but what can I do? He’s mad for me, and I’m mad for you.

That’s a song.

Can I help it if I’m honest?

I love you, too, he said. He felt guilty because he didn’t say it more often. The trouble was, he forced himself to admit, he wasn’t certain how much he loved her.

They went past the Chrysler, came to the corner of Clay Street, and were able to duck under awnings as the rain swirled in the late winter wind. Muley’s was a speakeasy of the new sort, announcing itself as a restaurant, bold as brass, serving drinks openly because everyone knew Prohibition was nearly dead. It had a male trio, one of whom played piano, very good performers. Muley was an old prizefighter with a biscuit face and elaborate manners.

You should have your table near the music. You should have a quick one, against the lousy weather. Did you see a show? Was it any good?

He led them to a table against the wall. Muley stayed open as long as he had trade. The police never bothered him because he was one of Frosty Dial’s people, and as it was illegal to sell liquor under any circumstances, Muley was not even officially in business as far as local law was concerned.

They were playing and singing ‘Dancing in the Dark.’ They were nice-looking young fellows, dressed alike in dinner jackets and soft white shirts. Merced fell into a reverie as Muley brought gin and ginger ale. Joel drank a little of the mixture, which he detested, but which was the house specialty. Muley had never got past the early days when it was tough to get anything but coarse gin.

There were several couples in the speakeasy, all at tables against the wall. There were murals by a local artist, Max Pogliani, who was seldom sober. The painting represented the city, the old trees along Broadway which were coming down to make room for overhead high-tension lines, the churches hoary with years, the factories belching smoke. It was an industrial city and becoming grimy and ugly, a city with a heterogeneous population, divided into ghettos in some parts, beginning to spread out to meet the urge for suburban dwelling. Few of Joel’s friends lived in the city any longer, only bachelors like himself and single girls like Merced and the poor people who were being clobbered by the Depression.

He looked at Merced in the glow of the low light. She was something out of Modigliani; she was unfashionable in her high-breasted, narrow-hipped, small-faced style. She had perfectly molded shoulders and elbows and knees and her feet were lovely and long and slim. He knew her, all of her, and a wave of tenderness swept over him and he reached out and touched her hand, but she was solemnly oblivious, caught up in the harmonies of the trio around the piano.

The song ended and Merced lit a cigarette and said, Make them sing ‘The Blue of the Night.’

Let Crosby sing ‘Blue of the Night, said Joel, but he palmed a dollar and gave it to the piano player, and the syrupy sound of the newly popular crooner’s radio theme Med the room. A young man, immaculately dressed in a gray suit with a double-breasted fawn vest, came weaving across from the bar.

Humpy Potter, Joel said. Drunk again.

Potter had curly blond hair and a sharply etched profile, a bit too handsome. He stood near the trio, swaying, belligerent. He yelled loudly, Cut that crap! If you want to sing, sing something a man can listen to.

Joel got up and Potter swung around on him, fists raised. Then recognition stirred and he sobered a bit and muttered, Joel? Sure, it’s Joel. That Merced? Buy you a drink.

Sure, said Joel. He took Humpy’s arm, and the drunken young man came willingly and fell onto a chair. Muley appeared on soft shoes, and there was a round of drinks. The trio cut the song short and took a break.

Potter said, They stink. They don’t know the beat. They oughta spend time in Harlem with me.

They’re very good and I like them, said Merced. What would you know? His hands were white and thin and aimless, waving. You’re a simple kid from this stupid town. And you, he said to Joel, the ice, coal, and wood dealer. You guys ought to get to the City and live and learn.

Sure, said Joel again, winking at Merced. You’re a shot, Humpy. You tell ’em.

Agreein’ with me, huh? Think I’m drunk, don’t you? Well, screw you, both of you. He leered. Not that you are not, to each other.

Merced sighed. He’s at that stage. Dirty talk, brave young man from behind a Fitzgerald naughty book. Maybe you’d better throw him out, Joel.

He didn’t like to do anything about Humpy because he had always known him, and because Humpy was doing enough to himself. He reached out and squeezed on the thin elbow nearest him, in the fleshy part of the lower bicep. He had strong fingers from early training, and ~ Humpy straightened up as though nicked by a hot poker.

Joel said, You don’t want any trouble, you know. You’ve been lucky, so far. You could get hurt.

Humpy whimpered, Did I say anything bad? I apologize. I didn’t mean it.

Muley reappeared. Your cab’s outside, Mr. Potter.

Cab? Did I order a cab. I thought I drove.

Joel increased the pressure and Humpy pulled away, rising. Muley took hold of him. They sailed toward the door. No one even looked at them.

Merced grinned. Well, we might as well drink Humpy’s booze and go and do what he says.

For an instant Joel was irritated. Immediately he knew that he was wrong, that she was more direct and far more honest than he. Possibly it was this very straightforwardness that daunted him. He felt excitement rising in him. He had not been with her for a week. He had thought she was going abroad and that he would not see her for six months or a year. The relief at her staying home was strong.

They drank and went out, escorted by Muley, and it was still drizzling, with a few flakes of snow floating and melting. They got to the Chrysler, and Joel wiped his feet on the running board and slid behind the big wheel. It smelled dank and musty within the car.

The starter ground for a moment, but Joel had charged the battery at the yard that day, and the motor coughed into action. They sat a moment, letting it warm up, and Merced put her hand over his and smiled at him, sweet and innocent as a young girl on her first date.

He pushed out the clutch and shoved the gearshift lever into first and engaged the clutch, and the car went smoothly and turned into Cranford and down to Broadway and went right toward the south end of the city. None of the stores had nightlights, for economy reasons, but he knew all the stores, knew their problems, their standing at the bank. The city had not grown that much, not yet.

Merced was happy in her quiet way. I’m sorry for Humpy Potter, too, you know. Only it seems a waste of time being nice to him. He’s rich and handsome, and look at him. A high-class bum.

There’s nothing to be done about him.

She nodded. Yes, you’re right. So you put up with him, knowing the way it has to be.

I do business with his family. It was a stuffy, false thing to say, but she so often thought more clearly, that saying this boosted his ego.

The Chrysler was new that year and had all the appurtenances; when it warmed up, it ran like a clock. It was two o’clock and only a Yellow cab was left on the wide main street. Joel passed it, swung into Central Avenue and then made a sharp left on Jefferson Place. He parked next to the stone horse’s head in front of the old brownstone which had been his grandmother’s home. There was a block of granite still lumpy on the edge of the walk. Once his grandfather had hitched his buggy here, and Grandma, all bombazine and rustling petticoats, smelling of violets, had planted her small foot upon the stone in dismounting, smiling her bright, birdlike smile, reaching to take the small child, Joel, in her arms and carry him across the walk.

He went around and opened the door for Merced and then locked it and looked across at Jefferson Park, with the statue wet and slick under an arc light. When I was a little kid, it seemed the whole city was new and shiny.

It wasn’t, she said. We were new and shiny.

She was right again, but this time it pleased him. They went across the wide sidewalk; it had been k fashionable neighborhood and it still retained some dignity, although Joel’s father had been forced to divide the house into two apartments, one upstairs and one down. The Waycrosses, brother and sister, lived upstairs, and Joel had the entire ground floor.

There was a vestibule, then a hall. On the right, a door led into the old parlor, now a sitting room. Merced took off her fur coat, found a hanger in the closet of the bedroom, brought out the coat, and hung it on the door, so that the dampness would not permeate the closet.

Joel said, Do you want gin or apple?

Gin, but no ginger ale.

She perched on a couch near the big double windows. Outside the rain increased, then turned to hail, then to rain again, beating on the glass. The park was deserted and strange. She said, Why doesn’t this weather depress me? Why don’t I feel sad for Helen Hayes dying and Gary Cooper in the rain? Why am I merely slightly scared of tomorrow?

Because you’re an idiot.

I am an orphaned young lady of twenty-four, she said with dignity. I was a virgin until the age of twenty-two, when you seduced me. I enjoyed it and have been at it, off and on, ever since.

He sat beside her and put his hand gently inside her thigh. She had amazing legs. They seemed awkward and hard and lean until he touched them, then they were silky and alive and graceful. Keep on liking it, will you?

She moved accommodatingly and her hair was in his face, good-smelling, like all of her, clean and light. I’ve never quite grown up. If it didn’t make me want to grow up, I would compare myself to Pollyanna.

Your full name is Mercedes Albert, you’re descended from Huguenots, and you don’t want to get married. Why don’t you want to get married?

Because you don’t.

I’ve asked you a dozen times.

From where you asked me, I’m not buying. She gurgled with pleasure as his hand moved. Ah! Nice. Maybe it wouldn’t be so nice if we were married.

Why not? But he was relieved and she knew it.

No reason. Just—maybe. And maybe I wouldn’t stay in love with you, nor you with me. People don’t. Look around us. Look at people.

The hell with people, he said, I’m not afraid of that.

She twisted away from him for a moment, shivering, saying, I think I’d like another drink.

He realized then that she was afraid. He went and got the drink, fighting his conscience. She was almost never in this kind of mood, and he should take her home.

She accepted the drink and was suddenly back in form again, bantering, chuckling. I’m a lean and ugly wench. But maybe I ought to sleep around a bit. I read too much, my imagination is too strong. Another man or two should teach me where I stand.

I goddam well object. They sat side by side now, watching the rain, which was like a sheet of waterfall outside the window as a wind began to moan through the trees in the park. Its violence helped send them close together again, the drinks forgotten.

She said, It was a good movie because they followed the book.

She had jumped the track again and he followed her with the ease of long association. Yes. It was an honest book and the relationship was right.

Yes. They loved well.

Like you say, you read too much.

She put down the glass and nuzzled her head beneath his chin. She seemed shorter sitting down, because her legs were so long.

It’s an old habit, begun by my grandfather, who read Dickens to me before I knew all the words.

My grandfather read the Bible to me.

That’s why you like Hemingway.

Why don’t you get a job reviewing books?

I’m not the type. I like doing nothing, going to a party like Saturday at the Willowes. I like leaving town on a moment’s notice and drinking, and I like this a lot.

She had her left hand under his coat. She opened his vest, his shirt.

Her body was hard and soft at the same time. He decided that there was no sense in thinking about taking her home in such weather. She lived alone in an apartment on Weehawken, and there were no strings attached to her, as none were tied to him.

She whispered. I think I want to, now. I think this will be a good time.

It’s always good, he said hoarsely in her ear.

They stood up and walked as one to the bedroom. It was a repeated rhythm of movement as important as being suited between sheets. They knew each other and if fear was in them it was natural and to be expected.

What was far more important was the fact that it all went well, as usual, with the light turned very low and the radio on a waltz band and each of them taking the exact amount of proper time in the bathroom and meeting on the edge of the bed and coming together and the sheets going back and they slipping beneath them and their arms intertwined and both saying, I love you … I love you … I love you.

Chapter Two

IT WAS, JOEL realized, the first of March. The rain had stopped, but the day promised dank and drear. He pulled the curtains and tiptoed to the bathroom. Merced slept on her side, one arm outflung, her child’s face serene.

As he faced the shower, he shivered, then turned it on and waited for the hot water to come. The curtain was clammy against his legs as he clambered with a cake of Lifebuoy over the side of the tub. The clean carbolic odor restored his courage, and he soaped vigorously, urging himself fully awake.

Merced, he thought, poor Merced with your wildness in bed and your groping and your fears and your goodness of heart. You are the very best in bed, and better not think about that because it is six o’clock, and Father will be already at the office and fuming if you are late, or if you are not late, for that matter. No time to waken Merced with love.

He thought of love and Merced. There was no reason why they should not marry, now that he was rid of the shibboleth of the sacred hymen, except that they were afraid of marriage. Thousands, millions perhaps, were sleeping together, because of the times and because of a growing fear of marriage and family, particularly family. Bring a kid into this lousy world?

He was, he reminded himself, thirty, and he no longer believed in the sanctity of female virginity, the solidity of the nation’s economy, the sanctity of the church of his christening. Merced was reaching for anything, everything, and could easily be demolished. Why didn’t they marry?

Fear, he thought again. Fear that the last, hidden, unmentionable hope might be destroyed. Fear that they would waken to know the loss of something they could not name.

He got out of the tub and dried himself. He was still hard from the work around the coal yard, from the squash racquets at the club, from a general lucky desire to remain in physical condition. He began to feel strong again, to lose the cloying romanticism which made him a coward. He brushed his teeth with Ipana, and grinned to note there was no trace of ‘pink toothbrush,’ scorning the ads but liking the flavor of the paste.

He shaved, lathering briskly with the badger-hair brush his father had given him ten years ago, scraping the beard from his lean cheeks. He sopped witch hazel on the million nicks, invisible but smarting, and brushed his tight-growing hair with vigor.

He was neat about his clothes because of his mother. Thinking of that, he winced, the wound of her death ever-renewed after five years, missing her, mourning her gentleness and patience, hating his father all over again even as he knew the unfairness of hating Sam. He put on shorts and an undershirt without sleeves; a dark suit over a blue shirt, against the coal dust and oil smudge of the yard; heavy-soled cordovan shoes, well-worn but polished; all this without waking Merced.

She looked awfully, frighteningly young. Her hair was soft, baby hair, yet thick and alive. Her shoulder, exposed, was made by a craftsman, thin but perfect. He slid close, looked down at her, tempted again, remembering all the close, warm, exciting movements of her, the deep passion crying for something he did not have for her or himself or anyone, covering the shoulder; without waking her, going to the heat control and adjusting it so that she might awaken to a comfortable temperature, looking around once more, getting his hat and taking down the long, warm overcoat from where she had hung it, making sure of the gloves and the car keys, letting himself into the hall.

He wheeled around, startled at sound on the stairs leading to the upper apartment. Hal Waycross was coming down with slow, careful steps, as he did everything, coldly and coolly but cautiously, a slender man with blond features, blond eyes and hair, a blond camel’s hair coat piled thick, a blond hat. Joel did not like Hal Waycross, but he had known him forever and he could trust him to be silent, discreet, and to pay the rent promptly on the first.

Hal extended a check, saying, Happy March first.

Joel said, What’s happy about it?

Hal glanced at the closed door, then away, masking the odd-colored eyes. You ought to put in a new furnace. Christ, it takes an hour to get the heat upstairs.

Can’t do it now. Maybe in the spring.

They moved Jo the door, hesitated in mutual dislike of facing the wind, the damp freeze of last night’s storm.

Hal said, Damn weather, all weather.

Why do we stay in this climate? Suckers.

I may get down to Miami. I may make it.

Things going that good? Joel was not envious. Hal’s business was ostensibly trucking, but it was well known that he had connections with Frosty Dial, with other shadowy figures in the bootlegging world. Hal was a good man to know, it was said. He was younger than Joel, a few years, but already he looked older. He was a very ugly man in many ways; in other ways he was attractive; he was certainly often useful.

Good enough. I’m making a connection in the South. May run some seafood back and forth. New refrigerator trucks are pretty efficient.

Sounds fine, said Joel, thinking that seafood was a good cover for sacks of scotch and gin and brandy brought ashore on the Jersey fiats by cooperative Coast Guard cutters and their allies in crime.

They went out the vestibule door into the street. Hal’s eyes flickered once more at sight of the Chrysler outdoors on such a night, then he turned toward the garage where he stabled his Cadillac, waving a short arm, turning up his collar. Joel watched him out of sight before he opened the car door and climbed in.

It took a bit of time to warm up the motor. Joel was careful with machinery. He sat watching the mist creep across the glass, immolating him for the moment. He thought of Hal Waycross and his sister Gloria, who lived with him, wondering about them. Not incest, he thought. I just don’t believe it, and truthfully I don’t like the jokes about that. I’m a puritan about some things. If I had guts, I’d defend Hal when they talk about him and Gloria. The truth is, the Waycrosses are indefensible in our crowd. They are not quite right, not quite accepted, although they are invited everywhere and they always appear. They always have.

Hal has the courage, he thought further, that few of us demonstrate. He goes his way without pretense, always a bit aloof, not caring. He lives with Gloria without explanation and no one dares criticize him to his face. Perhaps he depends upon Gloria for something we cannot know. Certainly Gloria should have some use in the world, because she is a bore, sometimes a frightening bore.

He wiped the windshield and side glass clean and let in the automatic clutch, and the car started smoothly as always. Floating power, he thought, was a luxury and maybe he shouldn’t have paid over two thousand for the car, but he enjoyed it and he used it in business. And it was good to seem medium-prosperous, not Cadillac-prosperous like Hal, which elicited envy and suspicion, but prosperous enough to be stable and pay the bills and expect others to pay the coal or oil bill to Harper Fuel Company.

He turned left on Broad Street and right on Pennington and went down to the railroad embankment, a short drive from Lincoln Place. He turned the corner into the garage which now housed the business, and the trucks were all out and there was a deserted air about the huge garage. He parked the car and got out and walked on the concrete, noting that everything was in place, the tool shop was in order, the spare parts, the window chutes, the coiled hose for the oil jobs, the bags for toting the coal hanging on the wall, reminding him of when he had dumped them in the past, learning the business the hard way, the only possible way.

It was an anomalous business, now, he thought, since they had sold the big yard and were confined to this small section of what had been Sam Harper’s property since the turn of the century, before Joel was born. They no longer bought carloads of coal and oil; they depended upon the middlemen, the wholesalers. They sold retail, delivered from the coal depots at the railroad yards. The oil refineries had been springing up within city environs but were not as convenient as they should be to keep down the trucking cost.

If they did not own properties, if they had to support more than Sam and himself, two single men, they would be as badly off as some of their contemporaries. If they had not changed the bank account –because one of Sam’s petulant fits – from the Culver Trust Company Bank to the Lincoln National, they would have lost thousands when Culver shocked the whole state of New Jersey by closing.

It was scarifying to see what was happening. It was terrible to see the Negro people who dwelt in a tight circle around the Harper garage; Joel watched them dwindle in dimension, lose their happy carelessness, become sour and dour and hungry and knowledgeable that they were unwanted. The whole thing was demoralizing, and Joel determinedly put it out of this mind, going into the overheated office, stripping off his overcoat to face Sam.

The coffee was on the hotplate. There were three rooms: an outer office to receive customers, an inner office for bookkeeping and a restroom with a couch and a chair, off which was a toilet and shower stall. He hung his coat in a closet, responding to Sam’s grunt with a monosyllable, disliking himself for not being cheery, disliking his father even more for setting the mood, as usual.

Sam was two inches shorter than his son, strong as an ox, with burly shoulders and small hands and feet of which he was secretly proud, and an outdoor face, rough skin, squinted eyes, ruddy complexion. He was fifty-eight years old and moved like a young man, quick and nervous. He wore coveralls every day, with HARPER FUEL CO. printed on the back; he was a common man, he proclaimed, not afraid to get his hands dirty, implying that Joel was a snob who refused to work the way God intended man to labor, with both fists clenched.

Sam said, Got to get out the bills today.

Started them yesterday. Joel sat down behind the outer desk with his coffee. One hour, he thought, and I’ll have them ready, then I can go out and mail them. Marie will be here by then and she can take it. One hour.

Collections are too slow. Sam sat down, looking out the window. When he whined he never looked at Joel. The whining got worse all the time. That Maplewood crowd ain’t coming through. We need a new hose for the White truck. That nigger driver you hired is too damn fresh. Can’t get decent help no how, no more.

Sam hadn’t gone to school after the eighth grade, and his father hadn’t gone beyond fourth grade, and Sam liked to put on the bad grammar. It was part of his common man pose. Since losing Martha, Sam had grown worse, and Joel wondered now if his father had forgotten how to speak, possibly deliberately because Mother had always been quietly after him about it.

Joel said, Don’t call a man a ‘nigger,’ Pa.

"This one’s a nigger. No damn good. He’ll steal. You mark my words.