One Endless Hour

ONE ENDLESS HOUR

By Dan J. Marlowe

Originally published and copyright © 1969 by Dan J. Marlowe. Copyright © renewed 1997. The Clock Began to Tick by Charles Kelly copyright © 2011. All Rights Reserved.Smashwords Edition. Cover design by J.T. Lindroos.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Clock Began to Tick

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

The Clock Began to Tick

By Charles Kelly

A quick note: This book is a sequel to Dan J. Marlowe’s masterpiece, The Name of the Game is Death, first published in 1962. If you have read that book, you’ll quickly see that the Prologue to One Endless Hour reproduces much of the end of The Name of the Game is Death. When One Endless Hour was published in 1969, the Prologue was necessary to catch readers up on the plot if they hadn’t read the first novel or hadn’t read it for some time. While for you the repetition may be irksome, you’ll be well rewarded when you get into the meat of this novel. It’s one of the most bizarre entries ever in the hard-boiled genre. Particularly odd and unsettling for this type of book are the sexual themes it explores, and the way the members of the bank officials’ families turn on each other in their moment of crisis.

***

The title of this book may have been inspired by two ordeals in the story. One is referred to in the first sentence of Chapter 3. Earl Drake, waiting to escape from the prison ward in which his destroyed face has been repaired, says, The final hour of waiting was the worst. The second takes place during the robbery that climaxes the story. Drake and one of his partners, having kidnapped two bank officials at home and taken them to the bank, wait and wait for the opening of the vault, which is secured by a time lock.

In both cases, the narrative is infused with strain, with palpable tension. Time in a vise, with everything on the line. The clock ticks and ticks. One endless hour.

For this novel and its writer, Dan J. Marlowe (1914-1986), the clock began to tick in July 1962, when Marlowe got a call from a man who gave his name as Carl Fischer.

At one time, Marlowe had been a professional gambler, ranging up and down the East Coast and across the country, but at this point, he had given that up for the small-town solitude that would allow him to blitz the market with paperbacks, sustain a modest lifestyle, and perhaps write a breakout novel that would put him on firm financial ground. He had chosen to live in Harbor Beach, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Huron about two hours’ drive north of Detroit.

Things were going well. Fawcett Gold Medal had just published his seventh novel, The Name of the Game is Death. Its protagonist was a double-tough bank robber capable of chilling violence. This was the book that had generated the call from Carl Fischer, who described himself as an aspiring writer. Fischer said he was just starting out, but Marlowe could tell he had a quick mind and a vigorous attitude--attributes that sometimes make for a successful writer.

Their talk was enjoyable, and Fischer followed up with a letter. Marlowe read it, tossed it aside, and thought no more about it for months. (At least, this is one version of the story. In another version Fischer told Marlowe the nature of his real occupation.)

In November, Marlowe got a visit from two FBI agents. Investigators had found out about the July phone call from Fischer, who in fact was a notorious bank robber named Al Nussbaum . The robber had just been captured, and the agents suspected Marlowe was involved in his criminal activities. Marlowe protested that this wasn’t true, and the FBI went away.

However, Marlowe was intrigued by Nussbaum. He visited him in jail, and they collaborated on a long magazine story called Anatomy of a Crime Wave that detailed Nussbaum’s exploits outside the law. The article was supposed to be published by the Saturday Evening Post. It was killed because of pressure from the FBI, which asserted that the story glorified criminals.

Though this first collaboration by Marlowe and Nussbaum went nowhere, they remained friends even after Nussbaum was sent to prison for various bank robberies. These hadn’t been small-time jobs. Nussbaum had been one of the FBI’s Top Ten wanted criminals. During one of his robberies, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a bank guard had been shot to death as Nussbaum sat outside in a getaway car. Nussbaum frankly admitted that he enjoyed crime. However, he now began to build toward a legitimate occupation. Nussbaum settled down to become a writer. Marlowe assisted him by critiquing his work, offering writing advice, and helping him sell his stories. Nussbaum, in turn, helped Marlowe by advising him on the technical aspects of firearms, burglar alarms, and explosives.

The robber also convinced Marlowe that he should write a sequel to The Name of the Game is Death. Marlowe did so, producing One Endless Hour. An echo of Nussbaum’s career worked its way into the book. The protagonist at one point says he once used the false name Carl Kessler. Nussbaum had used the alias Karl Kessler, among others.

The years went by. Marlowe continued to churn out books and stories, often working with his chief collaborator, retired Air Force Col. William C. Odell, a highly decorated World War II veteran considered an expert on night aerial combat.

In 1977, at 62 years of age, Marlowe was still hard at work. By then he had written 25 novels. But that year he fell victim to terrible headaches while doing research in Florida for what he hoped would be a breakout novel to be published by Bernard Geis, maverick publisher of The Valley of the Dolls. Marlowe managed to drive back to Harbor Beach. But three days later he suffered an attack of amnesia that caused him to forget all the people he had known and everything he had written. The amnesia probably was induced by a stroke, though physicians at the time believed the cause was psychological.

Marlowe’s writing life appeared to be over. But Nussbaum, who by now had been released from prison and was turning out short stories, TV script plots and educational books in Los Angeles, convinced Marlowe to move there and live with him while trying to regain his writing skills. Marlowe did so, and managed to produce a few new stories, a number of easy-reading books for the educational market, and one full-length novel—a generic adventure yarn called Guerilla Games, written as Gar Wilson for the Phoenix Force series published by Gold Eagle—before he died of heart failure in August 1986.

The reader of One Endless Hour may enjoy contemplating two ironies.

Marlowe, in The Name of the Game is Death, has his protagonist bank robber proclaim, I divorced myself for all time from the vault-blowing jobs and the armored-truck jobs and the kidnapping-the-bank-manager-and-his-wife jobs. That was the hard way. However, when he collaborated on One Endless Hour with a real bank robber, Marlowe made the climactic heist a kidnapping-the-bank-manager-and-his-wife job.

The other irony is that in 1982, Nussbaum, supposedly long retired and making his way as a writer in Los Angeles, was strongly suspected of a bank extortion in Peoria, Illinois. In that crime, the perpetrators convinced a bank manager that his wife had been kidnapped, and got away with $31,500. A witness who heard the suspected extortionists talking reported they had hoped to score $250,000, close to the $225,000 the robbers almost got away with in One Endless Hour. The authorities never made a case on Nussbaum for the Peoria crime.

Some suspicion lingered, however. Nussbaum had told at least one friend that he sometimes was approached by professional bank robbers to case bank jobs, presumably including jobs like this, just like the character in One Endless Hour known as Robert The Schemer Frenz. Nussbaum said he never took the offers and never returned to crime because he didn’t want to go back to prison. Most of his friends believed him. The police never did.

Charles Kelly, whose novel Pay Here was published by Point Blank Press, is writing a biography of Dan J. Marlowe. Kelly’s website is hardboiledjournalist.com.

PROLOGUE

A NARROW WAGON ROAD BRANCHED OFF in the headlights a half mile in on the dirt road heading east from Florida’s west coast. I turned the Ford into the weed-overgrown trail. Not that way! Lucille Grimes said sharply.

I paid no attention. After a hundred yards I stopped, pulled up the brakes, and cut the motor and lights. Then I slipped an arm around the blonde. She wriggled impatiently, thinking I had romance on my mind. I’d done it to keep her from fleeing if she suspected anything.

She was sure that her boyfriend, Deputy Sheriff Blaze Franklin, was so close behind us that he’d arrive any moment and kill me. She didn’t know that I’d disabled Franklin’s police cruiser and left him miles back on U.S. 19.

After a moment she lowered her head onto my shoulder, awaiting the appearance of the rear guard. Under the trees it was full dark. Much too dark to see her expression. I wished I could. It would have been interesting. Lucille Grimes, the blonde postmistress of Hudson, Florida, was as good as dead as far as I was concerned. It was just a question of when and how. In a way it was too bad. She was a really talented bitch.

Right that second she gave me another demonstration of it. The silence in the woods must have got to her, because she grabbed for the horn ring on the steering wheel. The horn blatted twice. She was reaching for the light switch when I caught her arm. She sat there all tensed up, waiting for Blaze Franklin to appear out of the darkness and finish me off.

I could sense the shriveling of her self-confidence when nothing happened. You beginning to get the idea he’s not coming? I needled her. Blaze isn’t splitting with you, Lucille. He’s splitting with me. Your boyfriend’s sold you out. I’m supposed to bury you twenty yards off this dirt road.

It shook her to her round heels, but she was too smart to swallow it whole. He’ll come, she said huskily, trying to look over her shoulder.

Where is he, then? Get smart, woman. It’s lucky for you I like you. Get on the ball now and steer me to the money. I’ll take care of Franklin for you.

She was silent. There was only one thing she could think. Even if Franklin hadn’t sold her out, he’d flubbed his end of the deal. She had to protect herself. Her steel-trap mind should have been telling her she was in a perfect position to play it cool down to the finish line. Then she could choose up sides with the winner.

I couldn’t understand why she hesitated.

We—Blaze never found the money, she said at last. Her voice quavered. Only a few hundred on—on the man. She drew a long breath. If only I’d never mentioned to Blaze the big, odd-looking man who mailed such queer.... Her voice died away.

So that was why Franklin wanted me alive. For a while. He hoped I knew where the cache was. The funny thing was that I did. Now.

I tightened my grip on the blonde’s arm. Franklin killed my partner before he found out where the money was?

He—yes, she whispered.

I started up the Ford. Tell me where Bunny was staying, Lucille. She didn’t say anything. I turned my head to look at her. Her face was an indistinct pale oval. Tell me, I warned.

She told me. She had trouble getting out the words. I didn’t like the sound of her voice or her directions. I took hold of her again and jerked her toward me. While she tried to pull away, I crossed my hand over my chest and drew my holstered Smith and Wesson .38 special. The blonde’s features crumpled in fear.

I took her wrist, reversed the gun, and slashed her soft inner arm with the gun sight. She cried out in pain and shock as the blood welled. Better change your story, I told her. Because if there’s nothing where you’re sending me, that’s what happens to your face until my arm gets tired.

She changed her story.

I backed onto the road and drove along it to another that bisected it. Following Lucille’s new directions, I turned right. We seemed to be heading into the middle of nowhere. I was on the point of asking her to change her story again when she motioned at a small cabin off to one side. I’d have missed it if I’d been alone. I pulled into the brush and got out of the Ford. I took the car keys so she couldn’t zoom off and leave me stranded.

I reached back in and took a flashlight from the glove compartment. I circled the cabin cautiously, .38 in one hand, flashlight in the other. There were no phone wires. In the rear, a mound of cut branches loomed up in the light. I pulled off a few. Beneath the tangled brush sat Bunny’s blue Dodge. This time Lucille hadn’t lied to me.

I went back to the car. I had to take hold of Lucille’s arm to get her out of it. I took a chisel and maul from the trunk, herded the foot-dragging blonde up to the cabin door ahead of me, and smashed the lock. Dry heat rolled over me as the door opened. It had a musty, long-closed odor. Lucille was still hanging back, and I kept a good hold on her arm. I couldn’t understand her reluctance to enter the cabin.

Inside, I closed and bolted the door. The bolt was rusty and I had to manhandle it. I lit a match and peered about the place. A skillet was on the two-burner stove, and Bunny’s clothes hung neatly on hangers in an alcove. There was a candle in a bottle on a small table, and I touched the burning match to the wick. Soft light filled the room.

There were two more doors, both locked. Two swings of the maul disposed of the first lock. There was nothing inside the room at all. I demolished the second lock, then beamed the flash around the room’s shadowy interior. Partway around, the light hung, motionless.

I’d found Bunny.

He was face down on the rough pine flooring. His wrists were handcuffed to shiny new ringbolts in the floor. The ringbolts were at right angles to his head. Fresh pine sawdust was visible where the holes had been drilled.

Dry as the air in the place was, there was a persistent smell. Bunny had been in the cuffs for a long time. With his chest flat on the floor and his arms spread-eagled, not even his great strength could achieve leverage. He had thrown himself onto his right side in a final contortion. The bone of his left kneecap glistened at me out of raw-looking meat, trousers and flesh long since abraded away in his ceaseless struggle with the splintered flooring. His upper left arm was mincemeat where he’d gnawed at himself.

Bunny had lain in the cuffs until he died.

Which kills first, hunger or thirst?

I couldn’t remember.

I couldn’t think.

The game had dealt my partner a rough hand. Looking into Franklin’s gun, Bunny had temporized, feeling he’d find a spot to turn it around. He hadn’t counted on the cuffs. He’d gone into them, but he hadn’t cracked. He’d told Franklin nothing. Right up to the end he must have hoped I’d get there in time. A hell of a lot of good I’d been to him, two thousand miles away getting a cop’s bullet out of my shoulder so I could travel.

How do you break the will of a stubborn man? You starve him. You starve him until he’s out of his mind with hunger, heat, and thirst, when he’ll lead you to anything he has.

If he’s not too far out of his mind.

With the hunger, the thirst, and the maddening heat, Blaze Franklin had returned to the cabin one day and found a mindless animal in the ringbolts. An animal who would never lead him to anything.

I stooped to examine the head, cruelly battered from