Jack Hagee: No Torrent Like Greed

Dedication

To Wayne Dundee and Gary Lovisi – who knew a good thing when they saw it and shared it with the rest of the world. On behalf of C. J. and of all of his fans –

Thanks, guys

— John L. French

C.J. Henderson, Jack Hagee and Me

Introduction by Gary Lovisi

A long time ago, in a world very far away, Wayne Dundee edited a little fanzine-type magazine called Hardboiled. That magazine contained the hardest damn crime fiction you’d ever want to read. I savored each long-awaited issue as it appeared, reading them religiously, little realizing at the time that the contributors and letter writers whose names appeared in those pages would become a who’s who of hard crime and noir fiction for the latter part of the 20th Century.

Hardboiled (HB) contained hard pulp crime the way it should be written — with a relentless hard-ass attitude that had not been seen since Manhunt or Black Mask — and there was one guy who wrote stories that I thought were the best of the best. His stories were gripping, searing, brutally honest and damn good. I’d never heard of him before, he was just some guy with the byline C.J. Henderson. In stories like What You Pay For (HB #4, 1986); Nothing Comes Cheap (HB #6, 1986); and especially Toothpick (HB #8, 1987) Henderson chronicled the tough but brutally honest adventures of his maverick private eye and overall troublemaker, Jack Hagee. From then on the world changed.

Henderson’s Hagee was a tough Brooklyn private eye, and since I was a guy who lived in Brooklyn, both character and author were of interest to me — but I’d never heard of this guy Henderson at all. He seemed to be as much of a writing maverick as Hagee was a maverick character — and soon I would learn how right I was about that.

So I wrote Hardboiled editor Big Wayne asking him about this Henderson fellow, mentioning how much I liked his stories, and he gave me Henderson’s address. It turned out the guy not only lived right here in Brooklyn where I live — he lived only a little ways from me! I wrote him. We met. Over the years we became good friends and had some great times chewing the fat about crime fiction, Jack Hagee, my own hard crime guy Vic Powers, science fiction, films, politics, any damn thing at all — but the subject always came back to hard-boiled crime fiction. And Jack Hagee.

In those days everything we read and wrote was hard-boiled in some way, certainly everything written by Chris — as I called him — had a hard-boiled edge to it. Everything, even fantasy stories. He was a very versatile writer and could write anything about anything. The words just flowed out of him, like they’d been bottled up inside him since he was born — and they were beautiful, searing, honest words. I realized a great truth about this guy, my friend Chris, this C.J. Henderson guy was a natural… a natural writer! He had the talent. He had it!

As our friendship grew, Chris continued writing Jack Hagee stories, among others (such as his popular Teddy London tales), and I began writing my Vic Powers stories, and publishing my magazines: Paperback Parade for book collectors, and Detective Story Magazine (which would morph years down the line into Hardboiled when I took it over from Big Wayne in 1991). But that was yet to come. In the meantime Chris and I continued our friendship — writing our stories, dreaming our dreams. He wrote a lot. I published a lot, and wrote a lot too.

I loved his Jack Hagee stories. Hagee was Chris as he was and as he wanted to be, he was Chris’s alter ego and Hagee said the things in print Chris spoke in real life. Hagee, like Chris, was an outspoken, overly opinionated, very real, fascinating raconteur. I was happy when I published A Game to Be Played in the second issue of my Detective Story Magazine in 1988. The next year I published You Can’t Take it With You in DMS #5. From then on C.J. Henderson wrote at a rapid pace and Jack Hagee stories flew out of his typewriter — and eventually word processor — to appear like magic in a burst of manic creativity. Each story was a wonderful, hard crime gem, worthy of Manhunt or Black Mask — dammit, even worthy of being written by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Or Spillane himself! Crime writing legends of the caliber of Richard S. Prather, Mike Avallone, Richard A. Lupoff, and William Campbell Gault all lauded his Jack Hagee stories. As fast as Chris wrote ‘em, Big Wayne and I published ‘em.

Eventually Chris and I realized he had written enough stories to fill out what would make a nice sized book. A Jack Hagee collection was something we both dreamed about — he as a writer — I as a fan and a small press publisher. We made it happen in 1990 with the first Jack Hagee book, What You Pay For (Gryphon Books). It was a 500 copy limited trade paperback that collected all 11 Jack Hagee stories up to that time in one volume, including a never-before-published tale Bread Ahead, all wrapped in stunning cover art by the great James Warhola. The image of Jack Hagee on the book cover is the image of Chris from back in the day.

From then on the legend of Jack Hagee and C.J. Henderson only grew. While What You Pay For never became a best-seller, not even selling out its original print run, it was read and enjoyed by true hard-boiled fans and readers. Reviews were very positive, and the book and Hagee began to build a following and buzz among those who make crime books successful. Jack Hagee and C.J. Henderson were on the move. My friend was making it in the writing game and I was happy because his talent deserved it. Within a couple of years Jack Hagee had attracted the attention of major publishers and soon Berkley Books published three new Jack Hagee novels: No Free Lunch (#1, 1992); Something for Nothing (#2, 1993) and Nothing Lasts Forever (#3, 1994). Hagee was off and running.

I was proud when I was asked to contribute a blurb for that first book and I wrote, Henderson knows the mean streets around us today and makes them sing with the blood and sweat of life. And I meant every word of it. The three Hagee novels were great — not as good, nor as strong having the visceral power shown in his short stories — but really good hard crime novels. They are underrated books and are real sleepers for hard-boiled aficionados. Today they have become cult classics.

Then, just as things seemed to be going full tilt for Jack Hagee the rug was pulled out from under the tough Brooklyn PI when Berkley decided to move their publishing program in another direction. The publisher (who also published Chris’s Teddy London occult detective novels under the pseudonym Robert Morgan) wanted him to concentrate in that new direction — and Jack Hagee was left aside. Chris also wrote comic books, and other novels with new characters in the fantasy and horror genres for Tor and other major publishers that were also popular. Though Chris wrote an occasional Hagee short story from time to time, the Jack Hagee novels were quietly allowed to go out of print. And that’s where things stood for many years. Along the way, What You Pay For was reprinted by another publisher, so the Hagee stories stayed in print, while the Berkley novels languished in the land of out of print books where collectors and fans kept them alive. The story of Jack Hagee appeared to be over and done.

Then we heard the terrible news that Chris was ill with cancer. It was a big blow to everyone who knew him. He was a large guy, bigger than life and seemingly impregnable. He wasn’t, he was just a man, a good guy who tried his best, who did what he loved doing, who wrote great books and now was fighting the greatest fight in his life — trying to beat cancer. He fought well. If anyone could win and beat the beast we thought it would be Chris. He kept up a good front, something Jack Hagee would have done, showing his hard-boiled toughness with his usual attitude. I thought Chris was going to make it. When I spoke to him he sounded positive, even hopeful. Then one day I got the dread call from his good friend Bob Smith. Chris was dead. Hagee was dead. There is nothing left to say.

There is some comfort though in the thought that he died doing exactly what he loved to do, for I heard later that Chris had been at his desk writing a new story — I like to think that it was a new Hagee story — when he felt very ill. He had to be rushed to the hospital and he passed away soon after. My good friend was gone. We’d had some bumps in that friendship over the years — decades really — but we always remained good friends. It’s hard to keep a dry eye as I write this.

Chris’s passing on July 4, 2014 was a massive blow to his family and all of us who knew him. A lovely gathering was attended by legions of family, friends and fans in his honor in August, a veritable convention – the C.J Con. It was just as Chris would have wanted it, a gathering of good people, great food and lots of strong drink. And that, I thought, was that. Chris was gone now, but he was never out of our thoughts.

It was months later in November at Rich Harvey’s Bordentown, NJ pulp show, Pulp Adventurecon (www.pulpadventure.com), when I saw friend and crime author John French. Well, we just naturally got to talking about Chris and then Hagee. When he let me know about a long lost Jack Hagee novel, I immediately stopped in my tracks. I blurted out, What long lost Jack Hagee novel?

Then John told me that Chris had written a fourth book in his Hagee series for Berkley that had never been published. The manuscript had been lost for 20 years and he had only recently found a copy that Chris had sent him years ago. To say I was shocked and amazed didn’t quite make it. John and I got to talking about the book. He told me he was then in the process of editing the novel and Rich Harvey was going to publish it. I asked if I could write the introduction and John and Rich agreed.

No Torrent Like Greed is the big new fourth and long-lost Jack Hagee hardest-boiled crime novel. It is hard-boiled pulp the way it should be. It’s a wonderful book, it’s Chris back in fine form and full voice, and Hagee and he spout off about their many foibles in their hard-boiled opinionated best. This is attitude plus! The book was obviously written sometimes after the third novel, I would put it circa 1994, and there are some minor dated aspects to it. Hagee mentions floppy disks and mobile phones, but like reading vintage Chandler, Hammett or Spillane, we don’t read them for the technology either. We read them for the great characters like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer — and Jack Hagee — and the terrific hard crime stories. The relentless hard-boiled attitude. No Torrent Like Greed has that in spades.

No Torrent Like Greed takes place a mere five weeks after the events in the third Hagee novel, Nothing Lasts Forever — which in light of events turned out to be an amazingly ironic title. In this new novel, Chris has Hagee skewer New York City in his own special way as only a person who lives here can really know it — a working person talking truth, not some uptown spoiled yuppie Wall Street trust-fund fool riding their bleeding heart sanctimonious high-horse. In other words, a novel written circa 1994 during the height of the rot and riot brought on by the Mayor Dinkins administration. However Chris and Hagee are not at all out of touch with the present in this novel, ironically the citizens of New York recently voted in Mayor Bill DiBlasi who brings with him all the old pols and broken baggage of the Dinkins administration. So for Hagee, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Henderson and Hagee spew forth a variety of sharp opinions and comments in this book. You don’t have to agree with all of them — or even any of them — but they do give pause for thought, and to me they ring true as the day they were written. The more things change, the more they do remain the same. The novel also continues Hagee’s relationship with his friends and associates. Returning are his info specialist, Hubert; newspaper reporter Rich Violano; street people and sometime agents, Popeye and Grampy; and Hagee’s gal Sally Brenner, New York Post editor.

No Torrent Like Greed presents Jack Hagee at his best and toughest yet. Henderson has Hagee neck deep into the most dangerous and convoluted case of his career — but it all begins so innocently. Then things get down and dirty and the game being played gets worse, becoming a rollercoaster of violence and terror. This is a hard crime growler of a book, the loud voice from C. J. Henderson roaring at us from beyond the grave. He would have loved that. Here he is making his point and telling his story, even after his death. Nothing would please Chris better and nothing could be better for a reader than having Jack Hagee back again in a new lost crime novel by C.J. Henderson — the quintessential pulp writer of the modern era. Now get to reading! You are in for a real treat my friends.

Gary Lovisi

Brooklyn, New York

November 18, 2014

Copyright 2014 by Gary Lovisi. All Rights Reserved.

No Torrent Like Greed

The darkest hour of any man’s life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it. — Horace Greeley

Better that we should die fighting than be outraged and dishonored. Better to die than to live in slavery. — Emmeline Pankhurst

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed. — Buddha

1

As I walked from my apartment to the Santorios’ downstairs, I was suddenly struck by the thought that sometimes your life just can’t get any more rosy. A month earlier I’d been the owner of one that looked firmly stuck in the crapper. I’d provoked a major fight with my girlfriend that had led me to take a case I shouldn’t have. That move got two of my friends killed, a few more banged up, and landed my partner and me in Hong Kong in the middle of a royal shebang that almost added our names to the lists of the dead. It didn’t, however, and now things were decidedly better.

My name is Jack Hagee, until five weeks ago, sole owner and employee of the private investigations firm I’d started roughly a year earlier. When I’d gone to Hong Kong, however, I’d taken a younger guy, Peter Wei, on as my partner to see how well we worked together. It turned out we worked together just fine, and we’d stayed partners upon our return. That turned out to be a good idea as well, and now both of us were up to our armpits in work—nice peaceful work, I might add, the kind that generates revenue without getting anyone shot at ... the kind of work I like ... the kind my girlfriend likes me to take.

Peter had kept his office in Chinatown, just like I’d kept mine in Union Square but we’d networked our operatives, and before the first week was out had found better ways to use them. But as I knocked on the Santorios’ door, I shoved thoughts of Peter and business aside. For one thing, I would be seeing him later that night at the fights. For another, I had a somewhat less violent matter to attend to.

Elba opened the door and ushered me in. Before I could say anything, though, her brothers and sisters crowded around me, moving me straight into the dining room area of their apartment to show off their handiwork.

So, Papa Jack, asked Elba, her voice filled with pride, how’d we do?

I looked out over the perfectly set table heavily laden with food, nearly speechless at the sight. Getting a grip, though, I said,

Not bad, not bad—for a little kid, I mean.

Elba, the girl who keeps my apartment looking as if a human being and not a thirty-three year old bachelor lived in it, gave me a dirty look—one that spoke volumes beyond what a fourteen year old’s dirty looks should be able to say. Of course, I deserved it. She and the rest of her clan had clearly outdone themselves.

Elba and her brothers and sisters had lost their mother a long time back. Their father had died earlier in the year, causing a great deal of concern as to what would happen to them all. What happened was a maiden aunt who needed more out of life than a cat to clean up after and cable television. She moved in and assumed control of the children while I took over the bills.

And, as much as it might sound like one, it wasn’t a sucker move—Elba’s family and I have a lot of history—it was just something people do for each other. The aunt worked, as did all the kids, even the youngest. Everyone contributed to the pot. No one expected any luxuries. The idea was to keep them off welfare, away from the prying, rotting influence of public assistance. With no parents around and no one in power aware of that situation, keeping Big Brother out of the picture was our primary concern.

Oh, Jack, I’m so touched that you approve, she told me with a heavy tone weighed down with sarcasm. "After all, I know how hard it is for a poor, old Viejo like yourself to stay up this late."

Touché, I answered, laughing. At that point her aunt came over to scold her for calling me by my first name, which just made me laugh all the harder. Elba flashed her big brown eyes at me filling them with little girl helplessness, appealing to me for support, but I gave her a look that let her know she was on her own. Both of us knew her aunt would only scold me as well for letting her get away with calling me Jack. And, since it wouldn’t have been seemly for a poor old grandpa like myself to have to take such a tongue lashing from an expert lasher like Elba’s aunt, I merely shrugged my shoulders and slipped off into the party.

As one might imagine, my first port of call was the table spread the kids had pointed out as I’d come in. Looking it over, I couldn’t help but take a little pride, wondering what the night’s festivities would have looked like if I hadn’t set up the deal I had—indeed, if there would have been any festivities at all. Elba’s little sister, Ana, had won the award for selling the most candy bars in her school’s PTA’s latest fund-raising effort. She had been awarded a hundred dollar prize, an obvious reason for a party.

Not that I was looking for a pat on the back or anything, it was just that I had to wonder if not for her aunt and me, would she have still been in the same school? Would she even have been in any school at all, or just shunted off to some state home somewhere, far from the city and people who spoke Spanish and basically everything else she had ever known? It was hard to say. New York City is not exactly a place known for its sterling guarantees.

On the contrary, the city is a place known for stabbing its citizens in the back just for the privilege of watching them bleed. Children get treated the worst because they’re smaller and easier to step on. Family care in New York is a joke—and a cruel one at that. Family units command no respect from local government —the welfare system is set up to destroy them. Solid families make money and move away as fast as they can. Single-parent families on the dole are trapped and have to stick around and keep voting their masters back into office.

On top of that, the system is also lousy with greedy types. Like the sham artists whose business is taking in extra mouths just to get the checks that come with them. The kids who are routinely bartered off to these monsters live like rats and keep their mouths shut out of fear of beatings, rape, or death—sometimes combinations of all of the above.

Reminding myself that I was at a party, though, I blinked my eyes hard, trying to drive such thoughts out of my head. Looking down at Ana, I thought about how she had won her hundred dollars in the first place. She had