Yesterday, I stumbled on this passage from John Guzlowski's Murdertown, and it really kicked me hard... a bit more wordy than Elmore, dry as it comes:
A young kid passed by then, lugging a big paper shopping bag from the A&P supermarket. At least here was one good kid doing what he was supposed to be doing. Helping his mom and dad. Doing the shopping for the family. Dragging a heavy bag down from the supermarket on Division Street. Hank nodded his head.
And then another kid ran up to the kid with the shopping bag. The second kid had something in his hand. A dark smudge of something. A toy revolver? A little-bitty gun, maybe a .22. A toy? The second kid pressed it quick against the back of the first kid’s head and pulled the trigger. Maybe twenty feet away, but Hank could hear it plain as if the trigger was pulled in the car he and Marvin were sitting in. Pop! and the kid with the shopping bag dropped without a scream, and the other kid, the kid with the gun, grabbed the shopping bag and turned into a gangway between the two buildings, and he was gone.
Just finished Swag recently and of course it made me want to write like Leonard. But I'm sticking to copying Donald Westlake.
"Brian had all that day to figure out what was going on, and yet he didn't." What's So Funny?
Yesterday, I stumbled on this passage from John Guzlowski's Murdertown, and it really kicked me hard... a bit more wordy than Elmore, dry as it comes:
A young kid passed by then, lugging a big paper shopping bag from the A&P supermarket. At least here was one good kid doing what he was supposed to be doing. Helping his mom and dad. Doing the shopping for the family. Dragging a heavy bag down from the supermarket on Division Street. Hank nodded his head.
And then another kid ran up to the kid with the shopping bag. The second kid had something in his hand. A dark smudge of something. A toy revolver? A little-bitty gun, maybe a .22. A toy? The second kid pressed it quick against the back of the first kid’s head and pulled the trigger. Maybe twenty feet away, but Hank could hear it plain as if the trigger was pulled in the car he and Marvin were sitting in. Pop! and the kid with the shopping bag dropped without a scream, and the other kid, the kid with the gun, grabbed the shopping bag and turned into a gangway between the two buildings, and he was gone.
Congratulations on signing with an agent! And now I've got to go find my favorite passage in crime fiction... might take awhile.