South of Heaven

South of Heaven

Jim Thompson

Language: English

Pages: 240

ISBN: 0679740171

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


In the 1920s the worst place you could be was in that part of Texas that some people call "South of Heaven," and the worst thing you could be doing there was laying a gas pipeline, along with six-hundred other hoboes, juice-heads, and jailbirds. But that's exactly what Tommy Burwell was doing, even though he wasn't smart enough to know better. Even though "South of Heaven" is another term for hell.

Combining a tale of escalating savagery with a dead-eyed group portrait of men at the edge, Jim Thompson has produced a masterpiece of the American dissolute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

next morning, right after breakfast, he herded me out of the cell and down to the sheriff’s office, where I was turned over to a deputy I hadn’t seen before. The latter gestured lazily, waving me toward the door of a small anteroom. I went into it, and there was Four Trey Whitey. “How’s it going, bo?” He winked at me, holding out his hand. “Looks like you’re holding your own with ’em.” “Four Trey.…Oh, gosh, Four Trey!” I said, and then I bit my lip, getting ahold of myself. “How’s it with you?”

not working. Now just what do you think would happen if some lovesick, loudmouth kid hinted that something might happen to their pay? Well? My guess is that he wouldn’t have enough men left to build a barn.” “But I didn’t say that much to Higby! I didn’t hint that.…” “Practically anything you said would have given him a jolt. You see, he knows who the Longs are. They were hired on at my suggestion.” “H-he knows?” I said. “You suggested it? Why…why, that’s crazy!” Darrow sighed that if I was

of the ground.” He told me I could screw it; he’d set in on another job or drag-up. I told him he could go suck hind titty from a tumblebug, but not until he got those shots out. So we had a few more words, and I had to bust him a couple of times, but then he saw it my way. I was sitting back out of range while he uncovered the shots when Higby drove up and asked me what the trouble was. I explained that there wasn’t any trouble; I was just trying to teach the guy a lesson. Higby said he

’n’ poor li’l girl an’—an’—” He began to cry. I patted him on the back and comforted him, and after a stiff drink he got squared away again. Four Trey’s wife, he said (just sayin’ what had been said to him) had worked in a factory or a bank, “or somethin’ like that.” It had been held up, and there had been a hell of a big commotion, and when the smoke cleared away and the holdup gang had cleared out, she was dead. Yessir, that poor li’l girl was shot deader’n dead. An’ then Four Trey had

it into town.” Her head moved in a little nod, and she murmured indistinctly—about doing something around the pipeline, it sounded like. I looked down into her face, wondering why she was blushing so much. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But you sure couldn’t work in the camp, Carol. They don’t have jobs for women. Why, the high-pressure wouldn’t let a woman set foot inside a pipeline camp.” “The high-pressure?” “The bosses,” I explained. “It’s kind of a bitter joke, something the Wobblies started, I

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