As seen all over the place via Yahoo! News. And noted on the blog of novelist
Bill Crider and crime fiction blogger
Sarah Weinman, complete with obit from the Myrtle Sun.
I'll admit not one of my most favorite novelists, but I did enjoy reading
The Snake,
The Last Cop-Out and
The Big Kill back in the day, my first exposure to him. He was a writer who got the job done, and even his '03 Caribbean caper novel
Something's Down There still had some punch and zing to it...plus his influence cannot be discounted, for better or worse (but I'm leaning a bit towards better).
I used to be able to look at myself and grin without giving a damn about how ugly it made me look. Now I was looking at myself the same way those people did back there. I was looking at a big guy with an ugly reputation, a guy who had no earthly reason for existing in a decent, normal society. That's what the judge had said.
I was sweating and cold at the same time. Maybe it did happen to me over there. Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?
That's why I parked the car and started walking in the rain. I didn't want to look in that damn mirror any more. So I walked and smoked and climbed to the hump in the bridge where the boats in the river made faces and spoke to me until I had to bury my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again.
I was a killer. I was a murderer, legalized. I had no reason for living.