Night Freight

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"Stacked Deck" is solidly in the Black Mask school (and was, in fact, first published in The New Black Mask, a short-lived revival of that fine old pulp magazine). It is one of the few stories of this type that I've written, despite the critics and labelers who persist in calling the "Nameless Detective" series "hard-boiled." The "Nameless" series is actually humanist crime fiction, with dark-suspense overtones—or, as another labeler once termed it, "confessional crime fiction." The true hard-boiled story was born in the Depression thirties and died in the post-McCarthy fifties; everything since that has been termed hard-boiled is either an imitation, an intentional tribute, or some other kind of criminous tale (usually one featuring a private detective as protagonist) that has been misrepresented so it will fit into a convenient niche.

Stacked Deck

1.

From where he stood in the shadow of a split-bole Douglas fir, Deighan had a clear view of the cabin down below. Big harvest moon tonight, and only a few streaky clouds scudding past now and then to dim its hard yellow shine. The hard yellow glistened off the surface of Lake Tahoe beyond, softened into a long silverish stripe out toward the middle. The rest of the water shone like polished black metal. All of it was empty as far as he could see, except for the red-and-green running lights of a boat well away to the south, pointed' toward the neon shimmer that marked the South Shore gambling casinos.

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