If you’re a devotee of noir fiction, you’ll definitely find it in Gregory W Beaubien’s new crime thriller, The Devil is Waiting. Set in Chicago mainly in the 1970s and 1990s, his story eventually tracks five generations of men in one family who, in their youth and middle age, follow spectacularly bad paths.
At the centre of the story is Billy Roper, whom you meet as a young man. He’s served time in juvenile detention and is in no hurry to be incarcerated again. But his Uncle Berg, a career criminal and long-time loser, manipulates him with promises of a big payoff and family guilt to participate in the robbery – just the two of them – of a gang of mafia thieves themselves about to make a big score.
They’ll rob the robbers of a stash of gold coins. At least that’s the plan. Uncle Berg has heard that the doctor the mafia is planning to steal from has his own scam going. He’s going to get the insurance payout and buy back the coins from the mafia for half their worth.
Uncle Berg’s motives aren’t purely venal. He has a long-standing beef with the head of this mafia unit, and neither of them is willing to forget about it and go on with their lives. Certainly not Uncle Berg. The gold coins and getting them and getting them back will haunt Billy always. They’re like a dream of escape from his ill-fated life, a dream always just out of reach.
His first involvement with the coins is Uncle Berg’s Big Plan, which, as you might expect, goes terribly wrong. The chase between the mafia’s truck containing the coins and Billy’s Dodge Charger takes place on the Windy City’s slick downtown streets. It’s winter in Chicago. It’s cold. And dark. Ice appears where you least expect it. By the time the mayhem of the chase is over, it has attracted the attention of the Chicago Police Department. Several car crashes and vehicular mishaps later, two officers and a number of gangsters are dead.
In fact, the whole first section of the novel is like a prolonged car chase. Beaubien provides a strong sense of place with an almost street-by-street account of this frantic action. I know Chicago, as it happens, and could follow Billie’s drive. Right turns, left turns, alleys, one-ways. At times, these ‘stage directions’ seemed almost too detailed.
Reflecting on why the author chose to be so precise in his descriptions, I believe it was to ground the story in concrete, observable fact. It was essential for him to do that, because he wanted to introduce a much less realistic element, which dates back to Billy’s grandfather’s capture by the Japanese in the battle of Guadalcanal. Beaubien’s readers have to be convinced he is writing about events and places and people that are absolutely real, in order to accept this new idea.
When Billy’s grandfather, Wisconsin farmboy Jacob Austenberg, landed in the Solomon Islands in August 1942, the place fit almost anyone’s definition of hell. Ground fighting and air attacks were constant. Troops were plagued by biting and stinging insects, some of which carried disease. Malaria and dysentery were rampant. During the day, the tropical sun burned them, except when violent rainstorms brought floods. At night, the men dared not venture out of their muddy foxholes; the risk of being shot was too great. Even a wound that would be slight back home, where there were doctors and hospitals and sanitation, could be fatal in the jungle. Supply ships bringing food were blown up before they could land.
But the worst was being captured. Stories and evidence of extreme torture were common among the American troops, and when Jacob and his buddy were captured, they expected the worst. Jacob saw his buddy experience it. But an English-speaking Japanese offered Jacob a way out. He could avoid being tortured to death if he gave up his soul and the souls of all his male heirs, forever. This then is part of the reason for Uncle Berg’s choices, and Billy’s, and Billy’s nephew Gary’s and beyond. An inheritance of evil they cannot shake. The devil is waiting.
By adding this element, Beaubien’s narrative becomes more than simply recounting the actions of a set of violent characters. He pushes it toward at least some consideration of ‘fate’ versus ‘free will.’ And the characters do discuss that briefly.
Several people in this family line are unrepentantly bad, but Billy is more complicated. Once he’s out of prison after the mayhem of the story’s opening, he hopes to make more of himself. And you may hope for him to succeed, as I did, even though old enemies and the forces of society – and maybe, fate itself – are arrayed against him.
This is a well-written book, and perhaps because it is so well-written, it packs a wallop. It’s not for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, it leaves something to think about, no matter how you might feel about the routes by which evil can creep into a life.
Also try A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper or Dirty Little War by Dietrich Kalteis.
Moresby Press
Print/Kindle
£2.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
