Cut Numbers

                                             

          Clouds like gusted shadows of the dead moved past the Lenten moon drifting west toward Jersey. Louie saw them.
          The suitcase was heavy and unwieldy. As he came to Varrick street he put it down. He rubbed the fingers and palm of his right hand with his left. He lighted a cigarette, lifted the case, and continued on his way. He walked slowly not to lull the clanking of his load, but for him night's end was the best part of the day.

Cut Numbers- Nick Tosches 1988

https://martincompart.wordpress.com/category/nick-tosches/

Blacktop Noir

          Occasionally the chase movie, the road movie, the hardboiled novel and Noir cinema brush shoulders. These motels and dusty backroads can also be populated by the dirty realist who's only got time to make a short stop before he gets back behind the wheel.

They Live by Night

Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

The Hitchhiker

North by Northwest

After Dark my Sweet

Detour

Red Rock West

In Cold Blood

The Driver

Thieves Highway

No Country for Old Men

Wild One

The Loveless

Last Seduction

Out of the Past

Electra Glide in Blue

Grapes of Wrath

Hud

Vanishing Point

        That was when i hit this Twin Oaks Tavern. It was nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million others in California. There was a lunchroom part and over that a house part where they lived ,and off to one side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks that they called an auto court. I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road.

Postman Always Rings Twice- James M. Cain

Memento

Last Detail

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Drugstore Cowboy

Postman always Rings Twice

Identity

Hard Eight

Way of the Gun

Bullitt

Cohen and Tate

Night of the Hunter

Savage Night

         I'd caught a slight cold when i changed trains at Chicago ; and three days in New York- three days of babes and booze while i waited to see The Man- hadn't helped it any. I felt lousy by the time i arrived in Peardale. For the first time in years there was a faint trace of blood in my spit.

Savage Night- Jim Thompson 1953