Remembering My Mystery Friend

Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the death of one of my best friends. His name was Jeff, and he died September 15, 2005, after his pancreatic cancer, which had been in remission for nearly a year, came roaring back.

Jeff was an odd but utterly charming collection of contradictions. He was devoutly Catholic, but could fire off a string of obscenities that would make a longshoreman stand up and applaud. He was often rumpled, on the verge of being unkempt. He loved college football and Shakespeare (he often modified a line or two from The Merchant of Venice, saying that, “Miller speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in Columbus”).

He thought my girlfriend was terrific and told me in no uncertain terms that I should marry her. He was right, and I did.

I have thought about Jeff a lot in the last year. He missed out on my wedding, and he would have been the life of the party. Leslie and I took part of our honeymoon in San Francisco, where he lived and practiced law for 20 years, and we spent our last night in the city eating at one of his favorite restaurants. And I’ve had my own issues with cancer in the last year, and I’ve often thought about his grace under pressure. I’m not sure I could replicate it.

Jeff was also a world-class fan of crime fiction.

Jeff was into Elmore Leonard before Leonard was cool. He could remember intricate plot points in Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books. One year, he gave me Hush Money, by Robert B. Parker, for Christmas. Inside the book he inscribed “Don’t ever change. Keep buying my books. Bob Parker. PS: Susan sends her love and has a girl she’d like you to meet.” Obviously, this was before Leslie and I got together.

Jeff’s favorite writer was Warren Murphy, and his favorite series character was P.I. Devlin “Trace” Tracy. The irreverent wit and preposterous set pieces of the Trace novels appealed to Jeff’s sense of the absurd (not to mention Trace’s girlfriend Chico, an Italian-Jewish blackjack dealer and part-time hooker). Trace’s frequent client is a stuffy insurance executive named Walter Marks, who Trace calls “Groucho.” Since I work for an insurance company, this meant I had to be called “Groucho” as well. I remember how thrilled he was when I gave him a copy of the Private Eye Writers of America anthology Mystery Street, in which Murphy had written a new short story featuring Trace. Whenever I would return from Bouchercon, he would ask me if I saw Murphy (or Trace and Chico) hanging around the bar.

Jeff could never quite understand how I, a reasonably cheerful guy who usually sees the glass as half full, could “read all that noir shit.” It was a running joke for several years, ending with the last book I bought for him, San Francisco Noir.

Had Jeff been around this year, I would have sent him my copy of The Big Boom after reviewing it for January Magazine. He would have loved it, since it took place in the North Beach section of the city he loved. But, he would have bitched about the noir tone afterward.

I miss my friend. We could have talked about lots of good books this year, like we did so many years.

And don’t worry, Jeff. My eyes are still on the lookout for Warren Murphy.