It rained the recent day Elmore Leonard came to town, a cold,uncomfortable rain. Still, inside Kroch's & Brentano's Wabash Streetstore right at noon, the line of fans waiting to have him autographcopies of his latest book, Killshot, snaked out past the cordons andaround the counters.
Leonard sat at a long table with two stacks of books off to theside. Even though Killshot officially appeared on the shelves justthat day, it already had landed a spot on the New York Timesbest-seller list. (It's No. 7 now.)
Each fan stepped up in his turn for a morsel of conversation anda personalized inscription from arguably America's hottest crimewriter. Leonard was looking serious indeed in a dark blue suit, hisgray-blond hair and beard just long enough to signal that this wasnot a corporate man, not someone who depends upon the approval ofothers. But aside from that, an ordinary man, devoid ofaffectation. It would have been easy enough to mistake him for oneof Kroch's employees, rather than the celebrity guest.
These were the devoted braving the chilling rain, mostly men intheir 30s and 40s, in suits and trench coats, carrying soggyumbrellas. One man, in jeans, had brought a stack of a dozen or sohardcover Leonard books dating back more than a decade, and waswaiting for a lull to have the author sign them, as long as he wassitting right here with a pen in his hand.
Maybe you need to have lived a little to be drawn to Leonard'sbooks. Maybe you need to have learned that evil is as unremarkableas mud, that it gets tracked into everybody's house sooner or later,and that the real heroes are ordinary people who, forced bycircumstance into dramatic situations, do what they must to protecttheir own.
For readers who have come far enough to know that, Killshot willbe a satisfying bit of catharsis to curl up with. The book is beingreceived by the critics as prime Leonard, a rousing good yarn saltedwith small, jolting surprises, often funny, and well-written in theauthor's celebrated argot.
That is all true, but Killshot represents some realexperimentation as well. Leonard always has excelled at giving voiceto the uneducated, to lowlifes, to those who speak in shreddedsentences and the bones of innuendo; his villains are as ordinaryand yet compelling as his heroes.
But here he also takes on a favorite theme of "women's fiction,"the often parallel exchanges of men and women as they connect andmiss connections in what women like to call "relationships." And itturns out he's very good at conveying these sessions; he hears whatwomen say, and - much rarer - he also hears what they hear.
In Killshot, Leonard has created three terrific women. In aninterview the afternoon of the book-signing, he said, "Yeah, I'mgetting my women into real situations now. They're not just hangingaround wringing their hands. That's true in life, so why not?"
The protagonists of Killshot are really a happily marriedcouple, Wayne and Carmen Colson. Wayne is vintage Leonard, a smart,self-contained ironworker in the prime of life who tangles almost inspite of himself with Armand and Richie, two seasoned killers, whothen set out to murder the Colsons to silence them.
Wayne is the apparent hero, but Carmen, too, is in danger. She,too, is smart and capable, a woman who does pretty well in judgingpeople by what she learned in a handwriting analysis class at theYMCA when she was in high school.
For his part, Wayne lays out their defense strategy and thenblithely trots off on this errand and that adventure, assuming thatbecause, as he said, "My wife's a winner; that's why I married her,"Carmen will handle whatever comes up. As the plot unfolds, anymember of a long-term couple - perhaps women in particular - willrecognize the tension that builds up between the two.
"I was doing so much of Wayne from Carmen's point of view in thebeginning; I just continued," Leonard said. "A couple of criticshave called him a lout, and oh, God, how could she put up with thisguy. I think he is like 80 percent of the men in the world."
Carmen refuses to analyze her mother's handwriting when she asksher because she hasn't seen anything good in there, and can tell fromthe wide-spaced T-stem that her mother will be hurt if she divulgeswhat she sees.
But Lenore, Carmen's mother, stays with us throughout the book,serving as an obsessive sort of Greek chorus heard mostly over thephone at inopportune times. She is the one character in the bookLeonard said is based on a real person, his mother-in-law. "Onlyshe's much worse than Lenore," he said.
The third woman is Donna, an Elvis Presley devotee and formercorrections officer who has lost her job for consorting too closelywith the prisoners. She is Richie's sometime girlfriend, for whomArmand comes to feel real affection. At one point Donna wants todiscuss with Armand who, if Elvis were Jesus, his 12 apostles mightbe. Donna is a peach of a character, loony and appealing; Leonardthought so, too.
"I couldn't wait for her to get back on," he said. "Those sceneswere a lot of fun to do. The fact that she was an Elvis Presleyfreak got to Armand, softened him up."
Leonard's people develop out of stock characters, "and I tend toforget the time it takes to bring them to life, beginning with thename. They have to have the right name or they won't talk. It'samazing - I have to change names. Once I know them, and as long as Ican keep them in character, then I know the story will develop."
Leonard's novels have a wonderfully understated moral tone thatmakes them, for all the ordinariness of the antagonists, a clear andsatisfying contest between good and evil. The author said he thinksthat sense of morality is there because, in his Catholic education,he spent seven years with the Jesuits, who gave him a strong andclosely reasoned sense of right and wrong. His male characters, hepointed out, "all went to Catholic schools, and they have that at theback of their heads at least."
But Leonard is by no means removed from the everydaydegradations that are such an important part of the culture he writesabout. If he were, the police in Killshot wouldn't be so dense andliteral-minded, so indifferent and even criminal. There's also arude cretin of a gas station attendant who, even after having crossedArmand and Richie, manages to escape unscathed.
Leonard said he puts in a rigorous writing schedule - fiveeight-hour days per week - and he has the output to back him up. Buthe also has a suspicious familiarity with daytime television, whichcrops up in his books, often as a device for fleshing out hischaracters without a lot of conversation: While Carmen was thestraight-A student in school, it's Wayne who knows the "Jeopardy"answer, the one that both Carmen and the smartest woman she has everseen on the program miss.
Leonard said his books don't sell well in Europe - apparentlybecause the intricate conversations that carry the action collapse intranslation.
He doesn't like most of the film versions of his books - andquite a few have made the transition. But he does often write thescreenplays. He just finished one for Cat Chaser, due to be releasedthis summer. "I'm waiting for something to happen," he said.
But those setbacks aside, his work is earning him millions thesedays. Given that Leonard's style relies on the language and concernsof American subcultures that rarely find their way into the diningroom at the Ritz-Carlton, does wealth and fame present a threat tohis ability to function?
"If I had hit the best seller list with my second or third book,back in the '50s or even the '60s, I might have had some problem,"Leonard said. "But this is my 27th book, and I know what I do, andall I have to do is do it. I know what frame of mind I have to havewhen I sit down in the morning. I have to think of it as veryunimportant: It's only a book.
"My main characters, my male leads, really don't have highaspirations. They are content, that is, happy with themselves, and Ifind this in my own work. If I don't try so hard, it works better.Yogi Berra said you can't think and hit at the same time."
The recognition is satisfying, he said, but "the satisfaction isin the work, thank God. It's in having written a scene that works."
And as to his fans in the bookstore, it turned out that Leonardhad been taking them in, all right. "There were more black peoplethan I have ever signed for before," he said. "There were quite anumber of women, a couple of older women, one named Nellie - she musthave been 80, anyway. There has been more response, more real warmthfrom people on this trip than I have found before."
Then Leonard's face lit up as he thought suddenly of a cherishedsubject.
"I do know who my audience is in the federal correctionalinstitution in Danbury, Conn., where a heroin dealer who writes mefrom time to time reports that I'm catching on with American blacksand some of the more educated whites. He said I haven't caught onwith the cocaine dealers - they are younger, louder and lesseducated. But the heroin dealers - they go for it."
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