The private investigator

Last week I offered a slice of Americana, which was so much fun I’m going to offer a second serving. After all, what could be more American than enjoying seconds? Only one thing: A private investigator.

Just about everyone has their favorite PIs from fiction. The genre appealed to the old American penchant for independence and adventure, combined with the intrigues of mystery and a sense of justice.

Much of it was film noir (“noir” means “black” in French), the old black-and-white dramas that often had a B-grade, budget feel to them. They’d often feature a cynical, hardscrabble, lone-wolf PI, his beautiful receptionist of loyal disposition and unquestionable virtue, and a seductive damsel of flighty disposition and questionable virtue. The settings were usually urban, with gray streets and drab buildings, the leaden atmosphere punctuated only by the occasional glare of a neon sign.

As for the bad guys, they were an array of con-men, hustlers, dupes, stool pigeons, toadies, hoods, and heavies. This cast needs no introduction if you follow Saipan’s economic scandals.

The Maltese Falcon, made in 1941, staring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, is said to be a famous example of the genre. Yeah, it’s old school now, but even in today’s Asia I’ve seen American-themed restaurants festooned with film noir kitsch and photos.

Just as the PI genre reached past borders, it also reached into various media. In the radio realm, one of many such programs was “Yours truly, Johnny Dollar,” which ran from 1949 to 1962. That’s before my time, but I knew a guy in college who had some cassette recordings of the shows and that’s how I got to hear some of them. It was great stuff.

Books live in posterity better than radio does, and two years after the demise of the Johnny Dollar show came a new twist on the by-then well-worn PI genre, courtesy of a writer named John D. MacDonald and his character Travis McGee.

For purists, I’ll note that McGee was not technically a PI. He called himself a “salvage expert.” But the distinction is merely semantic, and he strikes me as the new, improved PI: Smarter, more eloquent, broader-thinking, less seedy.

The first of 21 Travis McGee books was The Deep Blue Goodbye. A few years ago I hunted down and stashed away an original 1964 edition, and it has suitably go-go 1960s cover art. The series ended with The Lonely Silver Rain in 1984. I like all the books but the first is my favorite.

Author MacDonald was an interesting character himself, a former Army officer and a Harvard MBA who passed up a promising business career to become a mystery writer.

As for McGee, he lived on a boat in Florida. Sometimes he was busy working on a caper. Other times he was socially idle, drinking gin cocktails with his boating pals. His laid-back, sun-drenched lifestyle is a natural fit for the Saipan outlook, and, indeed, I’ve known a few Travis McGee fans in the CNMI. Sometimes Bestseller Bookstore has some Travis McGee books in stock, but right now they don’t. Incidentally, the only reason I know how to spell “zoris” is that I saw the term in a McGee book.

And still going with an island theme, I’ll mention a famous TV show, Magnum, P.I., which was set in Hawaii and ran from 1980 to 1988. I’m not TV savvy so I don’t know much about it, but it strikes me that it followed the trajectory of the McGee series, getting further away from the gray, urban settings of film noir and more toward exotic and enjoyable settings with a hero that is closer to “gentleman” than “rogue.”

Anyway, just looking at these few highlights of the genre has taken us from 1941 through 1988, which is a solid chunk of time indeed. I’m not hip enough on modern culture to know what, if anything, is brewing in this realm. Maybe it has already peaked, and a diminishing number of people will just enjoy the stuff from the golden days, until we and it all fade into obscurity. Or, maybe a new refinement is in the works and the genre is still evolving.

Still, what endures, if only in posterity, was the image of the independent man surviving by his courage and by his wits, often living hand-to-mouth, usually with a beautiful woman in the picture, but always without a guarantee that the caper would be resolved in his favor. It was a form of escapism for the audience, but the stories were plausible enough to make it easy to suspend disbelief and get immersed in them. And, of course, everybody likes a story of good guys vs. bad guys, no matter what the genre.

I’ve sometimes sat having a cold one on Saipan, surrounded by lively characters, and if Travis McGee himself sat next to me and said hello, I would not be surprised at all. In fact, I’m surprised he never did just that. After all, Saipan would be his kind of place: There’s plenty of sunshine to enjoy, and plenty of capers to solve.

Oh, and plenty of zoris, too.