The Liquidator #2: Contract For A Killing

The Liquidator #2: Contract For A Killing, by R.L. Brent

No month stated, 1974  Award Books

So with this second volume of The Liquidator I’m prepared to claim that this series is the Parker of the ‘70s. I know, the Parker series itself was being published in the ‘70s, but you know what I mean. Maybe we could say it’s the men’s adventure equivalent of Parker: more action-driven, with more sex and violence, but retaining that tough, crime-pulp vibe, with quality writing and a host of memorable one-off characters. I’m sorry I let these books sit around so long and didn’t start reading the series sooner. 

I still question the authorship: I mean Larry Powell, supposedly “R.L. Brent,” is also supposedly the guy who wrote Donovan’s Devils, and the first volume of that series was so boring I still haven’t moved on to the second one. The Liquidator comes from an entirely different universe; it’s certainly one of the better-written men’s adventure series of the day, but not in a “literary” sense a la Jon Messmann or Marc Olden. Whereas those authors could get a litle too bogged down in interior dialog or philosophical musings, “Brent” keeps things moving with a lean and mean prose style that still manages to convey depth of characterization. The series really has the vibe of a ‘70s action film, one of those gritty urban action deals that would’ve had a wah-wah guitar and Afro-Cuban percussion-heavy score by Lalo Schifrin. 

These series books were pretty much under the radar, not getting the industry coverage of hardcovers or even standalone paperback originals. But reviewers of the day noticed that The Liquidator was better than the standard offering; just like the first volume, this time we are presented with a few industry reviews touting the book. Indeed, no less than Publisher’s Weekly praised The Liquidator, according to the blurb on the first page: “It’s refreshing to find a hero as interested in sex as bloodletting.” Now there’s a reviewer after my own heart! And that’s certainly true in Contract For A Killing; hero Jake Brand is no prude and, like too many of his “business first” men’s adventure brethren, doesn’t turn down the willing women who come his way. 

Speaking of which, this volume opens with Jake (as the author refers to him) indulging in some of those perks, courtesy Gwen, the babe he picked up at the end of the first volume. They’re in Virginia, laying low, and Jake’s recuperating from his wounds – while also engaging Gwen in some good lovin.’ Jake’s vengeance on the mob still hasn’t been sated, and also there’s still the dangling subplot about the guy who framed him and got him sent to prison for five years. This guy, a professional assassin who goes by many names, looks enough like Jake that he was able to get Jake framed for some murders Jake himself didn’t commit. One of the names the assassin goes by is Richard Stuart, which is the name Brent uses for him in the first half of Contract For A Killing. 

Brent actually has a lot of subplots in play, and unlike a lot of series it doesn’t come off like page-filling even when we cut over to one-off characters. The series has also clearly been written as a series, if you catch my drift, and not just a bunch of standalones. There are still dangling subplots even at the end of this volume, which leads me to conclude that reading the entirety of The Liquidator could be an enjoyable experience. I certainly enjoyed this volume. The author definitely has his pulp skills intact, for as expected Jake is uncovered, leading to a nice chase sequence. Once he’s sent Gwen off to safety, our hero gets back on the path to revenge, armed only with a .45 and a .38. Unlike other mob-busters of the ‘70s, Jake doesn’t tote around an arsenal, or at least he doesn’t in these earliest books. But this does not detract from the action; the author does a great job of juggling plot development with frequent action sequences. 

Another cool gimmick of the series is that Jake Brand doesn’t have access to limitless funds, like Mack Bolan or Philip Magellan do. He has to stretch his few remaining dollars, and isn’t above snatching up a hundred dollar bill someone insultingly drops in front of him. This gives these novels a bit more of a realistic vibe. Nothing too realistic, but still…it’s not like Bolan, who will routinely loot the Mafia of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the point that he can just give the “blood money” away. Jake’s mind is often on his wallet and how little money he has to fund his vengeance quest. This lack of funds also has unintentional consequences, in that it puts the mob on his tail. One interesting development in this regard is that Jake hawks the sportscar Gwen lifted at the end of the first volume, buying a less-obvious car, and of course the shady car dealer has mob ties and starts to suspect who Jake might be. 

The Parker vibe for me comes with how Jake works his way through the underworld in search of his prey, meeting a host of oddball characters. First is a guy named Grail, who acts as the agent for Richard Stuart. Grail’s a muscle-bound man of wealth who lives in opulence; blind, he relies on a hotstuff Chinese babe named Anita as his assistant…and bodyguard. This Jake learns the hard way when he tries to lean too strongly on Grail: “The lady knew Kung-Fu, and she knew it very well.” This is a tense scene that takes place in the pitch-dark room, Jake constantly scrabbling around for his dropped gun while the lady and Grail take turns kicking his ass. Another cool thing about The Liquidator is that Jake Brand, despite being all kinds of tough, is not a superhuman a la Mack Bolan. He often makes mistakes, like his penchant for barging into places with little in the way of an exit strategy. 

There’s also a good deal of ‘70s-mandatory lurid stuff; in some sequences dealing with Richard Stuart, the professional assassin, we learn he’s a sadist who enjoys beating around hookers before screwing them. (“It was like raping a woman who had finally given in.”) There’s also a part where another female character is tortured and raped (mostly off-page) for info by a group of Mafia thugs. What’s curious is that another minor character – an independent contractor who tries to cash in on the bounty on Jake Brand’s head – comes acrosss this woman after her torture-rape and offers to help her, but nothing more is mentioned of it this volume. Given that our author has a knack for continuity, I’m wondering if this female character will return in a later volume. 

But the naughty stuff isn’t all grimy; as stated Jake Brand gets his share of tail. This is demonstrated by another memorable one-off character: The Countess, a “full-breasted, narrow-waisted, and long legged” platinum blonde beauty Jake encounters soon after arriving in New Orleans. Jake’s come here due to a lead from Grail; Richard Stuart, per Grail, has been contracted to murder an up-and-coming singer named Angela who lives in New Orleans. This subplot ultimately detracts from Jake’s own story of revenge; Brent clearly is trying to develop an ongoing series here, and apparently doesn’t feel he can do so by focusing solely on Jake’s quest. So to compensate he turns Jake into the traditional role of hero, and thus he serves in this capacity to Angela, a woman he doesn’t even know – trying to find her, trying to protect her from being killed by Stuart. While this does make Jake seem more heroic, it also takes away from his own story. But then his goal, as Brent often reminds us, is to kill two birds with one stone: keep an innocent woman from being killed, and catch the man who plans to kill her – the same man who jacked-up Jake’s own life. 

Well anyway, the Countess is a former madam (despite only being in her early 30s) who now lives in a mini-fortress, a pair of muscle-bound black men serving as her henchmen. Jake’s gotten word that Angela, who has gone to ground, might once have been one of the Countess’s girls. Per men’s adventure tradition, not only does he get the required info from the beautiful lady, but he also gets laid. Another fairly explicit scene unfolds; nothing too risque, but at least it doesn’t fade to black. We do learn that even an experienced former madam can be impressed by our hero. Through the Countess Jake learns that Angela is shacked up with a wealthy oil man named Lassiter, and in fact is hiding out on Lassiter’s yacht. A recurring mystery though is why anyone wants her dead; Angela once sang at a nightclub run by the mob, and was given her start by a mobster, but the Mafia is more interested in getting her back because she brought in customers. 

Angela, who turns out to be a stacked brunette beauty, has her share of secrets, and also she doesn’t seem very willing to accept Jake’s assistance. But his word is soon proven accurate when Richard Stuart makes his move to take Angela’s life. This is another cool scene in which Jake and the assassin initially pass by one another on a dock, Jake belatedly realizing that he just walked by the man he’s been hunting. Jake is hurt in the ensuing scene, but he recuperates thanks to some more good lovin,’ this courtesy his third “conquest” in the novel: Elena, the hot daughter of Martinez, a Cuban expat who moved to New Orleans after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. This conjugation, per Elena, was “inevitable” from the moment they met, and next thing you know Jake’s “[sliding] into the pulsing warmth between her thighs.” The Liquidator, baby! 

The finale has Jake taking on the local mob forces of Don Valante and also figuring out who was really behind the hit on Angela. He gets a boost in the armament department thanks to Martinez, who like any anti-Castroist living in the US has a full stock of weapons at his disposal. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that, while Contract For A Killing is certainly violent, Brent doesn’t dwell on the gore. Again, the book is very much in line with the era’s mainstream crime fiction, only with a bit more of a pulp bent. And as mentioned there are sufficient plot threads dangling at novel’s end, with Jake’s vengeance still unsated, so I certainly look forward to reading the next volume.