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The Screaming Mimi (Annotated): The classic pulp serial killer mystery
A drunken Irishman named Sweeney — well, to be fair, he was only five-eighths Irish, and only three-quarters drunk — made a resolution. Sticking to it took him through murder, and blood, and tracking down a sculptor on the far side of nowhere, and delivered him right up to the doorstep of a serial killer!
This iktaPOP Media edition has a new introduction giving the book genre and historical context.
This iktaPOP Media edition has a new introduction giving the book genre and historical context.
268 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 26, 2023
1 person is currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Fredric Brown
816 books359 followersFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was one of the boldest early writers in genre fiction in his use of narrative experimentation. While never in the front rank of popularity in his lifetime, Brown has developed a considerable cult following in the almost half century since he last wrote. His works have been periodically reprinted and he has a worldwide fan base, most notably in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in France, where there have been several recent movie adaptations of his work. He also remains popular in Japan.
Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons.
Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons.
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January 20, 2024
The Screaming Mimi by Frederick Brown is a screamer. Prolific pulp master -he wrote to make a buck, his wife claimed he didn’t like to write… Fred must of lied… he’s too good not to enjoy it. Brown constantly jokes with his reader, he’s simply one of a kind!
The End of a Bender. “ Sweeney sat on a park bench, that summer night, next to God. Sweeney rather liked God, although not many people did. God was a tallish, scrawny old man with a short but tangled beard, stained with nicotine. His full name was Godfrey” — “He was a little cracked, but not much. No more, perhaps, than the average for his age of the bums who live on the near north side of Chicago and hang out, when the weather is good, in Bughouse Square.” — “nearer hell than heaven. I mean, it’s bright with lights but dark with the shadows of the defeated men who sit on the benches, all night long.”
A Sight for Drunk Eyes. “Had he finally gone over the edge, he wondered. The dame and the dog. He’d never hallucinated before. The dame and the dog. He didn’t believe it. It was one of the few things that couldn’t have happened. So it hadn’t happened. That was logic.”
Who would have guessed. “he knew which one he was going to hear: the Mozart 40. No, you wouldn’t have thought it to look at him, maybe, but that was Sweeney’s favorite — the Symphony No. 40, in G Minor, K. 550. If you know the Mozart 40, the dark restlessness of it, the macabre drive behind its graceful counterpoint, then you know Sweeney. And if the Mozart 40 sounds to you like a gay but slightly boring minuet, background for a conversation, then to you Sweeney is just another damn reporter who happens, too, to be a periodic drunk. … thoughts of a man a century and a half dead press upon you; you sit in light and the shadow of the soul of a man long dead. You share the troubled thoughts of a dapper little court musician in a horrible financial mess, perhaps feeling the end of his life was near and working at prodigious speed, turning out in a few weeks the greatest symphony he ever wrote.” And turning Sweeney… “ He sighed and pushed himself up out of the chair; the pain in his head was still there and the pain in his soul, but the shaking of his hands was gone. —as the second movement ended and the dark-bright minuetto-and-trio of the third movement lived all too briefly and died and gave birth to what he had been waiting for; the bitter final movement, the allegro assai, the power and the melancholy glory. He was out of it now, off the binge, sober. Until the next time, which might be months, might be a couple of years. There’s that type of drinker, too, although of late the alcoholics have been getting most of the ink.”
In Between Drunks. “He could even get his job back, he felt sure, if he ate a little crow. He could climb out of debt in a few weeks and be back where he was, wherever that was…” “Sweeney headed for the Blade. If you saw that pun yourself, forgive me for pointing it out. You got it, yes, but somebody else would have missed it. It takes all kinds of people to read a book.” -No pun spoilers, read the book, but the author will frequently talk directly to his readers…
In the News. “three recent ones that make the police think maybe it ties in, but they aren’t sure.” “She die?” “Sure. So did the two other dames besides this Lang woman. She’s the only one who didn’t get killed. Pooch saved her.” Not a hallucination. “They got a special Ripper detail, by the way, working on nothing else. Cap Bline of Homicide’s running it” — “You said the one on the south side a couple months ago was Lola Brent?” “Check. Ten days ago, Stella Gaylord. Five days ago, Dorothy Lee.” Sweeney’s hallucination. “You don’t know when she’ll be back at El Madhouse?” “Nope. Her manager could tell you. Guy by the name of Doc Greene.”
Yolanda & an Enemy. “Yo,” said Sweeney meditatively. “I like that. Gives everybody a southern accent. People turn to her at the bar and ask ‘And what’s Yo having to drink,’ huh?” “A good question,” said the bartender. “What is yo having to drink?” [lol] “A moon faced man stood just inside the doorway. His eyes, through round thick-lensed glasses, came to rest on Sweeney and the wide smile widened. His eyes, through the lenses, looked enormous. Somehow, too, they managed to look both vacant and deadly. They looked like a reptile’s eyes, magnified he was hating a man at first sight. And fearing him a little, too. It was a strange combination of strange ingredients, for hatred…” — “Sit down, Doc.” “He put his hands in his pockets, quickly, because he had a hunch the shakes were going to come back.” “A man, Mr. Sweeney, might enjoy a bit of voluptuous description of a woman; in other cases he might not enjoy reading it. For example, if the woman was his wife.” “Is Yolanda Lang your wife?” “No” “I guessed from your name, a stubborn Irishman. If I told you to — let us descend to the vernacular — if I told you to lay off Yolanda, it would just make you that much more stubborn.” “The moment I read that story of yours I knew — I am something of a psychiatrist — that you were going to be a thorn in my side. There was an ineffable something about that story”. “You know, Doc, I hate you so damn much I’m beginning to like you.” “Thank you,” said Greene. “I feel the same about you; each of us admires the other’s capabilities, let us say.” “I admire your line of patter. Immensely. The only thing I hate about you is your guts.” — “what makes you think that I, with my little slingshot, might do more than the whole blue army?” “Because you’re a crazy damn Irishman. Because you’re a little fey; I suspected that from a sentence or two in your story, and I know it now. Because God loves fools and drunkards, and you’re both.” — “I really am a psychiatrist, Mr. Sweeney, although not a practicing one.”
Sweeney on the Trail. “Would you care to see the statuette? Not the one Miss Brent sold, of course, but a duplicate of it. He smiled. “It is, incidentally, known as a Screaming Mimi.” “A what?” “A Screaming Mimi. Girl’s name — M-i-m-i. A rather obvious pun, of course, on the screaming meamies, if you know what they are.” — “Definitely there was a virginal quality about the slim nude figure, but that you saw afterward. “Fear, horror, loathing,” Reynarde had said, and all of that was there, not only in the face but in the twisted rigidity of the body. The mouth was wide open in a soundless scream. The arms were thrust out, palms forward, to hold off some approaching horror.” “The name came from the company that made it, but unofficially, as it were. — the catalogue code number for it is SM-1, and someone in their office with a sense of humor decided the SM stood for Screaming Mimi.” Later, bar talk. “know what that statue makes me think of? The Ripper.” — “The fog was gone. He knew now what his hunch had been and why he’d wanted the Screaming Mimi. He should have got it when Reynarde had said the figure would appeal to a sadist; he would have got it then if his mind had been clear.” —“He felt swell. He grinned at Mimi. He thought, we’re a jump ahead of the cops, Baby, you and I; all we got to do is find your sister.” “ The little black statuette screamed soundlessly, and Sweeney’s grin faded. Somewhere in Chicago another Mimi was screaming like that — and with better cause. A madman with a knife owned her. Someone with a twisted mind and a straight razor.”
City on alert -a close shave. “able to show identification I was a barber or he’d have run me in. Pretty near did anyway. Said for all anybody knew, the Ripper’s a barber, too. But he ain’t.” “How do you know?” Sweeney asked. “Throats. A barber that went nuts would cut throats with it. All day long people lay stretched out in front of him with their throats bare and their chins thrown back and he just can’t help thinking how easy it’d be and how — uh — you know what I mean.” “You don’t feel like cutting one today, I hope.” “Nope, not today.” The barber grinned. “But once in a while — well, your mind does screwy things.” “So does yours,” Sweeney said.
Sold out Floor show -Yolanda. “The dog was leaping. But the woman moved, too, one step aside and the dog flew past her and down, alighted and turned in a flash of brown-ness, crouched again, and now she was in the middle of the stage as he leaped. Again she was not there when he landed. — the Beast, Beauty sank to her knees and put her hand upon the dog’s head, and he snarled, but tolerated the caress. The drum throbbed, the beat accelerated. It reared up, as tall as she, and then as it started downward its teeth caught the tab sewed to the tag of the zipper and pulled. And the black dress, as had the white one, fell suddenly into a circle about her feet. — transparent bra of wide-mesh net, diaphanous as dew and confining as air, that seemed to accentuate rather than conceal the beauty of her voluptuous breasts; and in a G-string which, in the slowly fading light, might not have been there at all, which needed to be taken on faith in the integrity of Chicago’s vice squad; and a six-inch strip of black adhesive tape, slightly slanting, across her white belly just below the navel. The drumbeat faded, and the light faded and then went out and the stage was dark.” —“Bline asked Sweeney, “How’d you like it?” “It, or her?” “It. The dance.” “Probably symbolic as hell, but symbolic of what, I don’t know.”
Well “you know what a stubborn fool an Irishman with a hunch can be; if you didn’t know when you started reading, you should know by now” -so reader, see where Brown, Sweeney and his hunch on the Screaming Mimi shall go.
God’s Reminder in the End. “God turned his shaggy head to look at Sweeney. “If we want to badly enough. If you want something badly enough, you can get anything you want, Sweeney. Like spending a night with that dame. I told you you could.” “Sweeney shuddered. He pulled two flat pint bottles out of the side pockets of his coat and handed one of them to God.” — Rinse and Repeat.
And now a quite strange afterword… from D. Jason Fleming Texas, November 2023 (evidently he’s the guy that uploaded this book into Bezos’ Ebook bargain bin?)
“In early November 2023, Amazon terminated my account for following the rules. No, that’s not a joke. Though the more nuanced description is that they told me I had followed the rules, then terminated my account for not following the rules, and for over a week refused to acknowledge that they had already told me I had, in fact, followed them. — got the account reinstated. That leaves me time to prepare for next time, when the ’Zon unilaterally declares me a CrimeThinker, cut me off, and nobody will listen to any evidence to the contrary. My Locals, https://djasonfleming.locals.com/, is free to sign up and follow, and I try to post every day with something, from fragments of dreams to a defense of the Star Wars prequels. — when Amazon decides to be utterly irrational again, you won’t lose access to all this amazing pulp fiction.”
“What Is The Free Culture Library? I have been meaning to write up a kind of overview of the project that this book is part of pretty much since I started it. Why the focus on pulp? Because reading should be fun, and the pulps were about entertainment first, foremost, and always. Certainly, there was plenty of disposable fiction in the pulps, some of it outright bad. But so what? If it entertains, it entertains. I am also something of an archivist by nature: if something was created, it should always be accessible to anyone who wants to see, hear, or read it.”
“The master catalog for the Free Culture Library can be found at iktaPOP Media. Other Books available from the iktaPOP Free Culture Library” —Lots of science fiction, but for mystery readers… “Mystery No Good From A Corpse by Leigh Brackett, The Sheltering Night by Steve Fisher, Blonde Bait by Ed Lacy, Dead End by Ed Lacy, Enter Without Desire by Ed Lacy, Room To Swing by Ed Lacy, Dig My Grave Deep by Peter Rabe, A House in Naples by Peter Rabe, Down Among The Dead Men by Stewart Sterling, Mystery Omnibuses Three On The Run by Ed Lacy, Coming Soon Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze.
The End of a Bender. “ Sweeney sat on a park bench, that summer night, next to God. Sweeney rather liked God, although not many people did. God was a tallish, scrawny old man with a short but tangled beard, stained with nicotine. His full name was Godfrey” — “He was a little cracked, but not much. No more, perhaps, than the average for his age of the bums who live on the near north side of Chicago and hang out, when the weather is good, in Bughouse Square.” — “nearer hell than heaven. I mean, it’s bright with lights but dark with the shadows of the defeated men who sit on the benches, all night long.”
A Sight for Drunk Eyes. “Had he finally gone over the edge, he wondered. The dame and the dog. He’d never hallucinated before. The dame and the dog. He didn’t believe it. It was one of the few things that couldn’t have happened. So it hadn’t happened. That was logic.”
Who would have guessed. “he knew which one he was going to hear: the Mozart 40. No, you wouldn’t have thought it to look at him, maybe, but that was Sweeney’s favorite — the Symphony No. 40, in G Minor, K. 550. If you know the Mozart 40, the dark restlessness of it, the macabre drive behind its graceful counterpoint, then you know Sweeney. And if the Mozart 40 sounds to you like a gay but slightly boring minuet, background for a conversation, then to you Sweeney is just another damn reporter who happens, too, to be a periodic drunk. … thoughts of a man a century and a half dead press upon you; you sit in light and the shadow of the soul of a man long dead. You share the troubled thoughts of a dapper little court musician in a horrible financial mess, perhaps feeling the end of his life was near and working at prodigious speed, turning out in a few weeks the greatest symphony he ever wrote.” And turning Sweeney… “ He sighed and pushed himself up out of the chair; the pain in his head was still there and the pain in his soul, but the shaking of his hands was gone. —as the second movement ended and the dark-bright minuetto-and-trio of the third movement lived all too briefly and died and gave birth to what he had been waiting for; the bitter final movement, the allegro assai, the power and the melancholy glory. He was out of it now, off the binge, sober. Until the next time, which might be months, might be a couple of years. There’s that type of drinker, too, although of late the alcoholics have been getting most of the ink.”
In Between Drunks. “He could even get his job back, he felt sure, if he ate a little crow. He could climb out of debt in a few weeks and be back where he was, wherever that was…” “Sweeney headed for the Blade. If you saw that pun yourself, forgive me for pointing it out. You got it, yes, but somebody else would have missed it. It takes all kinds of people to read a book.” -No pun spoilers, read the book, but the author will frequently talk directly to his readers…
In the News. “three recent ones that make the police think maybe it ties in, but they aren’t sure.” “She die?” “Sure. So did the two other dames besides this Lang woman. She’s the only one who didn’t get killed. Pooch saved her.” Not a hallucination. “They got a special Ripper detail, by the way, working on nothing else. Cap Bline of Homicide’s running it” — “You said the one on the south side a couple months ago was Lola Brent?” “Check. Ten days ago, Stella Gaylord. Five days ago, Dorothy Lee.” Sweeney’s hallucination. “You don’t know when she’ll be back at El Madhouse?” “Nope. Her manager could tell you. Guy by the name of Doc Greene.”
Yolanda & an Enemy. “Yo,” said Sweeney meditatively. “I like that. Gives everybody a southern accent. People turn to her at the bar and ask ‘And what’s Yo having to drink,’ huh?” “A good question,” said the bartender. “What is yo having to drink?” [lol] “A moon faced man stood just inside the doorway. His eyes, through round thick-lensed glasses, came to rest on Sweeney and the wide smile widened. His eyes, through the lenses, looked enormous. Somehow, too, they managed to look both vacant and deadly. They looked like a reptile’s eyes, magnified he was hating a man at first sight. And fearing him a little, too. It was a strange combination of strange ingredients, for hatred…” — “Sit down, Doc.” “He put his hands in his pockets, quickly, because he had a hunch the shakes were going to come back.” “A man, Mr. Sweeney, might enjoy a bit of voluptuous description of a woman; in other cases he might not enjoy reading it. For example, if the woman was his wife.” “Is Yolanda Lang your wife?” “No” “I guessed from your name, a stubborn Irishman. If I told you to — let us descend to the vernacular — if I told you to lay off Yolanda, it would just make you that much more stubborn.” “The moment I read that story of yours I knew — I am something of a psychiatrist — that you were going to be a thorn in my side. There was an ineffable something about that story”. “You know, Doc, I hate you so damn much I’m beginning to like you.” “Thank you,” said Greene. “I feel the same about you; each of us admires the other’s capabilities, let us say.” “I admire your line of patter. Immensely. The only thing I hate about you is your guts.” — “what makes you think that I, with my little slingshot, might do more than the whole blue army?” “Because you’re a crazy damn Irishman. Because you’re a little fey; I suspected that from a sentence or two in your story, and I know it now. Because God loves fools and drunkards, and you’re both.” — “I really am a psychiatrist, Mr. Sweeney, although not a practicing one.”
Sweeney on the Trail. “Would you care to see the statuette? Not the one Miss Brent sold, of course, but a duplicate of it. He smiled. “It is, incidentally, known as a Screaming Mimi.” “A what?” “A Screaming Mimi. Girl’s name — M-i-m-i. A rather obvious pun, of course, on the screaming meamies, if you know what they are.” — “Definitely there was a virginal quality about the slim nude figure, but that you saw afterward. “Fear, horror, loathing,” Reynarde had said, and all of that was there, not only in the face but in the twisted rigidity of the body. The mouth was wide open in a soundless scream. The arms were thrust out, palms forward, to hold off some approaching horror.” “The name came from the company that made it, but unofficially, as it were. — the catalogue code number for it is SM-1, and someone in their office with a sense of humor decided the SM stood for Screaming Mimi.” Later, bar talk. “know what that statue makes me think of? The Ripper.” — “The fog was gone. He knew now what his hunch had been and why he’d wanted the Screaming Mimi. He should have got it when Reynarde had said the figure would appeal to a sadist; he would have got it then if his mind had been clear.” —“He felt swell. He grinned at Mimi. He thought, we’re a jump ahead of the cops, Baby, you and I; all we got to do is find your sister.” “ The little black statuette screamed soundlessly, and Sweeney’s grin faded. Somewhere in Chicago another Mimi was screaming like that — and with better cause. A madman with a knife owned her. Someone with a twisted mind and a straight razor.”
City on alert -a close shave. “able to show identification I was a barber or he’d have run me in. Pretty near did anyway. Said for all anybody knew, the Ripper’s a barber, too. But he ain’t.” “How do you know?” Sweeney asked. “Throats. A barber that went nuts would cut throats with it. All day long people lay stretched out in front of him with their throats bare and their chins thrown back and he just can’t help thinking how easy it’d be and how — uh — you know what I mean.” “You don’t feel like cutting one today, I hope.” “Nope, not today.” The barber grinned. “But once in a while — well, your mind does screwy things.” “So does yours,” Sweeney said.
Sold out Floor show -Yolanda. “The dog was leaping. But the woman moved, too, one step aside and the dog flew past her and down, alighted and turned in a flash of brown-ness, crouched again, and now she was in the middle of the stage as he leaped. Again she was not there when he landed. — the Beast, Beauty sank to her knees and put her hand upon the dog’s head, and he snarled, but tolerated the caress. The drum throbbed, the beat accelerated. It reared up, as tall as she, and then as it started downward its teeth caught the tab sewed to the tag of the zipper and pulled. And the black dress, as had the white one, fell suddenly into a circle about her feet. — transparent bra of wide-mesh net, diaphanous as dew and confining as air, that seemed to accentuate rather than conceal the beauty of her voluptuous breasts; and in a G-string which, in the slowly fading light, might not have been there at all, which needed to be taken on faith in the integrity of Chicago’s vice squad; and a six-inch strip of black adhesive tape, slightly slanting, across her white belly just below the navel. The drumbeat faded, and the light faded and then went out and the stage was dark.” —“Bline asked Sweeney, “How’d you like it?” “It, or her?” “It. The dance.” “Probably symbolic as hell, but symbolic of what, I don’t know.”
Well “you know what a stubborn fool an Irishman with a hunch can be; if you didn’t know when you started reading, you should know by now” -so reader, see where Brown, Sweeney and his hunch on the Screaming Mimi shall go.
God’s Reminder in the End. “God turned his shaggy head to look at Sweeney. “If we want to badly enough. If you want something badly enough, you can get anything you want, Sweeney. Like spending a night with that dame. I told you you could.” “Sweeney shuddered. He pulled two flat pint bottles out of the side pockets of his coat and handed one of them to God.” — Rinse and Repeat.
And now a quite strange afterword… from D. Jason Fleming Texas, November 2023 (evidently he’s the guy that uploaded this book into Bezos’ Ebook bargain bin?)
“In early November 2023, Amazon terminated my account for following the rules. No, that’s not a joke. Though the more nuanced description is that they told me I had followed the rules, then terminated my account for not following the rules, and for over a week refused to acknowledge that they had already told me I had, in fact, followed them. — got the account reinstated. That leaves me time to prepare for next time, when the ’Zon unilaterally declares me a CrimeThinker, cut me off, and nobody will listen to any evidence to the contrary. My Locals, https://djasonfleming.locals.com/, is free to sign up and follow, and I try to post every day with something, from fragments of dreams to a defense of the Star Wars prequels. — when Amazon decides to be utterly irrational again, you won’t lose access to all this amazing pulp fiction.”
“What Is The Free Culture Library? I have been meaning to write up a kind of overview of the project that this book is part of pretty much since I started it. Why the focus on pulp? Because reading should be fun, and the pulps were about entertainment first, foremost, and always. Certainly, there was plenty of disposable fiction in the pulps, some of it outright bad. But so what? If it entertains, it entertains. I am also something of an archivist by nature: if something was created, it should always be accessible to anyone who wants to see, hear, or read it.”
“The master catalog for the Free Culture Library can be found at iktaPOP Media. Other Books available from the iktaPOP Free Culture Library” —Lots of science fiction, but for mystery readers… “Mystery No Good From A Corpse by Leigh Brackett, The Sheltering Night by Steve Fisher, Blonde Bait by Ed Lacy, Dead End by Ed Lacy, Enter Without Desire by Ed Lacy, Room To Swing by Ed Lacy, Dig My Grave Deep by Peter Rabe, A House in Naples by Peter Rabe, Down Among The Dead Men by Stewart Sterling, Mystery Omnibuses Three On The Run by Ed Lacy, Coming Soon Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze.
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