Jeff Rice Quotes & Sayings

Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer. — Jeff Rice

That done, I sank into an uneasy sleep wherein I dreamed of an assembly line of pale, bloodless girls walking down an endless dark street and moaning softly for help. Somewhere, toward the edge of my inner vision, a shadowy figure pursued them with long, beckoning arms.
Goddamn booze!
Somewhere in the midst of this ghoulish girl parade Cairncross materialized and hung a garland of garlic around my neck, glaring at me with his good eye and intoning, 'Go and sin no more.'
Vincenzo appeared at Cairncross' side and together they laughed insanely, then vanished in a puff of sulphurous smoke.
I made several high-minded resolutions, muttered half-heard but sincere-sounding prayers to all the recently deposed saints, thrashed and rolled clean off the bed.
I might just as well have stayed up. — Jeff Rice

Nowhere. No one is ever going to hear from you again, sir. No one."
'Uh ... well ... I ... '
'You profane my world, sir! I cannot ... I will not permit you to exist ... here!"
'In that case, Doctor, why not tell me of your work? You know ... condemned man's last request.'
He walked over and put a paternal arm around my shoulders, but the grip of his hand was like steel. He was a lot stronger than he looked. Not big or beefy. But strong.
'Just a dumb reporter ... doing his job ... '
He looked closely at me, eye to eye.
'You grovel nicely, Mr ... '
'Kolchak, sir.'
'Story. You want your story, do you, Mr. Kolchak? Your precious, pitiful story? Your bloody pound of journalistic flesh?'
I smiled but it stuck halfway into a sickly grin. I was clammy. I was trembling. I could feel my wet trouser leg sticking to my flesh and was grateful I'd eaten nothing solid. — Jeff Rice

Something of a pattern had started to form and it was ugly. — Jeff Rice

Carol, a swing-shift cocktail waitress in the Bird of Paradise's show lounge had gotten home (guesswork, here) around 2:15 - 2:30, poured herself a glass of milk, and had opened the back door of the kitchen for reasons unknown. (Fingerprints were later found on the outside knob that, while smudged, didn't belong to either girl.)
She had opened the door, and died. Suddenly, quietly, without disturbing her sleeping roommate only a few feet away. — Jeff Rice

This 'vampire' stuff is to stay right in this room. Until we have the assailant in custody we say nothing about these girls being drained of blood. No more rumors. No reports in the papers," he added, looking directly at me and ignoring my colleague from the opposition press. "The official opinion at this time is that the cause of death is 'undetermined and under investigation'. We don't want to start a panic. It's bad for police operations. It's bad for the people. And it's had for business. — Jeff Rice