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Popular Culture Review
tive. No one in The Glass Key rises above this pervasive pattern of manipulation,
acquisitiveness, and exploitation, and all the major characters “commit a serious
wrong, which usually involves betrayal” (Wolfe 138).
In general, appearances are duplicitous in The Glass Key, except to the one
character who can see through them, Ned Beaumont. Beaumont is described ex
plicitly as “clear-eyed” (46). He has sharp vision, as Hammett indicates through
the description of Beaumont’s rooms, “high of ceiling and wide of window, with a
tremendous mirror over the fireplace” (16). His is an uncharacteristically bright
and airy dwelling situated high above the foul city streets, which are occluded by
the ever-falling “oyster-colored lines of rain” (12). Although his perceptions are as
clear as the large windows in his apartment, Beaumont’s life is precarious — as
fragile as glass. The instability of his existence is demonstrated when the cab in
which Beaumont is riding is involved in a three-car collision in New York City.
The crash leaves him uninjured but “white faced and shivering” ( 28) in the back of
his taxi. Significantly, during the wreck Beaumont is pelted by “a shower of bro
ken glass.” The shattered glass is an indication that his ability to perceive with
clarity is vulnerable and contingent. Not only does Beaumont’s life hang by a
thread in this soulless world, but also he is psychologically brittle and self-destructive. He thinks of himself as “just something that’s being kicked around” (23), like
the tumbling dice in a game of craps. In his masochistic self-perception, Beaumont
is a battered loser in a game ruled by luck, most of it bad. Hard experience has
convinced him that the only life-skill worth having is the ability to endure pain.
“Might as well take your punishment and get it over with” (5) to be ready to lose
again — this is Beaumont’s philosophy (Leenhouts 75). His gaunt frame, sallow
face and hacking cough suggest tuberculosis, worsened by heavy indulgence in
liquor and tobacco. As biographers have pointed out, Beaumont bears a strong
resemblance to Dashiell Hammett (Johnson 87).
Beaumont is a gambler, not a detective, yet he solves the murder at the heart of
the plot. Much like other Hammett characters who are professional detectives,
Beaumont clings to a strict code of conduct that makes no pretense to conventional
morality or even legality. His code consists of not lying to friends, not dodging
responsibility for his mistakes, and not losing his nerve when things go wrong. But
Beaumont on occasion can be, without remorse, as deceptive and manipulative as
the inveterate liars and frauds in the novel. For example he plants fake evidence,
disposes of genuine evidence, gives false information to the police, and persuades
witnesses to withhold truthful testimony. He justifies his actions through his inside
knowledge that the legal system is completely venal and law enforcement is crooked
from top to bottom. In this Hobbesian world the only authentic morality is to make
bad people suffer for their evil or stupidity — and these are often officials who are
paid to enforce the law. To achieve this rough justice means that Beaumont at