Mr. Mercedes

“According to my research, during your time as a detective, you broke literally hundreds of cases, many of them the kind the press (who Ted Williams called the Knights of the Keyboard) terms ‘high profile.’ You have caught Killers and Robbery Gangs and Arsonists and Rapists. In one article (published to coincide with your Retirement Ceremony), your longtime partner (Det. 1st Grade Peter Huntley) Described you as ‘a combination of by-the-book and intuitively brilliant.’”

This passage is from the letter Brady Hartsfield sent to goad Hodges. It does double duty in that while showing that Brady has investigated Hodges’s background in detail, it also gives the reader an insight into Hodges’s abilities, confirming that he is more than competent to track down the Mercedes killer.

“Now you are probably thinking, ‘What kind of sick and twisted Pervo do we have here?’… I think a great many people would enjoy doing what I did… Most people are fitted with Lead Boots when they are just little kids and have to wear them all their lives. These Lead Boots are called A CONSCIENCE. I have none, so I can soar high above the heads of the Normal Crowd.”

In this passage, Brady describes himself fairly accurately, illustrating that he possesses self-awareness. His self-evaluation establishes him as Hodges’s opposite, particularly his lack of conscience, whereas conscience (i.e., justice) is Hodges’s driving motivation. Brady will go on to illustrate his depravity and the excitement he derives from other people’s pain throughout the novel.

“In his years on the police force, Hodges has seen things he would never talk about with anyone who has not also seen them. Such toxic memories lead him to believe that his correspondent […] is certainly telling the truth about having no conscience. Hodges has read there are wells in Iceland so deep you can drop a stone down them and never hear the splash. He thinks some human souls are like that.”

This passage describes the depth of human corruption that is the subject of the hard-boiled detective genre as well as the cynicism of the iconic hard-boiled detective. The image of the bottomless well invites the reader to gaze into the abyss and struggle to imagine how such a soul comes to be. Later, Brady will wonder if Hodges ever read the aphorism from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil: “When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” In his career, Hodges has spent the last 40 years staring into the abyss, and it has tainted his perspective.

“Rich people can be generous, even the ones with bloodcurdling political views can be generous, but most believe in generosity on their own terms, and underneath (not so deep, either), they’re always afraid someone is going to steal their presents and eat their birthday cake.”

Hodges’s statement resonates with the novel’s socioeconomic themes, but it also conveys the cynicism of the hard-boiled detective. Hodges recognizes an element of self-absorption in the generosity of those who have more than they need. Ironically, cynicism can’t exist without idealism, both of which Hodges possesses: Despite everything, Hodges can still envision a world in which generosity is unconditional.

“The gray Mercedes was parked carelessly askew between two of them. By the time Hodges and Huntley arrived, five police cars were parked in the yard, two drawn up nose-to-nose behind the car’s back bumper, as if the cops expected the big gray sedan to start up by itself, like that old Plymouth in the horror movie, and make a run for it.”

King frequently teases readers with connections and references to his other works. The Plymouth in the horror movie refers to the movie made from one of King’s early novels, Christine, about a possessed killer car. Christine is a foil for the Mercedes—the Gray Lady—in that Christine is possessed by something demonic, killing out of evil intent. The Gray Lady is possessed by the ghosts of the people Brady killed. It comes to life (metaphorically) to exact justice and save Brady’s last victims.

“‘Little man,’ Hodges says.

The kid looks at him, saying nothing.

Hodges lifts one hand and points at him. ‘I did something good for you just now. Before the sun goes down tonight, I want you to pass it on.’”

In his letter to Hodges, Brady describes him as a former “Knight of the Badge and Gun” (21), and as Pete is leaving the restaurant, Hodges remembers how they used to call themselves the Hounds of Heaven (13) —in other words, relentless pursuers of evil in the name of justice and righteousness. As we are beginning to see, they have fallen short of justice, but this scene illustrates that although Hodges has become jaded, he retains the heart of gold within every hard-boiled cynic.

“Mrs. Trelawney didn’t have any friends. No husband, either. Just her old sick mommy. Which made her easy meat, especially after the cops started working her over. Why, they had done half of Brady’s work for him.”

Brady has observed that isolation makes people more vulnerable to depression and manipulation. Olivia was alone and defenseless with no one to tell her that the Mercedes murder wasn’t her fault, then Hodges and Pete piled on, blaming and disbelieving her. Thus, Pete and Hodges bear some responsibility for the vulnerability and despair that led to her death.

“‘You know,’ Hodges says, ‘you should quit doing chores for me and get a job with one of those computer-doctor companies. You could probably make a lot more dough.’ […] Jerome is offended, but not by the offer of a fee. ‘Those companies are for geeks with bad social skills.’”

This passage is ironic in that Brady Hartsfield is just such a person: a tech geek working for a computer-doctor company, and although he is socially functional, his psyche is a roiling swamp of dysfunction. This is another example of the howcatchem type of detective story. The reader watches as the oblivious detective keeps brushing up against the perpetrator. Each incident raises suspense for the reader. A few lines further, Jerome even references Discount Electronix, the business Brady works for.

“Even if Mrs. T. was an unwitting accomplice, and Hodges hasn’t entirely dismissed the idea that she left her key in the ignition, he and Pete did a piss-poor job. It’s easy—too easy—to either disbelieve or disregard someone you dislike. ‘We were blinded by certain preconceptions, and for that I’m sorry.’”

Prejudice and preconceptions are one of the reasons that Hodges and Pete didn’t solve the case. If they had believed Olivia, they would have tracked down Brady much sooner. Hodges is growing as a person, recognizing his failings. His character shows in the fact that he is able to acknowledge his failure to Olivia’s mother. A little later, Olivia’s mother tells Hodges something that his prejudice didn’t allow him to see—that Olivia was a good person.

“She said she had to save him.”

Olivia’s mother was able to recognize what Olivia could not—that the Mercedes killer was manipulating her. Olivia’s mother is conveying something about Olivia that only she and Olivia’s deceased husband understood about her—that underneath her OCD symptoms, she was not only a good person, but she also wanted to redeem herself by redeeming the killer.

“‘He’s broken,’ Hodges says simply. ‘And evil. Like an apple that looks okay on the outside, but when you cut it open, it’s black and full of worms.’

‘Evil,’ she says, almost sighing the word. Then, to herself rather than him: ‘Of course he is. He battened on my sister like a vampire.’”

The hard-boiled detective story rarely deals with the notion of evil on a grand scale. Its focus is on the ubiquity of human corruption. Brady is entirely corrupted; Janey describes him as more a creature than a person. He has some vestigial sense of loss and regret—though not remorse—about his mother and brother’s deaths, but those feelings are distant and muffled.

“‘I don’t want to sleep alone.’ She stands on tiptoe to return his hat. ‘If I must surrender my body to make sure that doesn’t happen, I suppose I must.’

Hodges pushes the button that unlocks his car and says, ‘Never let it be said I failed to take advantage of a lady in distress.’”

In this playful exchange, Hodges and Janey are illustrating the kind of banter that often characterizes the hard-boiled detective genre. The hard-boiled detective image is emphasized by the Philip Marlowesque fedora Janey gives to Hodges. Here again, Janey is taking the lead in their relationship.

“When Hodges was promoted to detective, his mentor was a man named Frank Sledge. Hodges thought of him as an old guy, but back then, Sledge was 15 years younger than Hodges is now. Don’t you ever let me hear you call them vics, Sledge told him. That shit’s strictly for assholes and burnouts. Remember their names. Call them by their names.”

As Hodges thinks of Olivia and the victims of the City Center killings, he realizes that his guilt comes from not thinking of them as individuals but as nameless victims in the past. Now, even though he can’t bring them back, he has a chance to do justice by them.

“Aunt Charlotte begins to sob. The sound is unlovely, the hoarse cries of a crow in a cornfield. Hodges remembers her bending over Mrs. Wharton, kissing her cold lips, and a sudden unpleasant possibility comes to him. He misjudged Olivia; he may have misjudged Charlotte Gibney as well. There’s more to people than their surfaces, after all.”

In this passage, Holly is begging Hodges to allow her to ride with him and Janey. Hodges is the first person Holly has ever met who treated her like an independent person. Up to this point, Holly’s mother has appeared to treat her like a combination of unwanted baggage and “hysterical” child. However, this passage shows that Charlotte loves Holly in her own way. Her overprotectiveness of Holly is her way of keeping Holly close because Holly’s dependency gives her mother a sense of security.

“‘Me, either.’ She still won’t look directly at his face, but her affect has changed remarkably otherwise. She pulls up a chair and sits beside him, tucking her lank hair behind her ears. ‘And I know Mac programs inside and out.’

‘Go with your bad self,’ Jerome says, and holds up a hand.

Still looking at the screen, Holly slaps him five. ‘Play it, Sam.’

He grins. ‘Casablanca.’

‘Yes. I’ve seen that movie seventy-three times. I have a Movie Book. I write down everything I see. My mother says that’s OCD.’

‘Life is OCD,’ Jerome says.

Unsmiling, Holly replies, ‘Go with your bad self.’”

Jerome understands better than Hodges what it feels like to be an outsider. He is much quicker than Hodges to see past the traits that make Holly seem “different” to other people. Where Hodges has acted as a father figure to Holly, Jerome treats Holly as “normal” just someone like everyone else who is good at some things and less good at others. Holly’s unsmiling repetition of Jerome’s words is so incongruous as to be quite funny, and humor, both intentional and unintentional, becomes a hallmark of her character.

“How could [God] possibly blame Brady for the things he’s done? Did Brady Hartsfield…shove that apple slice down Frankie’s throat? No. …Did he cook up a poisoned hamburger and say, Eat this, Ma, it’s delicious?

Can he be blamed for striking out at the world that has made him what he is? Brady thinks not.”

Brady has already said that he doesn’t believe in God or heaven or hell. Death is just darkness. In this passage, he is still blaming his actions on everything but himself. He blames Frankie’s death on the choking incident, but Brady is the one who actually killed his brother. He didn’t poison his mother, but he did buy the poison with the intention of using it. He blames the entire world for his being the monster he is. Like Hodges blaming Olivia Trelawney, at least in part, for the Mercedes murders, Brady is placing blame in the wrong place.

“Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.”

Brady’s nihilism is the reason he is satisfied to die in his last mass murder. The scar tissue he leaves behind is the proof of his existence. Immediately before this passage, Brady is contemplating the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York City. He considers them fools for not understanding the meaninglessness of life and believing that the attack would secure their place in paradise.

“Holly starts to cry. Jerome hugs her clumsily. He’s black and she’s white, he’s seventeen and she’s in her forties, but to Hodges Jerome looks like a father comforting his daughter after she came home from school and said no one invited her to the Spring Dance.”

The image of Holly as a girl disappointed not to be invited to the party emphasizes her desperation to be wanted and needed by the first person who has ever seemed to truly see her. Jerome has a special ability to connect with outsiders like Hodges and Holly and to see past the surface in a way that other people don’t.

“‘Not yet,’ Holly says. ‘In five minutes. I want to smoke a cigarette. I’ll go out on the stoop.’

She goes out. She sits down. She lights up.

Through the screen door, Hodges calls: ‘When did you become so assertive, Holly?’

She doesn’t turn around to answer. ‘I guess when I saw pieces of my cousin burning in the street.’”

Holly is having a coming-of-age experience. She has just given her mother a righteous chewing out and set some healthy adult boundaries. Holly’s transformation was triggered in part by Hodges and Jerome treating her like a person, but something heroic has also been awakened in her by the shock of seeing Janey—who was also kind to her—brutally and senselessly murdered.

“Olivia Trelawney’s Mercedes gathers itself slowly, but once the twelve-cylinder engine gets cranking, it goes like a rocket…”

As Brady’s murderous career comes full circle, so does that of the Mercedes. The car was taken and used in an act of evil. This passage personifies the car—gathering itself slowly—and suggests the impression that the car itself is a participant in the pursuit, chasing down the criminal who involved it in a crime.

“She thinks they walk among us, Bowfinger had said, and the two of them had had a manly chuckle over that, but the joke was on them, wasn’t it? Because Mrs. Melbourne was right. Brady Hartsfield really is an alien, and he was among them all the time, fixing computers and selling ice cream.”

Hodges recognizes Brady as something beyond mere human corruption. The metaphor of the alien implies that there was something in Brady that was never human at least in the moral sense. From earliest childhood, Brady lacked empathy, a word that is often used as a synonym for humanity. Without that, he can’t properly be considered a member of the human species.

“‘I have to hold on,’ Hodges whispers, but now he can hardly breathe at all. The world has shrunk to the size of a fiercely gleaming silver dollar. Then even that is blotted out, not because he’s lost consciousness but because someone is walking toward him. It’s Janey, striding slow and hipshot. She’s wearing his fedora tipped sexily over one eye. Hodges remembers what she said when he asked her how he had been so lucky as to end up in her bed: I have no regrets…Can we leave it at that?”

In archetypal terms, Janey is the Lady of the Lake, who represents healing. For Hodges, she has been a source of redemption and rebirth. She deemed him worthy. As Hodges remembers her words—“I have no regrets”—the words become his. He can let go and die, which he must do in order to be reborn.

“‘They did,’ Pete says. ‘The woman says her name is Holly Gibney, but I think she’s really Sheena, Queen of the Jungle…

Meanwhile, Sheena’s mother is running around and threatening her own murder-spree if we don’t stop harassing her daughter.’”

There is a humorous incongruity in the image of shy, nervous Holly as a warrior princess, and there is something equally incongruous and endearing about the mother of the warrior princess scurrying around like a flustered hen, determined to defend her child. Annoying and overbearing as she is, Charlotte Gibney has her own complexity.