I was so shocked by what I had written, that I forgot to explain the structure of 'Partners,' without which I could not have conceived or executed the story. It's a study in triangles.
The romantic triangle of Kyle / Karen / Liz is one of my favorites, though not as tense as Kyle / Jimmy / Karen. The ending could not exist without the triangle of Kyle / Jimmy / Lepsky. To round out the structure, there are five more triangles involving minor characters. In almost every scene, either three people are on stage, or two are emotionally tugging at Kyle's mind and heart in a conflict of divided loyalties that Kyle cannot win. The book is told first-person from his POV and nothing is hidden. Kyle knows he's screwed, no matter what he does.
I think it's interesting that 'Partners' begins and ends in winter, from the first few flakes of late November, to a snowbound Christmas and a February blizzard in Winnebago County, finally a freak March ice storm, an actual event that occurred in 1976 and paralyzed the city of Milwaukee for an entire week. When the ice storm melts, winter is over and the tale ends, four months of Kyle's life. He is utterly transformed by one bad Wisconsin winter.
Milwaukee today is no place for a story of any kind, no winter to speak of. 'Partners' is set in a forgotten era, when men were men and women liked them that way. The Costa Nostra had an iron grip on the city, a vast empire of profitable rackets, eliminated rivals with car bombs. All gone now, of course, but in the winter of 1975-76 it was possible to drink at a downtown strip joint, rent a party girl, drive a muscle car, carry a gun and get a piece of the action, if you knew the right people.
Cold weather worries a lonely young man, reading Help Wanted ads.
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