Max

The other gunman in 'The Killers' — he sits at the counter, watches the mirror, and explains what they have come to do.

What they want

To be entertained while he waits. “Well, I got to keep bright boy amused,” he says when his partner tells him to shut up, and he says the same thing again on the way out.

The book

Cover of Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway

Men Without WomenErnest Hemingway, 1927

The second story collection — 'The Killers,' 'Hills Like White Elephants' — the iceberg method at its coldest and most perfect.

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At a glance

In the book: One of two gunmen; about Al's size and dressed identically
Where he sits: At the counter opposite George, watching the mirror
Eats: He orders bacon and eggs and takes the ham and eggs, with his gloves on
Waiting for: Ole Andreson, from five o'clock until five past seven
Calls everyone: Bright boy

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Max is one of the two gunmen in 'The Killers', one of the fourteen stories in Men Without Women, the 1927 collection by the American writer Ernest Hemingway. While his partner Al waits in the kitchen with a shotgun, Max sits at the counter of Henry's lunch-room opposite George, the counterman, and talks for two hours.

He is about Al's size and dressed the same, in a derby hat and an overcoat too tight for him, and he eats with his gloves on. He does not look at George while he talks. He looks into the long mirror behind the counter, in a room that had been made over from a saloon into a lunch-counter.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

The name he calls everyoneMax calls George bright boy from his second sentence to his last, and Al picks it up from him. When Al turns the name on Nick Adams as well, Max's comment is that the town's full of bright boys.
He tells them exactly what is happening“We're going to kill a Swede,” he says. “Do you know a big Swede named Ole Andreson?” Asked what the man did to them: “He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never even seen us.” Asked why, then: “We're killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, bright boy.” Al shouts from the kitchen that he talks too much.
He watches the mirror instead of the roomThe whole time he is talking he is looking into the mirror that runs behind the counter, and it is the mirror and the clock he keeps checking rather than the door.
What he will not sayGeorge asks what they are going to do with him and the others afterwards. “That'll depend,” Max says. “That's one of those things you never know at the time.”
The story he gives the customersHe tells George what to say if anyone comes in: that the cook is off, and if they keep after it, that George will go back and cook himself. George does it twice, and Max tells him he is a regular little gentleman.
He decides he likes the countermanAl puts George's good behaviour down to the shotgun. Max says that isn't it, that bright boy is nice, that he is a nice boy, and that he likes him. His last words in the story are a piece of advice: “You ought to play the races, bright boy.”

Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

The man they came for never arrives. Max gives him ten minutes, then five more at Al's insistence, then calls it off at five past seven. The two of them walk out under the arc-light and out of the story, and the reader never learns who the friend was, what Andreson did, or whether they came back.

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