Bust E-Book

Ken Bruen

• Herausgeber: Hard Case Crime
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

5 [IMPORTANT / VALUABLE] LESSONS YOU CAN LEARN BY READING BUST: 1) When you hire someone to kill your wife, don't hire a psychopath. 2) Don't use Drano to get rid of a dead body. 3) Those locks on hotel room doors? Not very secure. 4) A curly blond wig isn't much of a disguise. 5) Secrets can kill.

Leseprobe

Raves For KEN BRUEN and JASON STARR!

“Ken Bruen has become the crime novelist to read. He is... revolutionizing the art of crime fiction.”

—George Pelecanos

“Jason Starr is the first writer of his generation to convincingly update the modern crime novel... It might be new-school noir but like the classics of the genre it has a brutal escalation of tension, pungent dialogue, a hard-boiled simplicity and grace. It’s also darkly funny and a pure pleasure to read. As you race through it you realize that Jim Thompson has just moved to Manhattan.”

—Bret Easton Ellis

“[Bruen has written] the most startling and original crime novel of the decade.”

—GQ

“Starr has plumbed the shallows of his brittle characters and their selfish lives, depicting them in a hard-edged style that is clean, cold and extremely chilling.”

—The New York Times

“Bruen confirms his rightful place among the finest noir stylists of his generation. This is a remarkable book from a singular talent”

—Publishers Weekly

“Starr paints it blacker than black, putting his compelling characters through the wringer before hanging them out to dry.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“The Guards blew me away. It’s dark, funny, and moving... Bruen’s tale is a potent draft of desire and hopelessness, conviction and surrender, inadvertent heroism and unexpected grace. This is mystery writing of a high order.”

—T. Jefferson Parker

“Streamline as a model’s hips, dark as the inside of a dog’s gut, Twisted City is a hip, white collar update on the James Cain, Jim Thompson style novel with a seasoning all its own. Jason Starr is a unique talent, and Twisted City is one unique book.”

—Joe R. Lansdale

“The Guards is an astounding novel, a poetic account of a desperation as deep and cold as the North Sea, retribution, and resurrection. It’s so good I can’t think of it as a crime novel. It’s a fine book with some crimes.”

—James Crumley

“Every few years you read a crime novel that jars you so completely that you begin to doubt your entire approach to writing. These rare books show you a whole new way of doing things. In the past six years, I’ve read three crime novels that have had that effect on me: Blue Lonesome by Bill Pronzini, The Ax by Donald E. Westlake, and now Nothing Personal by Jason Starr.”

—Ed Gorman

“Bruen is a brilliant, lyrical, deeply moving writer whose characters are so sharply portrayed they almost walk off the page.”

—The Denver Post

“Starr is such a polished writer that once you start reading it’s painful to tear yourself away.”

—Time Out

“Suffice it to say that fans of Roddy Doyle, James Sallis, Samuel Beckett, Irvine Welsh, Frederick Exley, Patrick McCabe, George Pelecanos, Ian Rankin, and Chuck Palahniuk will all find something to like, love, or obsess over in this stiff shot of evil chased with heart-breaking irony. Highly recommended.”

—Booklist (on Bruen)

“From the first page of this noir thriller, you know things are only going to get worse, but you can’t stop reading.”

—Newsweek (on Starr)

“A Celtic Dashiell Hammett.”

—Philadelphia Inquirer (on Bruen)

“A throwback to the spare, snappy writing of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain.”

—Entertainment Weekly (on Starr)

“Raw and fiercely funny.”

—Seattle Times (on Bruen)

“The King of Noir is back. It doesn’t get any darker or funnier than this... The best novel of the year!”

—Bookends (on Starr)

“[An] amazing writer, who can blend the darkest situation with a wisecrack that provides the perception that links life with death... The dialogue is priceless... If you haven’t discovered Bruen, it’s time you did.”

—Crime Spree

“A dead-end soul in the grand tradition of James Cain... Starr has an instinct for outlining the kind of life that Black Mask readers gobbled up in the 1930s — the life of extinguished opportunity and of petty troubles that accumulate, somehow, into major crimes.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Bruen is an original, grimly hilarious and gloriously Irish.”

—Washington Post

“Jason Starr is terrific... tough and real and brilliant.”

—Andrew Klavan

“A dazzling piece of work. Bruen’s style is clipped, caustic, heartbreaking and often hilarious.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“The kind of book you read with a wince, but you read it straight through because you can’t put it down. Starr [is] a terrifically taut writer.”

—Baltimore Sun

“Defiantly fresh and original... Bruen is one helluva a writer.”

—January Magazine

“Ruthlessly good; definitively noir...[Starr is] a master of the genre.”

—The Literary Review

When he got back to his apartment, Bobby went right to the second bedroom, which he had turned into a darkroom, and started developing the film.

About twenty minutes later, Bobby called the lobby and asked the doorman to send a maintenance guy up to his apartment. When the little Jamaican guy arrived, Bobby asked him to take out a big box from the back of his hallway closet.

“I thought you had a problem with your shower?”

“Yeah, well I don’t,” Bobby said.

He was a strong little guy, but the box was so heavy it took all his strength to carry it a few feet. He was out of breath.

“What the fuck do you have in there?”

“Oh, just some old clothes,” Bobby said, handing him a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

When the guy was gone, Bobby opened the box, tearing off the layers of masking tape. Finally, he got it open and removed the bubble wrap. He had three sawed-off shotguns, a couple of rifles, a MAC-11 submachine pistol, two Uzis, some smaller guns, and a gym bag filled with boxes of ammo.

Bobby was sweating. He wheeled into the bathroom and splashed cold water against his face, then he stared at himself in the mirror. This was happening a lot lately — looking in the mirror, expecting to see a young guy, but seeing an old man instead. Maybe forty-seven wasn’t old for some people, but it was old for a guy who’d spent fourteen years in prison, one year in Iraq, and three years in a fucking wheelchair.

It was time to get back to work...

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

GRIFTER’S GAME by Lawrence Block

FADE TO BLONDE by Max Phillips

TOP OF THE HEAP by Erle Stanley Gardner

LITTLE GIRL LOST by Richard Aleas

TWO FOR THE MONEY by Max Allan Collins

THE CONFESSION by Domenic Stansberry

HOME IS THE SAILOR by Day Keene

KISS HER GOODBYE by Allan Guthrie

361 by Donald E. Westlake

PLUNDER OF THE SUN by David Dodge

BRANDED WOMAN by Wade Miller

DUTCH UNCLE by Peter Pavia

THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block

THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE by Ed McBain

NIGHT WALKER by Donald Hamilton

A TOUCH OF DEATH by Charles Williams

SAY IT WITH BULLETS by Richard Powell

WITNESS TO MYSELF by Seymour Shubin

BUST

by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-020)

First Hard Case Crime edition: May 2006

Published by

Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark StreetLondonSE10UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 2006 by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Cover painting copyright © 2006 by R. B. Farrell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-310-6

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-386-1

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

For Reed Farrel Coleman, La Weinman (Sarah), and Jon, Ruth, and Jennifer Jordan, ro-bust friends

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

One

People with opinions just go around bothering one another.

THE BUDDHA

In the back of Famiglia Pizza on Fiftieth and Broadway, Max Fisher was dabbing his plain slice with a napkin, trying to soak up as much grease as he could, when a man sat down diagonally across from him with a large cupful of ice. The guy looked nothing like the big, strong-looking hit man Max was expecting — he looked more like a starving greyhound. He couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds, had a medium build, startling blue eyes, a thin scar down his right cheek, and a blur of long gray hair. And something was very weird about his mouth. It looked like someone had put broken glass in there and mangled his lips.

The guy smiled, said, “You’re wondering what happened to me mouth.”

Max knew the guy would be Irish, but he didn’t think he’d be so Irish, that talking to him would be like talking to one of those Irish bartenders at that place uptown who could never understand a fucking word he was saying. He’d ask for a Bud Light and they’d stare back at him with a dumb look, like something was wrong with the way he was talking, and he’d think, Who’s the potato eater just off the boat, pal? Me or you?

Max was about to answer then thought, Fuck that, I’m the boss, and asked, “Are you...?”

The man put a finger to his messed-up lips, made the sound “Sh... sh,” then added, “No names.” He sucked on the ice, made a big production out of it, pushing his lips out with the cube so Max had to see them. Then, finally, he stuck the cube in his cheek like a chipmunk and asked, “You’ll be Max?”

Max wondered what had happened to no names. He was going to say something about it, but then figured this guy was just trying to play head games with him so he just nodded.

The guy leaned over, whispered, “You can call me Popeye.”

Before Max could say, You mean like the cartoon character? the guy laughed, startling Max, and then said, “Fook, call me anything except early in the morning.” Popeye smiled again, then said, “I need the money up front.”

Max felt better — negotiating was his thing — and asked, “It’s eight, right? I mean, isn’t that what Angela...?”

The guy’s eyes widened and Max thought, Fuck, the no-name rule, and was about to say sorry when Popeye shot out his hand and grabbed Max’s wrist. For such a bone-thin guy he had a grip like steel.

“Ten, it’s ten,” he hissed.

Max was still scared shitless but he was angry about the money too. He tried to free his wrist, couldn’t, but managed to say, “Hey, a deal’s a deal, you can’t just change the terms.”

He liked that, putting the skinny little mick in his place.

Finally Popeye let go, sat back and stared at Max, sucking on the ice some more, then in a very low voice he said, “You want me to kill your wife, I can do whatever the fook I want, I own your arse you suited prick.”

Max felt a jolt in his chest, thought, Shit, the heart attack his fucking cardiologist told him could “happen at any time.” He took a sip of his Diet Pepsi, wiped his forehead, then said, “Yeah, okay, whatever, I guess we can renegotiate. Five before and five after. How’s that?”

Bottom line, he wanted Deirdre gone. It wasn’t like he could hold interviews for hit men, tell each candidate, Thank you for coming in, we’ll get back to you.

Then Popeye reached into his leather jacket — it had a hole in the shoulder and Max wondered, Bullet hole? — and took out a funny-looking green packet of cigarettes, with “Major” on the front, and placed a brass Zippo on top. Max thought that the guy had to know he couldn’t actually light up in a restaurant, even if it was just a shitty pizzeria. Popeye took out a cigarette; it was small and stumpy, and he ran it along his bottom lip, like he was putting on lipstick.

Man, this guy was weird.

“Listen closely yah bollix,” he said, “I’m the best there is and that means I don’t come cheap, it also means I get the whole shebang up front and that’s, lemme see, tomorrow.”

Max didn’t like that idea, but he wanted to get the deal done so he just nodded. Popeye put the cigarette behind his ear, sighed, then said, “Righty ho, I want small bills and noon Thursday, you bring them to Modell’s on Forty-second Street. I’ll be the one trying on tennis sneakers.”

“I have a question,” Max said. “How will you do it? I mean, I don’t want her to suffer. I mean, will it be quick?”

Popeye stood up, used both hands to massage his right leg, as if he was ironing a kink out of it, then said, “Tomorrow... I’ll need the code for the alarm and all the instructions and the keys to the flat. You make sure you’re with somebody at six, don’t go home till eight. If you come home early I’m gonna pop you too.” He paused then said, “You think you can follow that, fellah?”

Suddenly Popeye sounded familiar. Max racked his brain then it came to him — Robert Shaw in The Sting.

Then Popeye said, “And me mouth, a gobshite tried to ram a broken bottle in me face, his aim was a little off, happened on the Falls Road, not a place you’d like to visit.”

Max never could remember if the Falls were the Protestants or the Catholics, but he didn’t feel it was the time to ask. He looked again at the hole in Popeye’s leather jacket.

Popeye touched the jacket with his finger, said, “Caught it on a hook on me wardrobe. You think I should get it fixed?”

Two

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest human battle ever and to never stop fighting.

E. E. CUMMINGS

Bobby Rosa sat in his Quickie wheelchair in the middle of Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, checking out all the beautiful young babes. He had his headphones on, Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” leaking out, thinking that his own crew would love all these great shots he was taking. Man, these chicks must’ve been starving themselves, probably doing all those Pilates, to look this good. Finally, he saw what he was looking for — three thin babes in bikinis lying on their stomachs in a nice even line. They were about thirty yards away — perfect shooting distance — so Bobby took out his Nikon with the wide-angle lens and zoomed in.

He snapped about ten pictures — some whole-body shots and some good rear shots. Then he wheeled toward the other end of the Sheep Meadow and spotted two blondes, lying on their backs. From about twenty yards away, he snapped a dozen boob shots, saying things to himself like, “Oh, yeah, I like that,” “Yeah, that’s right,” “Yeah, right there baby.” Then, right next to the blondes, he spotted a beautiful curvy black chick, lying alone on a blanket. She was on her stomach and the string on her bikini bottom was so thin it looked like she was naked. Bobby went in for a close-up, stopping about five yards behind her. He snapped the rest of the roll. He had another roll in the jacket of his windbreaker, but he was happy with the shots he’d gotten, so he pushed himself out of the Sheep Meadow, on to the park’s west drive.