Angel Colón: No Happy Endings

“Excellent. You getting along okay at work? Your family?”

You nod to indicate that yes, yes your life is one of rosy-cheeked wholesome goodness.

“No more problems with your stepfather?”

An image pops into your head. Of Harvey, standing over you, fists clenched, spit spraying from his mouth as he yells at you. I’m glad your mother died. She’d be ashamed to know what a weak little pussy she has for a son. Fucking faggot .

You shake your head and say, “Harvey’s all right.”

Mrs. Hamby smiles and nods with satisfaction. “And if you see he’s getting angry, what should you do?”

You picture yourself lying face down on the filthy carpet of your bedroom, your arms cradling your head, shielding yourself from the blows raining down.

“Sit down and talk it out,” you say.

“Good. And if that doesn’t work?”

And you see yourself running down the street of your neighborhood at night. Blood from a cut on your forehead streams into your eye, stinging.

“I leave the house. Give him a chance to cool off. Give us both a chance to get our thoughts together.”

“Excellent!” Mrs. Hamby beams. So far this recital is going perfectly. Not a note has been missed. “And what about your job? Do you think it’s working out?”

You see yourself in the kitchen at Shoney’s. Sid, the assistant cook, stands too close to you, invading your space. If you’re not my friend, then you must be my enemy , Sid says. So you dig in your pocket and come up with a damp, wadded five-dollar-bill. This is all the money you have. Sid pockets the bill and says friends help each other out.

“Oh, yeah,” you say to Mrs. Hamby, “I like working.” You look down at your feet and see that there is a baby cockroach on your shoe. Just sitting there. No wonder the office smells like Raid.

Mrs. Hamby opens your file and reads from a report. “Your Job Coach says she’s in the fading stage. That she’s phased out the onsite visits. You’re independent now. They say that work is the best therapy. And it’s true. It gives you—it gives me—a sense of fulfillment.”

You are still looking at the baby cockroach sitting on your shoe. It has a whitish stripe near the head. You know that a baby cockroach is called a nymph. You wonder if Mrs. Hamby’s office is infested.

“Do you know what Teddy Roosevelt said about work? He said ‘Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.’ I’ve always put a lot of stock in that. Well, I know you have to catch your bus. And you work tonight, so I won’t keep you.”

You stand and head for the door.

“Oh, and, uh, no more incidents with, uhm, fire?”

“No ma’am.”

“And you’re still taking the meds Dr. Stein prescribed? The uh…” She references your file again. “The olanzapine and sodium valproate?”

You nod your head, but those pills made you sick.

You don’t need pills. You know how to make yourself feel better.

“Bye, Mrs. Hamby.”

“Bye-bye, now.”

You open the office door.

“Billy?”

You don’t turn around, but you do pause in the doorway.

“Just remember that I’m here to help. No matter what. No matter how big or how small the problem. Come to me. Okay?”

You look down and see the nymph crawl off your shoe and escape through the open door. You scurry out after it.

“This Angel from hell writes hardcore pulp fiction as sick, slick, funny, and thrilling as Willeford meets Westlake. Fantine Park is a great new bad-ass heroine.”

“In No Happy Endings , Angel Colón milks every drop of tension as he leads his heroine, Fantine, from one sticky situation to another. Try to read with your fingers covering your eyes, hoping to shield your eyes from the nonstop action, violence, and mayhem as the reader cranks along to an inevitable, satisfying climax.”

“Imagine an oversexed-on-speed remake of Big Trouble in Little China as told by the Krays, or maybe a club-kid update of Jim Thompson’s The Alcoholics , and you still don’t come anywhere near the depravity, perversion, and holy mind fuck of this latest offering by Angel Colón. No Happy Endings takes the time-tested trope of retired robber on a final heist, and with more double crosses than Jesus after a three-day bender, delivers one of the most weirdly original, satisfying, and unexpected capers of the year.”

“ No Happy Endings is a trip of a book. Right from the first sentence, you know you’ve entered Colón’s world of dark humor and interesting positions. This is tale of Fantine Park, a young safe cracker who gets mixed up in one bizarre New York situation — sperm bank fraud, if that’s what you call it. With Colón’s popping wry prose, No Happy Endings moves at a breakneck pace, is fabulously entertaining, and has one of the best female leads you’ll read in a long time.”

“Deftly mixing a delightfully twisted premise with deliciously dark humor and an authentic emotional core, No Happy Endings firmly positions Angel Luis Colón as a top voice in the new generation of crime fiction writers. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.”

“Not only does No Happy Endings deliver on the outrageous premise, Angel Colón somehow manages to make it absolutely plausible. A true page-turner packed with colorful characters, biting one-liners and some of the most repulsive murder scenes a twisted mind could conjure.”

“This is a heist book like no other, perfectly captured by Colón’s intense, no-frills style. Loaded with dark humor, tightly-choreographed action and a memorable protagonist in Fantine Park, No Happy Endings hits hard, with a jaw-breaking impact that won’t fade overnight.”

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Copyright © 2016 by Angel Luis Colón

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by James R. Tuck