Lee Child - First Thrills

And their lips came together.

She tasted like almonds.

JOHN LESCROARTis a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one novels, including most recently Treasure Hunt, which is the third book in the San Francisco-based Wyatt Hunt series. His books have been translated into seventeen languages in more than seventy-five countries, and his short stories have been included in many anthologies.

His first novel, Sunburn, won the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Award for best novel by a California author, and Dead Irish and The 13th Juror were nominees for the Shamus and Anthony Best Mystery Novel, respectively. Guilt was a Reader’s Digest Select Edition choice, and The Suspect, chosen by the American Author’s Association as its 2007 Novel of the Year, was also the 2007 One Book Sacramento choice of the Sacramento Library Foundation.

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B arelya year into his sentence-ninety-nine moons for felony skullduggery and aggravated bloodletting-Frank Pounder’s barrister gets wind of an impending shit storm in Newcastle CID. Detective Inspector Dale Dingus is about to be brought up on charges for falsifying evidence in a connivance and brigandage case he’s been chasing alongside the Crown Bureau of Revelation and Arrest since before dirt. Not too bright, our boy Dingus. Suddenly his cases going back five years are getting a fresh look, and the Crabs are none too happy about it.

I can’t say as I blame them, but unlike the linear thinkers in the Bureau, I have a knack for sniffing out openings in the misfortune of others. I’m already noodling the angles before a whiff of the Dingus travail goes public, even before Frank’s shark moves for dismissal. The prosecuting magistrate knows no way Frank gets convicted in a retrial without Dingus’s tainted evidence, so the legal wranglings don’t figure to take long. Frank expects to be sprung in time to see his unborn baby mapped via UltraSound, and he spares no breath bragging about how he’ll be on hand to learn whether his offspring is a pointer or a setter.

But don’t get the idea Frank is some kind of sentimental doily muncher. Trust me, the man’s a black-hearted ogre with a chest like a beer keg and fists of seasoned oak who runs everything from Newcastle Deeps to the slopes of the West Hills, even from gaol. Kingpin of Felony Flats, territory he took by force from Old Man Miller himself. Ended up with Miller’s daughter too, a double-handful of hell named Dahlia with the personality of a wolverine and a body that looks like it was molded from the finest grade ballistic gel. That Frank’s looking forward to progeny is evidence of little more than his well-earned reputation for getting what he wants and then some.

Sure, he’s had his setbacks, getting pinched by Dingus in the first place not the least of them. Then, when he arrived at Little Liver Creek Penitentiary full of grandiose plans of conquest, the ruling camarilla, the Incandito Banditos, let him know they took their notions of seniority plenty serious. In the course of ensuing combat operations, some unidentified miscreant stuck a sharpened toothbrush between Frank’s ribs one night right before lockdown.

But Frank survives-no surprise to anyone who knows him. The surprise is that during his recovery, he experiences what your more educated types call an epiphany. Life is a tenuous, fragile thing that could end any time: shiv, heart failure, meteor ricochet off the moon. That’s when he makes his plans for immortality via reproduction, with Dahlia Miller anointed brood mare.

Only problem is there’s no place to breed in the gaol commons, and the warden’s a hard case. No conjugal visits, period. Bastard was immune to bribes too, some kind of miter hat with an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong. But if the warden is a stone, guards are made of squishier stuff. Frank arranges to smuggle his squirt out in a plastic cup so Dahlia can take it to some high-priced, honeypot medico over on the west side. Doc Ciconi is as good as they come in the field of procreation at a distance. Once the good doctor performs his magic, Frank can look forward to a little tucker waiting for him at the ass end of the slam. In the meantime Dahlia has something to keep her busy. Too busy to screw around, Frank figures. Clever plan, you ask me, except for the part where it doesn’t work for shit.

People tell me I know too much about this crap, that the way I stick my nose into things is gonna get it cut off. I figure a man has to make a living somehow. In the realm of criminal endeavor, I’m what you might call a knowledge worker. A dangerous business to be sure, especially since when presented with foreknowledge of Frank Pounder’s unscheduled early release, I do something only the first little pig would do. I nail his girl.

Even from prison, Frank means to keep Dahlia on a short leash, but she’s not some compliant lap dog. Before she knew Frank she was a busy girl: stripper, high-priced call girl, roller derby queen. With him behind bars she figures she’s got some elbow room. Her only problem is one of coinage. The allowance he provides isn’t enough for her live in the style to which she’s accustomed.

I catch up with her not long after Frank got shivved. She’s standing at one end of the rail at the High Tail Inn, the titty bar in the Flats. Typical joint. Central catwalk, three poles, smoke-dimmed stage lights on the ceiling. Twenty, thirty horn dogs nursing pickling gin or industrial beer and staring slack-jawed at the jiggling silicone on stage. Vinyl booths that smell of diluted pine cleaner in the back for private dances. Dahlia is arguing with Biff Steele, the joint’s own er of record. She got her start right there on that stage, and she wants another run. Just a few nights shaking her rubber boobs for sweat-drenched tips, little something to buff the bank account. Biff wants nothing to do with it. Being the owner of record doesn’t count for much when Frank Pounder is the owner of benefit.

“No way, Dahlia. Frank’d feed me my nuts.”

“Don’t be a pussy, Biff. I need money.”

“You wanna drink, I’ll set you up from the top shelf. But I ain’t going against Frank, no matter that he’s up to Little Liver.”

Top shelf at the High Tail is barrel scrapings most anywhere else. Pissed, Dahlia spins and stalks off. Even angry, she’s worth a second look. A floor-to-ceiling beauty, just enough curves, blond hair from an expensive bottle and indigo eyes from Aphrodite’s paintbrush. I watch her take up a post at the other end of the bar and yell for a bottle of champagne. Biff winces. He’s going to have to order in.

Given a choice, most folks would take sliding down a razor blade into a vat of alcohol over crossing Frank Pounder. I choose to sidle up to her, nudge her ass. “Hey, baby. Sounds like you got a problem. Maybe I can help you out.”

She looks me up and down like she’s inspecting road kill. “I’m way outa your price range, pipsqueak.”

Dahlia Miller can have her pick if looks are all she’s after. Tall, dark, and handsome I’m not. But I have something your typical boy toy can’t offer.

“You’d be surprised at my price range.” I lean back, show her the round edge of a roll of green in my pocket. “It might be even bigger, but Frank lived through the shank…”

Her indigo eyes flash. I have her attention. Dahlia Miller might be Frank’s plaything, but it’s no secret the two have a volatile relationship built on a foundation of antagonism. Everyone knows she was basically a peace offering from Miller so Frank would let the old man keep his book after he lost the war for control of Felony Flats.