Richard Kadrey - The Getaway God

Harper Voyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2014

Copyright © Richard Kadrey 2014

Cover Illustration © Crushed Creative ( www.crushed.co.uk)

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

Richard Kadrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007446087

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007446094

Version: 2017-11-14

This book was finished on William S. Burroughs’s one-hundredth birthday. This one is for you, Bill.

They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste.

—CORMAC MCCARTHY, THE ROAD

“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only to-day I happen to have a headache.”

—LEWIS CARROLL, THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste. —CORMAC MCCARTHY, THE ROAD “I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only to-day I happen to have a headache.” —LEWIS CARROLL, THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Richard Kadrey

About the Publisher

YOU’D THINK THE end of the world would be exciting, but this apocalypse is about as much fun as dental surgery.

Take the current situation. Sitting at a dead stop in traffic, as lively as a stone angel over a tomb. Not one car has moved in ten minutes. It’s bumper to bumper on Sunset Boulevard, which is nothing new, but this kind of traffic is 24/7 these days, as it seems like half the city is hightailing it out of Dodge all at once. And the rain. It’s been coming down nonstop for two weeks. It’s like L.A. lost a bet with God and the old bastard is pissing his Happy Hour whiskey all over the city. Which, when you get down to it, isn’t far from the truth. This isn’t how I figured I’d ring in the apocalypse.

“Any time now, Jeff Gordon,” says Candy from the passenger seat. “I thought this was supposed to be a car chase.”

“By current L.A. standards, this is a car chase.”

“Current L.A. seriously blows. And I think my boots are starting to grow gills.”

We’re in an Escalade I stole in Westwood. I hate these showboats, but it can handle the flooded streets and gets me high enough over the other cars that I can keep an eye on a cherry black ’69 Charger up ahead. There’s a guy inside that U.S. Marshal Wells, grand high shitbird boss of the Golden Vigil, wants to talk to.

“I should go up there, rip the fucker’s door off, and stuff him in the back of the van.”

“And you could take a brass band so no one misses the show. Your boss would love that.”

“He wants discreet, but he knows I’m not good at discreet. I swear he did this to me on purpose.”

I reach for the Maledictions in my coat pocket. Drop them and the lighter on the floor on Candy’s side. She picks them up and taps out a cigarette.

“Marshal Wells is a man of God,” says Candy, grinning. “He only has your best interests at heart.”