Lou Berney - November Road

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

First published in the United States by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © Lou Berney 2018

Lou Berney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Rae Russel/Getty Images (front), Shutterstock.com(back)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts 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 e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008309329

Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008309367

Version: 2018-08-29

For Adam, Jake, and Sam

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1963

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

2003

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Read on for an exclusive Q&A …

About the Author

Also by Lou Berney

About the Publisher

Behold! The Big Easy in all its wicked splendor!

Frank Guidry paused at the corner of Toulouse to bask in the neon furnace glow. He’d lived in New Orleans the better part of his thirty-seven years on earth, but the dirty glitter and sizzle of the French Quarter still hit his bloodstream like a drug. Yokels and locals, muggers and hustlers, fire-eaters and magicians. A go-go girl was draped over the wrought-iron rail of a second-floor balcony, one boob sprung free from her sequined negligee and swaying like a metronome to the beat of the jazz trio inside. Bass, drums, piano, tearing through “Night and Day.” But that was New Orleans for you. Even the worst band in the crummiest clip joint in the city could swing, man, swing.

A guy came whipping up the street, screaming bloody murder. Hot on his heels—a woman waving a butcher knife, screaming, too.

Guidry soft-shoed out of their way. The beat cop on the corner yawned. The juggler outside the 500 Club didn’t drop a ball. Just another Wednesday night on Bourbon Street.

“Come on, fellas!” The go-go girl on the balcony wagged her boob at a pair of drunken sailors. They stood swaying on the curb, watching their pal puke into the gutter. “Be a gent and buy a lady a drink!”

The sailors leered up at her. “How much?”

“How much you got?”

Guidry smiled. And so the world spins round. The go-go girl had black velvet kitten ears pinned to her bouffant and false eyelashes so long that Guidry didn’t know how she could see through them. Maybe that was the point.

He turned onto Bienville, easing through the crowd. He wore a gray-on-gray nailhead suit the color of wet asphalt, cut from a lightweight wool-silk blend that his tailor ordered in special from Italy. White shirt, crimson tie. No hat. If the president of the United States didn’t need a hat, then neither did Guidry.

A right on Royal. The bellhop at the Monteleone scrambled to open the door for him. “How’s tricks, Mr. Guidry?”

“Well, Tommy, I’ll tell you,” Guidry said. “I’m too old to learn any new ones, but the old ones still work just fine.”

The Carousel Bar was popping, as usual. Guidry said hello hello hello how’re you how’re you as he worked his way across the room. He shook hands and slapped backs and asked Fat Phil Lorenzo if he’d eaten dinner or just the waiter who brought it. That got a laugh. One of the boys who worked for Sam Saia hooked an arm around Guidry’s neck and whispered in his ear.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Then talk we shall,” Guidry said.

The table in the back corner. Guidry liked the view. One of life’s enduring truths: If something was after you, you wanted to see it coming first.

A waitress brought him a double Macallan, rocks on the side. Sam Saia’s boy started talking. Guidry sipped his drink and watched the action in the room. The men working the girls, the girls working the men. Smiles and lies and glances veiled by smoke. A hand sliding up under the hem of a dress, lips brushing against an ear. Guidry loved it. Everyone here looking for an angle to work, a tender spot.