Michael Connelly - Void Moon

VOID MOON

Michael Connelly

PRAISE FOR MICHAEL CONNELLY AND VOID MOON

VOID MOON offers readers a full house of entertainment. Bet on it.... Cassie is damaged but tough and resilienta wonderfully engaging character. Jack Karch, the pit bull, is not only a chilling sicko, but also an incredibly skilled investigator. Casino boss Victor Grimaldi is spectacularly reptilian. Lesser characters are very finely drawn, too. Connelly really does his homework: Cassie's criminal tradecraftand the casinos security systemswill fascinate crime fans. And the pacing of this thriller is as good as you'll find in the genre.

Booklist

Michael Connelly is one of those masters... who can keep driving the story forward in runaway locomotive style.

USA Today

Recalls no one so much as Raymond Chandler... ambitious, skillful, moving, intricate and clever.

Los Angeles Times

[Michael Connelly] is raising the hard-boiled detective novel to a new level... adding substance and depth to modern crime fiction.

Boston Globe

In VOID MOON, as in all of Michael Connellys books, you care about the people, you care what happens to them, and you cant stop reading until you find out. Connelly is so good hes beginning to annoy me.

Robert B. Parker, author of Hugger Mugger

An elegant, insightful writer.

Newsweek

Michael Connelly is in the elite handful of contemporary authors creating first-rate hard-boiled detective novels.

Denver Post

Among the many writers who have employed the City of Angels as their backdrop, no one has captured its corrupt yet compelling ambience better than Michael Connelly... brings to life fallible human beings.

San Diego Union-Tribune

Connelly is one of the best of the new breed of thriller writers.

San Francisco Examiner

A first-rate purveyor of crime fiction... Connelly has developed into a master of character studies.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Connelly elevates the police procedural to a higher standard and moves to the top of the class of contemporary crime writers.

Playboy

Connelly is the reigning champ of the Los Angeles crime novel.... He makes the city and its tensions so palpable that the reader comes away convinced that when it comes to crime, L.A. is still the king.

American Way

Powerful storytelling and writing skills.

Houston Chronicle

ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY

The Black Echo

The Black Ice

The Concrete Blonde

The Last Coyote

The Poet

Trunk Music

Blood Work

Angels Flight

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.

VOID MOON . Copyright 2000 by Hieronymus,Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this 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.

Warner Vision is a registered trademark of Warner Books.

Lyrics from Lake Charles by Lucinda Williams copyright 1998 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. Lucy Jones Music/Nomad-Noman Music (BMI).

For information address Warner Books, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

A Time Warner Company

ISBN 0-7595-8073-1

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2000 by Little, Brown & Co.

First eBook edition: January 2001

Visit our Web site at www.iPublish.com

TO LINDA, FOR THE FIRST FIFTEEN

VOID MOON

All around them the cacophony of greed carried on in its most glorious and extreme excess. But it couldnt make a dent in their world.

She broke the connection between their eyes just long enough to look down and find her glass and then raise it from the table. It was empty except for ice and a cherry but that didnt matter. He raised his glass in return, maybe one swallow of beer and foam left in it.

To the end, she said.

He smiled and nodded. He loved her and she knew it.

To the end, he began and then paused. To the place where the desert is ocean.

She smiled back as they touched glasses. She raised hers to her lips and the cherry rolled into her mouth. She looked at him suggestively as he wiped the beer foam out of his mustache. She loved him. It was them against the whole fucking world and she liked their chances just fine.

Then her smile was gone as she thought about how she had played the whole thing wrong. How she should have known what his reaction would be, how he wouldnt let her go up. She should have waited until after it was over to tell him.

Max, she said, very serious now. Let me do it. I mean it. One last time.

No way. Its me. I go up.

There was a whoop from the casino floor and it was loud enough to break the barrier surrounding them. She looked out and saw some ten-gallon Texan dancing at the end of one of the craps tables, just below the pulpit that reached out over the casino floor. The Texan had his dial-a-date at his side, a woman with big hair who had been working the casinos since all the way back when Cassie was dealing at the Trop for the first time.

Cassie looked back at Max.

I cant wait until were out of this place for good. Let me at least flip you for it.

Max slowly shook his head.

Not in the cards. This ones mine.

Max stood up then and she looked up at him. He was handsome and dark. She liked the little scar under his chin, the way no whiskers ever grew there.

Guess its time, Max said.

He looked out across the casino, his eyes scanning but never stopping and holding on anything until they traveled up the arm of the pulpit. Cassies eyes followed his. There was a man up there, dressed darkly and staring down like a priest on his congregation.

She tried to smile again but couldnt bring the corners of her mouth up. Something didnt feel right. It was the change of plans. The switch. She realized then how much she wanted to go up and how much she was going to miss the charge it would put in her blood. She knew then it was really about her, not Max. She wasnt being protective of Max. She was being selfish. She wanted that charge one last time.

Anything happens, Max said, Ill see you when I see you.

Now she frowned outright. That had never been part of the ritual, a good-bye like that. A negative like that.

Max, whats wrong? Why are you so nervous?

Max looked down at her and hiked his shoulders.

Cause its the end, I guess.

He tried a smile, then touched her cheek and leaned down. He kissed her on the cheek and then quickly moved over to her lips. He reached a hand down beneath the table where nobody could see and ran his finger up the inside of her leg, tracing the seam of her jeans. Then, without another word, he turned and left the lounge. He started walking through the casino toward the elevator alcove and she watched him go. He didnt look back. That was part of the ritual. You never looked back.

THE house on Lookout Mountain Road was set far in from the street and nestled against the steep canyon embankment to the rear. This afforded it a long and flat green lawn running from the wide front porch to the white picket fence that ran along the street line. It was unusual in Laurel Canyon to have such an immense lawn, front or back, and one so flat as well. It was that lawn that would be the key selling point of the property.

The open house had been advertised in the real estate section of the Times as starting at two P.M . and lasting until five. Cassie Black pulled to the curb ten minutes before the starting time and saw no cars in the driveway and no indication of any activity in the house. The white Volvo station wagon she knew belonged to the owners that was usually parked outside was gone. She couldnt tell about the other car, the black BMW, because the little single-car garage at the side of the house was closed. But she took the missing Volvo to mean that the owners of the home were out for the day and would not be present during the showing. This was fine. Cassie preferred they not be home. She wasnt sure how she would act if the family was right there in the house as she walked through it.