David J. Schow - Gun Work

Acclaim For the Work of

DAVID J. SCHOW!

Smart, scathing, and verbally inventive to an astonishing degree, David J. Schow [is] one of the most interesting writers of his generation.

Peter Straub

Take no prisoners fiction that rarely pulls away from the grisly heart of the matter, Schows prose is extremely cinematic, filled with pungent dialogue, sharp, memorable characters, and a sense of macabre irony worthy of Alfred Hitchcock.

San Francisco Chronicle

[A] sinuous psychological thriller... Schow works suspenseful sleight-of-hand with his story... His kinetic orchestration of events [and] vivid hardboiled prose push the plot to a thunderclap climax that... is a measure of coolly calculated audacity.

Publishers Weekly

Evocatively described and expertly paced... Schow cranks up the tension effortlessly and artfully. Reading the novel is akin to being slipped a mickey... a wonderful treat.

The Agony Column

Edgy, insightful, and fearless.

Joe R. Lansdale

David Schow writes with a lethal beauty.

Robert R. McCammon

A highly original, boldly conceived psychological thriller observed with the rapt eye and assassins sting of the artist as fer-de-lance...[Im] a major fan of Davids work.

John Farris

A jagged nightmare spiked with charm, melancholy and vicious intelligence. Dont accept this novels invitation to party unless youre prepared to be dragged to some very dark places and to love every step of the way. Like being punched in the face by a poet.

Michael Marshall Smith

Schow is so fine a writer, so imaginative a storyteller, that he deserves a place in all contemporary fiction collections.

Library Journal

Very much in the groove of Thomas Harris.

Twilight Zone

David J. Schow is a master of the art of giving the plot an unexpected wrinkle.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

There is poignancy everywhere in his talent, amid the exquisite threat.

Richard Christian Matheson

Creepy and fascinating.

Booklist

Its raw, its rough, and its not for wimps... A damn fine book.

Afraid

The night came alive with auto weapons fire.

What the hell are you doing Carl hollered.

Shut up. Get in the back. Head down.

Lacquer chips jumped from the hood of the Town Car as a fusillade of nine-millimeter slugs flattened into the windshield, making starbursts, rude impact hits without the attendant cacophony of gunfire.

Triangulating, Barney figured four shooters, three of them the guys after the bag. One grabbed and they all scattered two seconds before the limo came to a dust-choked halt near the natural stone foundation.

Barney already had the Army .45 in his hand.

As the car stopped he chocked his door open with his foot and stayed low, popping two rounds and dropping the runner with the bag, who was not shooting. The bag was scooped by another runner who fired back Uzis, from the sound and cycle rate. Barney ducked the incoming angry metal bees, mostly discharged unaimed, panic fire, gangsta showoff.

The brake was up and the limo began a slow roll toward the bridge. This was intentional. Barney crabwalked alongside, scanning around for the bonus shooter, who expectedly rose from the crest of the bridge and began shooting downward, ineffectually. Barney put a triple-tap in his general direction to keep him down, under cover.

The right front wheel stopped against the outstretched leg of the first guy to grab the bag.

Now, Barney shouted at Carl. Drag that sonofabitch in here...

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THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

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SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

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KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust

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THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin

SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald E. Westlake

NO HOUSE LIMIT by Steve Fisher

BABY MOLL by John Farris

THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

THE FIRST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

byDavid J. Schow

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-049)

First Hard Case Crime edition: November 2008

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright 2008 by David J. Schow

Cover painting copyright 2008 by Joe DeVito

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-326-7

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-767-8

Cover design by Cooley Design Lab

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

The name Hard Case Crime and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

How Barney came to occupy a room on the wrong side of management in a hostage hotel deep inside Mexico City had to do with his friend Carl Ledbetter and one of those scary phone calls that come not always in the middle of the night, but whenever you are most asleep and foggy.

This is Carl, goddammit, Carl, are you there? Is that you, man? Its you, right? Hiss, crackle. Look, I dont have my cards, I dont have my ID, I dont have my passport, all I have is one of these shitty phone cards that runs out of time, they took Erica, they got her, man, grabbed her ass right out from under me, I havent got a piss to pot, I mean a pot to piss in

Carl, slow down; Im not even awake...

The phone pad glowed at Barney while his slowly surfacing brain tried to process information. Anonymous Caller.

Carl Ledbetter worked for a specialty imprint of a New York publishing house that had recently been inspired to cherry-pick non-American talent, in this case, genre novelists science fiction, detective, horror and romance writers and provide the best of their work in translation to US paperback audiences. Erica, whom Barney had never met, was thumbnailed by Carl as a swoony bit of red-headed business working as an editorial assistant at Curve magazine. They had met at an American Booksellers Association conference, struck sparks, fell in love, cohabitated, and had recently begun referring to each other as fianc and fiance.