Chasing China White

by Allan Leverone

  He thought Derek would be happy to know he’d played a critical role in saving his brother’s marriage, even if it had been unintentional on his part and accomplished in the most horrifying of ways.

  He had to think so. Had to believe Derek’s pain-filled life and death—and the damage his brother did, the people he hurt and the ones he killed—had resulted in something positive and good, even if it was something as minor in the grand scheme of things as refocusing his brother on what was important in his own life.

  Because otherwise, what the hell did any of it mean?

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In the spring of 2011 I read a novella by Tom Piccirilli titled Every Shallow Cut. It was dark and gritty, a noir/crime piece written by an author I already greatly admired for the consistently high quality of his work.

  But this was different. This was something special. In a review on Amazon I called Every Shallow Cut “a noir masterpiece…a red and raw nerve that will punch you in the head and keep smacking you until you look straight into the eyes of your own fears and insecurities. It’s the best thing I’ve read this year.”

  I really missed the mark with that review, because Piccirilii’s novella was more than the best thing I read in 2011. It was one of the best things I’ve ever read, maybe THE best. For years it’s haunted me. When I finished reading it, I vowed I would eventually write something that might come close to matching the emotional impact Piccirilii’s work had on me.

  Chasing China White is that story. I may not quite reach the razor’s edge Piccirilli walked in his novella—it’s tough to equal perfection—but if I didn’t get there it’s not for lack of trying. I tell myself he would have enjoyed the story and appreciated the effort, but there’s no way to ever know, since Tom Piccirilli died much too young in the summer of 2015.

  I don’t often encourage people to put down my work. It’s damned hard to attract readers, and I look at each one as a precious gift, a valuable opportunity to entertain someone for a little while and maybe at the same time earn a loyal fan.

  But let this be the exception. If you’ve never read Every Shallow Cut, or aren’t familiar with the work of the man who inspired Chasing China White, do yourself a favor. Go buy it and read it.

  Then you’ll understand.

  I started work on my first novel in the fall of 2006, with no idea what I was getting into and no clue whether I would even be able to finish it. In the thirteen years since, I’ve written twenty novels and five novellas, as well as countless short stories, and through it all, one person has stood behind me.

  Whether things are going well or poorly—and there have been plenty of both situations in my writing career—Sue Leverone has been a source of encouragement and support. If she has any doubts in my ability as a writer, they’ve never crossed her lips.

  My wife believes in me more than I ever have, and I owe her more than I can ever say.

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  ALLAN LEVERONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty novels, four novellas and countless short stories. A former winner of the prestigious Derringer Award for excellence in short mystery fiction, he lives in Londonderry, New Hampshire with his wife of thirty-five years, three grown children and three beautiful grandchildren. He loves to hear from readers; connect on Facebook, Twitter @AllanLeverone, and at AllanLeverone.com.

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  BOOKS BY ALLAN LEVERONE

  The Paskagankee Series

  Paskagankee

  Revenant

  Wellspring

  Grimoire

  The Tracie Tanner Thrillers

  Parallax View

  All Enemies

  The Omega Connection

  The Hitler Deception

  The Kremlyov Infection

  The Bashkir Extraction

  The Soviet Assassin

  The Midnight Series

  Mr. Midnight

  After Midnight

  The Jack Sheridan Pulp Thrillers

  The Organization

  Trigger Warning

  Death Perception

  Dead Reckoning

  Novels

  Final Vector

  Darkness Falls

  The Lonely Mile

  Heartless

  Covenant

  The Lupin Project

  Novellas

  The Becoming

  Chasing China White

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  Here is a preview from 40 Nickels, the second Carnegie Fitch Mystery Fiasco by R. Daniel Lester, published by Shotgun Honey, an imprint of Down & Out Books.

  Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.

  Before: Toronto, Ontario, 1956

  1

  The punch knocked the wind out of me good, a fist right in the breadbasket. I coughed. I wheezed. I sucked air that wasn’t there. Then I coughed some more. It was half real and half comedy bit, a little show for the barflies to give me time to recover. Plan my next move. Running away very fast was probably my best option, considering the big oaf didn’t seem bothered at all by the barstool I’d cracked over his back. But he was well into a full-on drunk with no signs of stopping until he crossed the finish line so that may have had something to do with it.

  Booze logic. The body forgets to feel pain.

  I didn’t have the luxury because I was practically sober. Spent my last dime on a glass of beer at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern, corner of King and Bathurst, one I was planning to nurse for a good long while. That is, until the large fella something degrading about my hat. And then I said something about his mother and voices were raised and that’s when I hit him with the barstool. Best to end a fight before it begins being a personal credo. But it only seemed to rile him up more. I blamed the barstool—lousy, cheap manufacturing. Broke like kindling surrendering in front of a fire.

  He towered over me. “So, you got somethin’ you wanna say or do you want a knuckle sandwich for lunch?” When I didn’t respond right away, his work boot nudged me in the ribs.

  “Okay,” I said, “I shouldn’t have compared your mother to a bottom feeding sucker fish. I don’t even know the woman, I’m sure she’s lovely.”

  “Hmm. Apology accepted. Now, you wanna get up or lie on the floor some more?”

  I mulled it over. “I suppose I could give upright a shot.”

  He reached out a giant bear paw and helped pull me up. I stood, straightening up slowly to look him in the eye. No such luck. My gaze ended at his chin, even though I was no slouch in the height department. They built ‘em big where this one came from. And that was the problem with starting a fight when the other guy was sitting down—perspective.

  “You pack quite a wallop, fella,” I said, when the spots in front of my eyes stopped dancing jigs and disappeared.

  He nodded, smiled, and placed a tightly wrapped roll of nickels on the counter. “I had a little help.”

  “That’s nifty,” I said.

  “Always served me pretty well. Makes a point.”

  “That it does. Though I’m curious: you roll ‘em yourself or get ‘em from the bank already done?”

  “Oh, I roll ‘em myself. Figure it’s more meaningful that way.”

  “Sure, I can see that. You from around here?”

  “Nah. Passin’ through. Headed north to the Sudbury Basin, to work the mine.” So that explained all the beer. He was getting one last drunk in before tunneling to the Earth’s core to harvest its precious metals.

  “Probably for the best. Otherwise I don’t think there’d be enough barstools to go around. I’m Carnegie Fitch. But most people just call me Fitch.”

  “I’m Wendell.”

  We shook hands like proper gentlemen, despite our deficiencies of character.

  “Not such a pleasure to meet you, Wendell, but I suppose I had it coming. So, what do you mine up there, anyway?”
r />   “Nickel and copper, mostly.”

  “Wait a minute, you mine for nickel and carry a roll of nickels? Your commitment to character in this human play called ‘Life’ is worthy of admiration and praise. You’re a true artiste. So much that I’d like to offer you a beer for your efforts. Bartender, a drink for my new friend here.” I patted my pockets exaggeratedly. I could do some performance art, too. “But oh yeah, my wallet’s a graveyard until payday.” The bartender stopped pouring.

  Wendell laughed, a loud, hollow sound. “You’re a funny guy, Fitch. How ‘bout I buy you a beer?”

  The bartender finished pouring and placed the beer in front of me, shaking his head in distain. He had no flair for the dramatic, I suppose, no appreciation for the arts. Regardless, it was the fastest beer I ever drank. One big gulp. Wendell was impressed and even offered to spring for another. Every drunk loved a drinking buddy. This time around, I declined. I wanted out of there. I needed air. And, frankly, an escape route. So, I wished him good luck with the mine and said to make friends with a canary. The remark shot over his head even as tall as he was and all I got back for my razor-sharp wit was a blank stare. Fair enough. Brains and brawn didn’t necessarily have to travel on the same ticket.

  When the door to the tavern shut behind me, I didn’t exactly run but I didn’t dilly-dally either. I fast walked down Bathurst to the end of the block, crossed the street, hopped a fence and cut across a deserted lot where only the crabgrass and broken bottles lay, seeking the safety of a network of alleys and back routes leading to the collection of tar paper shacks and hobo tents I called home sweet home. I climbed out the other side of the lot, stopped and put my back against the nearest wall, peering around the corner of the brick building. Nothing to see. So I seemed to be in the clear: no sign of an irate Wendell looking for the asshole that ripped him off for two bucks worth of nickels. Fat city.

  The nickels still felt warm from the palm of his sucker punch hand. I dropped the roll in my shirt pocket and began to whistle. No bird song, but as I’d recently graduated from forcing air between pursed lips only to get nothing but a “pfft” sound I enjoyed the few notes I was able to produce. I’d gone into the bar to drink away my last dimes and ended up making two bucks, even if it wasn’t completely on the up and up. But neither was slugging a guy in the gut with a roll of nickels.

  My “this day really turned itself around” feeling lasted about thirty seconds. Because that was when I heard it: the whistling. Not like my whistling, no, of course not. That wouldn’t do. Not for him. He could whistle like a cat could meow. And then there he was, casually leaning in the alcove of a warehouse doorway up the alley from me. Hopping down, still whistling, and approaching with a wolf-like gait, a predator’s lope. Only a sniff of prey. Not hunting, not yet. The whistling stopped. He smiled big.

  “Mr. Carnegie Fitch, old buddy, old pal, fate has seen fit to once again intertwine our paths,” he said, opening his arms like we were long lost friends. Only we were neither.

  “Hey, Janssen,” I said.

  Copernicus Janssen was his handle, the defrocked dentist from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He’d also, apparently, spent some time in Kingston because some of the Ontario guys called him the “Kingston Kook,” though not to his face. Back east, on the coast, story was he’d been chased out of town for being more interested getting blitzed on his own laughing gas supply, especially while patients were in the chair with their pie-holes hanging open. And he’d get his fingers all in their mouths and then begin one of his fiery longwinded rants about whatever was bothering him that day. The man could lay down the ol’ talky talk, no doubt. Plus, he could forge a hell of a scrip and knew the good drugs so a lot of my fellow drifters really liked to have him around. Bennies and devils never did it for me—I was more a caffeine and whisky kind of guy.

  Janssen got right up to me, like he was apt to do, a professional invader of personal spaces. A few hairs shorter than me, he looked up and grabbed me around the shoulders and kneaded the flesh with powerful fingers in what was probably supposed to be a comforting embrace. It wasn’t. Also jarring was his breath. Here we were, living on the edge, in the muck, and he had the nerve to have fresh breath. But it was disturbingly fresh, a cloying peppermint scent that practically seared the inside of my nostrils.

  “A splendid morning brings splendid company. Smell that beautiful air, my dear Fitch. Why, there’s a butterfly! Good day to you, too!” He removed his hands from my shoulders and crossed one over the other at the thumbs and mimicked a flying butterfly. Same with his breath, no matter how low down he got, and he’d been burrowing down into the soil for several years now, his fingernails were always in perfect condition. Not a hangnail or a dirty, unclipped pinky among them.

  “What do you want, Janssen?”

  “Want? What should I want, other than to take in this fine morning air, walk this fine Earth and pass the time with fine conversation?”

  Right. It was Janssen’s world and we were all the players, the saps, the dumb rubes to his slick carny. And “fine conversation” always meant “captive audience for my lengthy, spirited diatribe about the blah blah blah and did I tell you about the blah blah blah.” “Uh, no thanks,” I said. “Gotta go.”

  “Excellent, I understand completely. Places to go and people to see.”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  “But it is such a fine morning so why don’t I walk with you?” Janssen was determined not to take a hint. I shrugged and walked on. He kept pace. A few weeks back, he’d attached himself to me for a whole day, like a shadow in the desert sun and nowhere to find shade. “So exactly where are we going?”

  Bluff called, I had to produce. Think, Fitch, think. Okay, I knew how to scare him off. I put on my best serious face and said, “To look for a job.”

  He didn’t recoil in horror like I’d hoped. “Oh? I thought you’d already taken a position. Why, didn’t you storm out of camp a few days ago calling us all degenerate lowlifes and vowing to ‘start over,’ ‘get it right this time’ and ‘live a normal life?’”

  He had me there, I did. Every blue moon the shroud of have-a-career-get-a-bank-account-take-some-responsibility would settle over me and I’d comb the job ads for a suitable opening, vowing to clean up my act once and for all. And I had a gift of the gab when it suited me and could often talk myself up in an interview, enough to get the job anyway. Maintaining it was another thing altogether. Like this last job: office work, 9-5. Basically take paper from that place and move it there. Which was fine now-and-then but every day? And from now until retirement? No thanks.

  “I’m taking personal leave,” I said.

  “Their loss, I’m sure,” said Janssen with a knowing grin.

  “Undoubtedly,” I said, firing a knowing grin back. “But let’s stop agreeing, we might get wrinkles from all the smiling.”

  “Couldn’t agree more, good sir, couldn’t agree more.”

  Leave it to Janssen to have to win on a word count, too. He repeated everything. Probably thought it was folksy and inspired trust. Personally, it made me want to throw up but every mark had a different threshold. Because, yes, as it turned out, I was to be the mark that morning, painted with a big bullseye and ripe for the targeting despite my defensive strategy.

  “Say, didn’t you use to sell encyclopedias while putting yourself through cavity college?” It irked Janssen like nothing else did if you didn’t wrap his former profession up in fancy cloths and place it on a golden altar and then bow down in front of it with the appropriate deference. So I made sure to do exactly that whenever possible.

  “Well, I learned a sight more than how to fill cavities, let me tell you, Mr. Fitch, but, yes, I did spend several years flogging my volumes of wordy wares, educating the masses to all the wonders the world has to share.”

  Jeez, a simple “yeah” was never enough for this guy. But I felt the position of the conversational sun changing. If I could get a tall building between it and me, g
et Janssen onto someone or something else, I might have a chance of losing my annoying shadow. A Janssen distracted was a Janssen disappeared.

  “Must’ve been tough,” I said.

  Janssen nodded. “There was many a day where my feet were worse for wear. The dogs were barking, as they say.”

  “Nah, for your mind.”

  He cocked his head and frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “There you were tryin’ to fund your way though rotten molar school amongst all them preppy rich kids and you had to bring a knife to a gun battle to survive.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Books, Janssen. Who reads anymore? It’s all about the almighty glow of the television screen. You show up at their house, what were most of them doin’? Watching TV, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Sure, maybe an average Joe buys a set of A-Zs to look important but does he actually read them, when the screen can tell him everything he needs to know? TV is the new religion, mark my words.”

  As we reached the end of the alley, I hope it’d mean we reached the end of the conversation. I got lucky. All of a sudden, Janssen had itchy feet, had to get going. He remembered he had irons in the fire and off he went, whistling a merry tune. Which was reason for me to whistle, too, and I gave my pathetic song a whirl before stopping mid-pfft. Wait a—

  No.

  No.

  It couldn’t be.

  I patted all my pockets.

  Oh, it be.

  Janssen, the rotten scoundrel, had lifted my 40 nickels.

  Click here to learn more about 40 Nickels by R. Daniel Lester.