by Joe Gores
PRAISE FOR JOE GORES AND DEAD MAN
“Mr. Gores writes some of the hardest, smoothest, most lucid prose in the field.”
—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
“A roller-coaster ride of outrageous plot twists, vicious double-crosses and a gloriously violent, double-barreled finale.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“One of the edgiest, liveliest novels a thriller fan is ever likely to encounter.”
—Phoenix Gazette
“DEAD MAN is superb stuff, a ferocious man-on-the-run tale that’s top gear all the way.”
—Orange County Register
“A master.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“A tough, taut writer who views his subject matter unsparingly and unsentimentally.”
—Washington Post
“Pulls the rug out from under you with a professional snap. Together with Gores’s sublimely comic, and utterly different, 32 Cadillacs: a towering pair of back-to-back home runs.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Exciting . . . Gores is a first-rate crime writer—in the same league as Lawrence Block, whose awards would fill a room.”
—Houston Post
“This is one author who can write with a vengeance. DEAD MAN is suspenseful, and its violence is both frequent and gruesomely ingenious.”
—New York Mewsday
“Total action. . . . The conclusion is a real page turner.”
—Boston Sunday Globe
“A stunning climax. . . . Plenty of plot twists, violence and sex…. An updated, slightly self-reflective, comic detective story with a hero both hard-boiled and sensitive, who finally recovers his soul.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Excitingly paced.”
—Atlanta Journal & Constitution
“Not since Hammett and Chandler has anyone written quite as well as Joe Gores.”
—Ross Thomas
“Gores has established himself securely as one of the best and most versatile authors of crime novels.”
—Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers
“A chilling tale… . The redemptive power of death permeates the action… . Gores tells his original story in an original way.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“Reading Joe Gores’s novel is like wrestling a bull bare-handed… . You succumb to the brute force of his writing.”
—Charlotte Observer
“A marvelous writer.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Plot twists and turns and a shocking surprise ending… . This is a terrific book. The characters are colorful, exciting, and real.”
—I love a Mystery Newsletter
“Gores has mastered the hard-boiled Hammett irony… Taut, colorful, stylistically convincing, and satisfyingly complex.”
—Detroit Sunday News
“One of the very few authentic private eyes to enter the field of fiction since Dashiell Hammett.”
—Anthony Boucher
Books by Joe Gores
NOVELS
A Time of Predators (1969)
Interface (1974)
Hammett(1975)
Come Morning (1986)
Wolf Time (1989)
Dead Man (1993)*
DKA FILE NOVELS
Dead Skip (1972)*
Final Notice (1973)*
Gone, No Forwarding (1978)*
32 Cadillacs (1992)*
*Published by
THE MYSTERIOUS PRESS
Copyright
Grateful acknowledgment is given to quote from the song “I Am a Rock” by Paul Simon.
Copyright © 1965 by Paul Simon. Used by permission of the publisher.
Enjoy lively book discussions online with CompuServe. To become a member of CompuServe call 1-800-848-8199 and ask for the Time Warner Trade Publishing forum. (Current members GO:TWEP.)
MYSTERIOUS PRESS EDITION
Copyright © 1993 by Joe Gores
All rights reserved.
The Mysterious Press name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56834-0
For my beloved
DORI
who walked through snakes
so I could get it right
and in memory of
SHENZIE
I am a rock, I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain,
And an island never cries.
Paul Simon
No man is an island, entire of
itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part
of the main.
John Donne
Contents
PRAISE FOR JOE GORES AND DEAD MAN
Books by Joe Gores
Copyright
I: EDDIE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
II: DAIN
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
III: VANGIE
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
IV: MR. DEATH
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
V: SHENZIE
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
DEAD MAN
I
EDDIE
Baghdad by the Bay
THE PRIMARY CLEAR LIGHT
SEEN AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH
O nobly-born, the time hath now come for thee to seek the Path. Thy breathing is about to cease. The Clear Light is like the void and cloudless sky. At this moment, know thou thyself; and abide in that state.
THE TIBETAN BOOKOF THE DEAD
1
Sherman Rare Books was a narrow elegant storefront across Post Street from the side entrance to the St. Francis Hotel. The steel gates padlocked shut in the recessed entryway at night were now, in midmorning, folded open for trade. The books were in locked breakfront hardwood cabinets; in recessed alcoves between them were original oil paintings. An unhurried place, sybaritic in its appointments, rugs, and furnishings, where the book was at least as important as its selling.
Eddie Dain sat on an antique Chippendale chair in a perfect lotus without even being aware of it. He was twenty-eight years old, with a strong, almost Sioux face and pale blue deep-set eyes, six-one, lean and springy, 140 pounds. A supple beanpole with a mind that had led Richard Feynman to write all over his papers while he was at Cal-Tech, arguing points with him. He wore a white cotton shirt, wash pants, running shoes, a windbreaker.
The phone spoke Marie’s voice into his ear. “R–Rlch.”
“K–Ktl,” Eddie said to the receiver.
Marie’s voice answered, “R–R2.”
To Eddie, she had always been this wondrous being who had entered his life at Cal-Tech, became his best friend, stupendous lover, then wife. Even now, after five years, he still went weak in the knees whenever he looked at her, still was always peeking up
her skirt or down her blouse like a horny teenager.
“Well?” she demanded.
“I’m thinking,” he said, the old Jack Benny radio line.
As he thought, he happily drummed his fingers on Doug Sherman’s antique oak desk, ignoring the endgame Sherman had laid out with yellowed-ivory chess pieces. He was still young enough and naive enough to treat everything in life as a game.
“R X P,” he told her finally.
Doug Sherman was at the little table behind the desk, his back to Eddie, removing the steaming paper cone from his Melitta coffee dripper. Sherman was tall, lean, fortyish, barbered to perfection, as elegant as the embossed endpapers of his antique books. Below a balding crown his narrow face was sad in repose, with beautiful eyes and sensitive lips. His suit was superb.
“How’s this one?” said Marie on the phone. “KP X R.”
“You’re kidding.” But then Eddie started to think about it. “You’re not kidding. Okay, R–Q1.”
Sherman turned to Eddie, said, “Coffee?”
Eddie shook his head without turning as Marie giggled in his ear, “R–Q1? Bad move, baby. P–K6.”
Sherman sat down in his swivel chair, leaned forward over the steaming cup, eyes half-shut as he savored the aroma. He sipped. He leaned back and sighed in perfect aesthetic comfort.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he told Eddie. “French Roast and Guatemalan blend. Superb in every respect.”
“So is Marie,” said Eddie, then into the phone, “R–B1.”
“What was that you said?” demanded Marie.
“R–B1.”
“No—something with me and superb in the same sentence.”
“Oh, that—I told Doug you were a superb cook but a lousy chess player.”
“Just for that, P X R–Qch.” There was laughter in her voice.
“Damn!” He made his final move a question. “Um… K X Q?”
“Gotcha, kiddo! R–RS. And you know what that means.”
Eddie laughed delightedly. “I fall upon my sword.”
“Since I’m a superb cook, I know I’ll see you for dinner.”
Eddie hung up, kissed a forefinger, touched it to the phone. Feeling Sherman’s eyes upon him, he grinned sheepishly.
“Now how about some coffee?” said Sherman.
“You know what I want. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Very beautiful, very old, very leather-bound. The Oxford Press First Edition that Alexandra Neel had bound in calf’s hide. I know it’s out there somewhere and I know you can find it. In a couple of weeks I’m renting a house on the beach out at Point Reyes for Marie’s birthday. Candles, flowers, soft lights—”
“And The Tibetan Book of the Dead. For her birthday.” Sherman shook his head, then chuckled. “His wife can read the juicy bits aloud to private eye Eddie Dain between stakeouts—”
“A lot of good my stakeout on Grimes did,” Eddie said ruefully. “He goes on board his boat at the St. Francis Yacht Club with me watching, and…” He threw his arms up and wide, exclaimed, “Fwoom! No more Grimes.”
“Or too much Grimes,” said Sherman ghoulishly. “All over everything. Everyone else believes gases accumulated in the engine compartment ignited when Grimes pushed the starter, but does Eddie the gumshoe? No. No accident for him. Eddie the gumshoe will pursue the evildoers to their lair—”
“Their corporate office, more likely.” Eddie grinned; it made him look eighteen instead of twenty-eight. He leaned across the desk. “I really want that book for Marie’s birthday.”
“Eddie, your Marie is very sweet, very bright, very gentle—but she’s also a certifiable New Age California nut. She’s into Tibetan Buddhism, she’s into T’ai Chi, she’s into Iyengar Yoga, she’s into—”
“—computer science and engineering, running the office now that I’m out in the field so much, raising our three-year-old son, beating me at chess, especially phone chess, and—”
“All right all right.” Sherman had his hands up, palms out, to stem the spate of words. “Rub it in. She beats you at chess, you beat me at chess, and I would give almost anything to master that boardless phone chess you two children play with such casual idiocy. She’s the most remarkable woman ever born, okay? But I’m not sure I can get that specific copy of The Tibetan Book of the Dead you want in the time you’re giving me.” He paused, indicated the chessboard on the desk. “Now this…”
But Eddie had caught sight of the seven-foot grandfather clock in a shadowed corner of the shop, masticating time with its slow pendulum jaw. He unfolded like a stork as he stood up.
“I’m due at Homicide in fifteen minutes.”
Sherman said seductively, “Gaprindishvili versus Kushner, Riga, nineteen seventy-two? She did fine ‘til she abandoned the Grunfeld Defense for the Nimzo-Indian, then Kushner…”
Eddie, on his way to the door, suddenly swerved, moved one of the black pieces as he went by the board.
“Kushner did that, obviously,” he said. “R–R6. Just as obviously, Gaprindishvili then had to resign.”
Sherman was studying the board with furious concentration. “Why resign? Why obviously? Why can’t she—”
“Work it out yourself.” He went across the thick Oriental carpet toward the door with DOUGLAS SHERMAN—RARE BOOKS backward on the glass in elegant script. He added, “Think Tibet.”
“All right, goddam you, you’ll have your Tibetan Book of the Dead,” Sherman called after him. “At full markup!”
But he was speaking to an empty room. He hesitated, tipped over the black king with a push of his finger, shook his head sadly, and poured himself another cup of that superb coffee.
* * *
In San Francisco, Inspector is a plainclothes grade between Detective and Lieutenant, equivalent perhaps to warrant officer in the army. Inspector Randy Solomon suggested to Eddie, “Have some of our coffee. It kills the AIDS virus.”
Homicide’s coffee, brewed in a filthy percolator beside the water cooler, was so horrible that cops from as far away as San Jose and Danville dreamed up things they had to “consult” with SFPD Homicide about, just to get a cup. If they survived it, went the legend, they could return home and sweep the streets clean of criminals because obviously they were men of steel: bullets and switchblades would bounce harmlessly off them.
“Doug Sherman told me SFPD has come up empty,” said Eddie.
“How does that guy find out everything so fast?” Solomon rumbled in mild irritation.
He was in shirt sleeves, very large, very well conditioned, an African-American the color of caffe latte, easily as tall as Eddie’s scrawny six-one but ninety pounds heavier, with none of it around his beltline. His voice was basso profundo, his laughter could rattle window glass. He had met Eddie on a handball court at the Y the previous year, they now played three days a week.
“Doug knows everybody, he’s a born gossip, women like him,” said Eddie. “People tell him things. The ultimate go-between.”
“Why the hell doesn’t he just stick to selling books?”
“Censorship,” said Eddie. “Police brutality. Fie on you.”
They went into one of the interview cubicles, glassed from the waist up: voices, phones, and rattling printers made conversation in the squadroom as difficult as resurrection. Randy sat down in a chrome and black plastic chair, sausage-thick brown fingers interlaced on his gut. He sighed.
“Anyway, Close and Bill on the Ronald Grimes case—not that it ever was a case except in our Sherlock’s pigheaded—”
“You’re wrong, Randy, my case is very much open. Ronald Grimes lived far too high for our post-junk-bonds era.”
Randy squirmed around so the snubnose Policeman’s Special in his belt holster would quit digging into his hip.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t his partner hire you just to see if Grimes was skimming from their brokerage firm trustee accounts? Grimes wasn’t, right? So, end of story.”
“Start of story. Grimes had some unknown so
urce of illicit income. When I started nosing around, he died in an apparent accident on his powerboat. In his sleep—okay. In an explosion on his boat—no way.”
Randy sighed and heaved his bulk out of the chair. “C’mon, Sherlock, let’s you buy me some lunch across the street while I explain the facts of life to you.”
They had the elevator to themselves except for a couple barely out of their teens, despairingly intertwined as if the descending cage were a spaceship capable of blasting them out of this space/time continuum. He wore black leather and hack boots and acne; she wore tearstains on her sallow cheeks.
“Got a continuance but he’s goin’ away,” muttered Randy. They faced the doors to give the couple what little privacy the elevator offered. “Why are you out doing this shit really? Beautiful wife at home who loves you, cute little kid, a good business as a computer research source. Man, I had that going for me, I’d be down to Silicon Valley makin’ beaucoup bucks…”
“Would you?” asked Eddie doubtfully. “Why are you a cop?”
Randy’s gesture encompassed his size, his blackness, the hardness of his wide ebony face. “What else?”
“Plenty else. You’re a cop because you’re good at it. Because you like it. Because it’s got you.”
They crossed the terrazzo floor and went out through heavy brass-framed doors into the bright windy May sunshine, jaywalked across Bryant Street to Boardman Place.
Eddie said, “Well, it’s got me, too. Detective work. I didn’t want to be just another microchip in the Silicon Valley game, so I started researching stuff by computer for other Cal-Tech students. After graduation we came up here and I kept going and all of a sudden I was making a living at it. Only my clients weren’t students any more—darn little pure research. They turned out to be mostly P.I.’s hired by attorneys to check out jurors, witnesses in court cases, even the lawyers’ own clients.”