by Ed McBain
“You did it wrong, Rudy.”
“How could I tell my wife?” he said. “What could I do, Matt? Betty was ready to crack, ready to tell all of it. Matt, Matt, I had to. I…I used my hands. I…I did it without thinking. She…I just…” He stopped, and his voice broke, and suddenly he was crying. The fog swept in around us.
“What am I going to tell Madeline, Matt? What can I tell her?”
“She’s your wife,” I said.
He gripped my arms. “You tell her, Matt,” he pleaded. The tears rolled down his face, and he kept repeating “please” until I shook his hands from my arms.
“Sure,” I said. “Sure.”
I brought Rudy to Detective-Lieutenant Gunnisson, and I left fast. Then bought a quart of wine, and I killed the whole goddamned thing before I worked up enough nerve to call Madeline and tell her about her husband.
It was hard.
And then I went home, and Madeline’s sobs were in my ears for a long time before I finally drank myself to sleep.
More Great Detective Fiction
Featuring Matt Cordell
The GUTTER and the GRAVE
by ED McBAIN
Detective Matt Cordell was happily married once, and gainfully employed, and sober. But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives and took it out on the man with the butt end of a .45.
Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city’s bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt’s help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full of beautiful women and bloody murder. It’s just like the old days. Only this time, when the beatings come, he may wind up on the receiving end…
ACCLAIM FOR MCBAIN:
“Ed McBain is a master.”
— Newsweek
“Ed McBain is, by far, the best at what he does. Case closed.”
— People
“McBain tells great stories.”
— Elmore Leonard
“As good as it gets…compulsively readable.”
— Seattle Times-Post Intelligencer
Available now from your favorite bookseller.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com
More Great Detective Fiction
From the Author of CUT ME IN
So NUDE, So DEAD
by ED McBAIN
HE HAD A MONKEY ON HIS BACK…
AND A DEAD WOMAN IN HIS BED!
He’d been a promising piano prodigy, once. Now he was just an addict, scraping to get by, letting his hunger for drugs consume him. But a man’s life can always get worse, as Ray Stone discovers when he wakes up beside a beautiful nightclub singer only to find her dead…and 16 ounces of pure heroin missing.
On the run from the law, desperate to prove his innocence and find a killer, Ray also faces another foe, even more merciless and unforgiving: his fierce and growing craving for a fix…
ACCLAIM FOR MCBAIN:
“McBain is so good he ought to be arrested.”
— Publishers Weekly
“The best crime writer in the business.”
— Houston Post
“McBain is a top pro, at the top of his game.”
— Los Angeles Daily News
“A master…McBain gets it right.”
— Time
Available now from your favorite bookseller.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com
Shamus Award Winner for
Best Original Paperback Novel of the Year
SONGS of INNOCENCE
by RICHARD ALEAS
Three years ago, detective John Blake solved a mystery that changed his life forever—and left a woman he loved dead. Now Blake is back, to investigate the apparent suicide of Dorothy Louise Burke, a beautiful college student with a double life. The secrets Blake uncovers could blow the lid off New York City’s sex trade…if they don’t kill him first.
Richard Aleas’ first novel, LITTLE GIRL LOST, was among the most celebrated crime novels of the year, nominated for both the Edgar and Shamus Awards. But nothing in John Blake’s first case could prepare you for the shocking conclusion of his second…
PRAISE FOR SONGS OF INNOCENCE:
“An instant classic.”
— Washington Post
“The best thing Hard Case is publishing right now.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“His powerful conclusion will drop jaws.”
— Publishers Weekly
“So sharp [it’ll] slice your finger as you flip the pages.”
— Playboy
Available now from your favorite bookseller.
For more information, visit
www.HardCaseCrime.com