Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go

by George Pelecanos

  Have you ever ventured outside the mystery/crime field in your writing?

  I don’t really feel like I’ve written mysteries since finishing the Nick Stefanos books. Increasingly, my books are novels about working-class people in the modern city that have crime elements to them. And I don’t think I’ll ever leave those crime elements behind because I like conflict in a book. I like storytelling. And in addition to my belief that books should be about something, I think also that within these books things should happen.

  What would it take for you to make a big change in the direction your writing has gone so far?

  It would just be my desire to do something different. What it would take would be for me to feel like I’ve already covered all the territory, and that I’ve exhausted these characters and these stories. And that would probably push me to try something else. But at this point, I’m pretty sure that my life’s work is going to be writing about the people of the neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., in the form of the crime novel.

  Whom would you envision playing Nick in a film?

  Well, I always liked Nick Cage. I think he could do it. It’s got to be somebody you can empathize with even as he’s going all the way down. Too bad Steve McQueen isn’t around, because that would be my guy.

  Your novels always have such a colorful cast of characters. Do you draw them from people you really know or once knew?

  I take elements of a lot of different people I’ve known over the years to draw these characters. I worked sales force, selling shoes, electronics, and appliances for many years, and you can imagine all the colorful characters I came across. What I’m trying to do in a lot of ways is put a face on people of a certain working class that many folks simply ignore in their day-to-day lives.

  It’s been said your settings are superb—language, music, locales. How do you “build” the world that your characters inhabit?

  This is going to sound like smoke, but it’s really all there in my head. I’ve created this parallel, fictional world of Washington, D.C., that is alive to me all the time. I’ve always been a daydreamer. Even when I was a kid delivering food for my dad in downtown D.C., I was making up movies in my head all day long while I walked the streets. And I’m still doing it today.

  Do you have any tips for an aspiring author? How hard is it? What do I need to know or do?

  Well, I think you’ve got to get out and live. I think many writers try and start their careers too early, before they’ve done anything or seen anything. I was fortunate to write my first book when I was thirty-one years old. And at that point I already had a lifetime of material just from the living I had done. It’s a long life and you shouldn’t rush it as a writer.

  Questions and topics for discussion

  “Hardboiled” crime fiction has been described as fiction that is “tough and violent” and can be said to include the traditions of adventure novels and westerns. Discuss why Pelecanos is so frequently praised for his hardboiled roots. In which ways does he adapt not only the classic qualities of crime fiction, but also those of adventures and westerns?

  Nick observes: “The thirst for knowledge is like a piece of ass you know you shouldn’t chase; in the end, you chase it just the same.” Is there anything else that drives Nick in his work as an investigator?

  Critics have praised Pelecanos for his use of Washington, D.C., as the backdrop for his novels; it’s even been described as a character in its own right. Do you agree, and are there examples in this novel you could cite?

  Nick is not perfect; discuss ways in which his habits and methods set him apart from many thriller protagonists. Do his flaws make him more or less sympathetic to you? Do you think someone can be a good person without also being a “nice” person?

  Discuss the ways Pelecanos uses details about food and alcohol to help set his scenes and define his characters.

  “I noticed an old man in a physical-plant uniform sitting atop a small tractor in the cemetery, and for a moment our eyes met. Then he looked away, and we both went back to what we had been doing: trying to find a kernel of spirituality before returning to the cold reality of our day” (pages 47–48). How does this moment affect your impression of Nick?

  Discuss the aspects of family in the novel. What does family mean to Nick, and would you consider him a “family man” in the traditional sense of the term?

  In an interview, when asked how he, as a Greek American, feels comfortable writing about black characters, Pelecanos responded, “If you are going to do it, first of all, you should do it right. Show people respect and make sure you get the voices right—if you are even attempting it. It’s apparent when you are reading something if the writer hasn’t bothered to listen to people or go into the neighborhoods and talk to people, and that sort of thing.” Discuss the idea of “respect” as it relates to this novel, and the role of a novelist in exploring identities beyond his or her own.

  … and the next Nick Stefanos novel

  Nick Stefanos returns in Shame the Devil. Following is a brief excerpt from the novel’s opening pages.

  ONE

  THE CAR WAS a boxy late-model Ford sedan, white over black, innocuous bordering on invisible, and very fast. It had been a sheriff’s vehicle originally, bought at auction in Tennessee, and further modified for speed.

  The car rolled north on Wisconsin beneath a blazing white sun. The men inside wore long-sleeved shirts, tails out. Their shirtfronts were spotted with sweat and their backs were slick with it. The black vinyl on which they sat was hot to the touch. From the passenger seat, Frank Farrow studied the street. The sidewalks were empty. Foreign-made automobiles moved along quietly, their occupants cool and cocooned. Heat mirage shimmered up off asphalt. The city was narcotized—it was that kind of summer day.

  “Quebec,” said Richard Farrow, his gloved hands clutching the wheel. He pushed his aviator shades back up over the bridge of his nose, and as they neared the next cross street he said, “Upton.”

  “You’ve got Thirty-ninth up ahead,” said Frank. “You want to take that shoot-off, just past Van Ness.”

  “I know it,” said Richard. “You don’t have to tell me again because I know.”

  “Take it easy, Richard.”

  “All right.”

  In the backseat, Roman Otis softly sang the first verse to “One in a Million You,” raising his voice just a little to put the full Larry Graham inflection into the chorus. He had heard the single on WHUR earlier that morning, and the tune would not leave his head.

  The Ford passed through the intersection at Upton.

  Otis looked down at his lap, where the weight of his shotgun had begun to etch a deep wrinkle in his linen slacks. Well, he should have known it. All you had to do was look at linen to make it wrinkle, that was a plain fact. Still, a man needed to have a certain kind of style to him when he left the house for work. Otis placed the sawed-off on the floor, resting its stock across the toes of his lizard-skin monk straps. He glanced at the street-bought Rolex strapped to his left wrist: five minutes past ten A.M.

  Richard cut the Ford up 39th.

  “There,” said Frank. “That Chevy’s pulling out.”

  “I see it,” said Richard.

  They waited for the Chevy. Then Frank said, “Put it in.”

  Richard swung the Ford into the space and killed the engine. They were at the back of a low-rise commercial strip that fronted Wisconsin Avenue. The door leading to the kitchen of the pizza parlor, May’s, was situated in the center of the block. Frank wiped moisture from his brush mustache and ran a hand through his closely cropped gray hair.

  “There’s the Caddy,” said Otis, noticing the black DeVille parked three spaces ahead.

  Frank nodded. “Mr. Carl’s making the pickup. He’s inside.”

  “Let’s do this thing,” said Otis.

  “Wait for our boy to open the door,” said Frank. He drew two latex examination gloves from a tissue-sized box and slipped them over the pair he already had on his han
ds. He tossed the box over his shoulder to the backseat. “Here. Double up.”

  Roman Otis raised his right hand, where a silver ID bracelet bearing the inscription “Back to Oakland” hung on his wrist. He let the bracelet slip down inside the French cuff of his shirt. He put the gloves on carefully, then reflexively touched the butt of the .45 fitted beneath his shirt. He caught a glimpse of his shoulder-length hair, recently treated with relaxer, in the rearview mirror. Shoot, thought Otis, Nick Ashford couldn’t claim to have a finer head of hair on him. Otis smiled at his reflection, his one gold tooth catching the light. He gave himself a wink.

  “Frank,” said Richard.

  “We’ll be out in a few minutes,” said Frank. “Don’t turn the engine over until you see us coming back out.”

  “I won’t,” said Richard, a catch in his voice.

  The back kitchen door to May’s opened. A thin black man wearing a full apron stepped out with a bag of trash. He carried the trash to a Dumpster and swung it in, bouncing it off the upraised lid. On his way back to the kitchen he eye-swept the men in the Ford. He stepped back inside, leaving the door ajar behind him.

  “That him?” asked Otis.

  “Charles Greene,” said Frank.

  “Good boy.”

  Frank checked the .22 Woodsman and the .38 Bulldog holstered beneath his oxford shirt. The guns were snug against his guinea-T. He looked across the bench at his kid brother, sweating like a hard-run horse, breathing through his mouth, glassy eyed, scared stupid.

  “Remember, Richard. Wait till you see us come out.”

  Richard Farrow nodded one time.

  Roman Otis lifted the shotgun, slipped it barrel down into his open shirt, fitting it in a custom-made leather holster hung over his left side. It would show; there wasn’t any way to get around it. But they would be going straight in, and they would move fast.

  “Let’s go, Roman,” said Frank.

  Otis said, “Right.” He opened the car door and touched his foot to the street.

  Contents

  Front Cover Image

  Welcome

  Dedication

  A Preview of Shame the Devil

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  Reading Group Guide

  George Pelecanos responds to questions from his readers

  Questions and topics for discussion

  About the Author

  Praise for George Pelecanos’s Nick Stefanos novels

  Copyright

  About the author

  George Pelecanos is the author of several highly praised and bestselling novels, including, most recently, The Way Home and The Cut. He is also an independent-film producer, an essayist, and the recipient of numerous writing awards. He was a producer and Emmy-nominated writer for The Wire and currently writes for the acclaimed HBO series Treme.

  By George Pelecanos

  The Cut

  The Way Home

  The Turnaround

  The Night Gardener

  Drama City

  Hard Revolution

  Soul Circus

  Hell to Pay

  Right As Rain

  Shame the Devil

  The Sweet Forever

  King Suckerman

  The Big Blowdown

  Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go

  Shoedog

  Nick’s Trip

  A Firing Offense

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1995 by George P. Pelecanos

  Reading group guide copyright © 2011 by George P. Pelecanos and Little, Brown and Company

  Excerpt from Shame the Devil copyright © 2000 by George P. Pelecanos

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

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  Originally published in hardcover by St. Martin’s Press, June 1995

  Back Bay Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The Back Bay Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  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.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  First eBook Edition: July 2011

  ISBN: 978-0-316-12688-5