Expiration Date

by Duane Swierczynski

  I go into the bathroom to wash my face. My head’s throbbing like crazy—Meghan and I had more than a few glasses of wine last night, and then we got friendly on the living room floor. I’m paying for it this morning, though. I open the medicine cabinet door.

  There’s a bottle of Tylenol inside. I don’t recognize it. Bottle looks old, but I’m sure the pills inside are fine. Meghan wouldn’t buy out-of-date medicine. Probably just an old container.

  I tap two into my palm.

  Also by Duane Swierczynski

  Novels

  SECRET DEAD MEN

  THE WHEELMAN

  THE BLONDE

  SEVERANCE PACKAGE

  Interactive Mysteries

  THE CRIMES OF DR. WATSON

  BATMAN: MURDER AT WAYNE MANOR

  Graphic Novels

  CABLE: WAR BABY

  CABLE: WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

  IMMORTAL IRON FIST: THE MORTAL IRON FIST

  IMMORTAL IRON FIST: ESCAPE FROM THE EIGHTH CITY

  WEREWOLF BY NIGHT: IN THE BLOOD

  THE PUNISHER: SIX HOURS TO KILL

  As Editor

  DAMN NEAR DEAD

  NOTES AND THANKS

  This book wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Laura Lippman and Ilena Silverman. For the past few years the New York Times Magazine has been running a “Sunday Serial,” featuring short novels from writers such as Elmore Leonard (who wrote the first, Comfort to the Enemy), Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, and Laura Lippman.

  Not long into her own serial, The Girl in the Green Raincoat, Laura recommended me to her editor, Ilena, for a possible future serial.

  So one hot afternoon in September 2008 I received a call on my cell phone from the New York Times.

  I thought it was about my subscription, so I almost didn’t answer. But if there was a problem with my credit card, I’d rather know about it now.

  Ilena introduced herself, and explained the concept of the Sunday serial—though she didn’t have to. I’ve been a huge fan since that first Elmore Leonard installment. And I began my Times subscription when Connelly’s serial (The Overlook) began, because I wanted to save the entire run. Yes, I’m a mystery nerd that way.

  Then she asked me if I’d consider pitching something. I tried to play it cool, but I think I yelped the word yes before she even finished the question.

  Everything about this excited me, but especially the form: 40,000 words, told in 15 installments, about 2,600 words each. True serial, with cliffhangers and everything, running in one of the best magazines in the world.

  Did I pitch her? I pitched like you wouldn’t believe.

  I submitted four ideas to Ilena, but I knew the one I had my heart set on. It was a strange one, closer in spirit to my first novel, Secret Dead Men, than anything I’d written lately. In fact, at one point I’d planned Expiration Date as the follow up to Secret Dead Men. (Back then, though, I was calling it The Dark Office. Which is a title I didn’t like much even back then.)

  Ilena could tell I was excited about the first idea—the one I had my heart set on. So she invited me to write a short synopsis. So I wrote a synopsis. Then a long treatment/outline. Then, finally, a full three-thousand-word installment, just to show Ilena and Gerry Marzorati (her boss) what it would feel like.

  They liked all of it.

  I was set.

  I was given a deadline.

  I was excited as hell.

  I was about to receive a contract when…

  Well, I received another call from Ilena. And God, do I wish it had been about my subscription.

  Ilena told me that, sadly, the New York Times Magazine was doing away with its Sunday serial. It had been asked to cut pages in the coming budget year, and the serial was on the chopping block. She was super-apologetic. I listened, and then tried to make Ilena feel better about the whole thing, because it wasn’t her fault. I’ve worked at magazines and newspapers before; I knew the crushing reality of budgets.

  Still, I was absolutely heartbroken.

  Honestly, I was kind of inconsolable for a while.

  By that time, however, I’d mentioned the serial to Marc Resnick, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, and he really dug the idea. I asked if he would mind if I wrote it anyway, making it my next book for St. Martin’s Press. He agreed, and so I dove back into it. I had plotted fifteen installments, but halfway through I really loved the idea of twelve installments, one for each hour on a grandfather clock. (Grandfather Clock was one of the many titles I considered for this thing.) So I changed some things around. But I wrote it more or less as I’d pitched it to the New York Times Magazine.

  If it hadn’t been for Ilena and Laura, however, I really think this novel would have stayed somewhere frozen on my internal hard drive. (Maybe it should have stayed there! cries someone from the back row.) But I think a writer should be encouraged to do crazy things, and I’ll be forever grateful to Ilena and Laura for giving me the opportunity.

  Big thanks are also due to my extremely patient editor, Marc Resnick, and all the good folks at St. Martin’s Press—including Andrew Martin, Matthew Sharp, Sarah Lumnah, Michael Homier, John Shoenfelder, Hector DeJean, and Matthew Baldacci.

  Thanks to Laurence Campbell, whose illustrations adorn this book. I fell in love with Laurence’s work from the moment Axel Alonso (my editor at Marvel Comics) showed me a few samples, and I’ve wanted to work with him ever since. I’m extremely proud to have his work in these pages.

  Thanks, too, to my agent, David Hale Smith, who watched my back and held my hand the whole time, from the first pitches to Ilena, to the day it all crashed and burned, and then beyond. He spoons real nice for a Texas boy. And thanks to Shauyi Tai, his second in command.

  Thanks to film agent Angela Cheng Caplan, who’s been made to wait far too long for this manuscript.

  Thanks to my first readers and better friends than a man deserves: Allan Guthrie, Lou Boxer, Jon Cavalier, Ed Pettit, David Thompson, and McKenna Jordan.

  And last but nowhere least, thanks to my family—Meredith, Parker, and Sarah—for their patience and support during the writing of this novel.

  I was in the middle of finishing Expiration Date when my grandfather, Louis Wojciechowski, died. I was writing this book for him. Not because it’s about him, any more than it’s about me. But there is a lot of him in this book, and I truly regret not putting my ass in gear and finishing this while he was still alive.

  No reader should ever confuse a writer’s life with his work, but I do want to make something clear:

  The fictional grandfather in this novel was an imperfect man who tried his best.

  My grandpop Lou was the best man I’ve ever known, and I miss him deeply.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Duane Swierczynski has written several crime thrillers for St. Martin’s, including Severance Package, all of which have been optioned for film. He also writes the monthly X-Men series Cable for Marvel Comics, and has also written comics featuring Wolverine, Deadpool, the Punisher, the Immortal Iron Fist and Werewolf by Night. Most recently he’s collaborated with CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker on a series of thrillers called Level 26. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and children. Visit him at www.duaneswierczynski.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  EXPIRATION DATE. Copyright © 2010 by Duane Swierczynski. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Swierczynski, Duane.

  Expiration date / Duane Swierczynski.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-0-312-36340-6

  1. Private investigators—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3619.W53E97 2
010

  813'.6—dc22

  2009039947