Everything but the Squeal (32 page)

We hit the floor in a sandwich: me on the bottom, Aimee in the middle, and Mrs. Brussels on top. My head slammed against the concrete and I was trying to get my eyes to focus as the weight on top of me lessened. Mrs. Brussels was crawling on her belly away from me, scrabbling toward the gun.

I attempted to roll onto my side to go after her, but Aimee was still on top of me, and my knee sent an urgent signal of pain straight to my brain. I did my best to get Aimee off me gently as Mrs. Brussels squirmed toward the pistol, and then Aimee began again to emit the shrill flat sound, and it was echoed from the corners of the warehouse.

First there was one siren, then another, human sirens produced from small, tight throats, and then there were three and then four, and then too many to count. And Aimee pushed herself off my chest and got to her feet. Like a robot she walked slowly after Mrs. Brussels, still shrilling, hands hanging loose at her sides, and then I saw Marie, and behind Marie two of the other girls, and then the other children, all closing in on Mrs. Brussels, all with their mouths hanging loose and all tearing the air with the same inhuman sound.

Mrs. Brussels shouted a hoarse command, but the children kept coming. Her hand was only inches from the gun. I tried to roll onto my hands and knees but the pain overwhelmed me and the last thing I saw before I gave up and let the darkness take over was Mrs. Brussels, flat on her back and taking hopeless swipes at the children, trying to knock aside the sharp little fingers converging on her eyes.

31 - Dust to Dust

T 
he Mountain's funeral took place on the first sunny day in weeks.

It was surprising because of the size of the turnout, the width of the grave, and the presence of Donnie in the company of a large woman who wore bright orange hair and half an inch of makeup, makeup thicker than the average circus clown's. From the way he looked at her, she had to be his mother.

Two enormously fat people, the Mountain's parents, stood next to the minister. Tommy stood in the place of second honor, on the other side of the minister. He and the Mountain's mother were weeping freely. The Mountain's father was dry-eyed, staring stolidly at the horizon. He wore a dark suit, buttoned over a plaid shirt of the type the Mountain had favored. The Mountain had worn his father's old shirts.

The minister seemed to be at something of a loss as he surveyed the crowd. I didn't blame him.

Other than Jessica, Morris, and Hammond, who'd insisted on coming as a kind of penance for Bruner, the crowd was largely made up of Oki-Burger regulars. The Young Old Woman and the Toothless Man clung to each other in the presence of death, probably the only remaining item on their once-long list of fears. Tammy and Velveeta were decked out in full Hollywood mourning. Velveeta had even found a black feather boa, while Tammy had to settle for a black leather motorcycle jacket and a miniskirt to match. They were wearing almost as much makeup as Donnie’s mother, and it was running copiously, creating long black streaks down their cheeks.

Hammond stomped out his cigar as a gesture of respect as the minister began to speak. The minister obviously hadn't known the Mountain. He did some spiritual boilerplate about the tragedy of a young life cut short, but the only time he caught the crowd's attention was when he revealed the Mountain's real name, something no one but his parents had known. At some point in his life, the Mountain had thought of himself as William Edward Dinwiddie the Third.

William Edward Dinwiddie the Second stared at the dead grass in front of him as his wife clung to his arm, her oversize frame shaken by sobs. Only Tammy and Velveeta cried louder.

But then it was Tommy's turn to speak.

“He did what he hadda do,” Tommy said in a combination of Okinawan English and pure, deep grief. “He sent da kids home. He was a big fat guy, but he sent da fuckin’ kids home.” The minister blinked. “Nobody else done it. Lotta times I hadda take care of da tables because he was workin’ da pay phone, gettin’ da kids home.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “There's kids all over da place, they'd be dead if da Mountain hadn't sent them home.” He stepped back, squeezing his eyes into fierce little slits. Salt water dripped from his chin.

The minister mumbled the appropriate concluding mumbo jumbo and backed away as the Mountain's mother threw a handful of dirt into the grave. Then she collapsed against her husband, slipping an arm inside his suit jacket, against his plaid shirt. He looked down at the arm as though it were an anaconda curled around his middle, and the crowd started to disperse. Some of them were chattering, working on first-draft gossip that they'd refine and share later with those who hadn't been there.

There wasn't much left to do: Aimee was home and undergoing therapy in Kansas City. The Cap'n's restaurants had been closed down. Mrs. Brussels was in a jail hospital, burned and blind, and the other kids were in Juvenile Hall, waiting for someone to turn up to claim them. So far, according to Hammond, only two had been claimed.

“Your son was a hero,” I said to the Mountain's parents as the others turned their backs on the grave. Two guys with shovels were filling it up on union time, disgruntled because the service hadn't lasted longer. If it had, they might have gotten time-and-a-half.

“He was a big fat dope,” William Edward Dinwiddie the Second said. “My whole life. My whole life I worked so he could go to college.” Despite her formidable bulk, Mrs. Dinwiddie seemed cowed by the fierceness in her husband's voice. “So what was he? A fucking two-bit waiter.”

It had never occurred to me to wonder why the Mountain had hit the streets. Now I knew.

“With all due respect to your loss,” I said, “you're an asshole.”

He called something hoarse and obscene after me as I turned away from them and caught up with Tommy. Jessica, Morris, and Hammond followed.

“I've got some money,” I said to Tommy. Aimee's mother had sent me a bonus of five thousand dollars. I'd cashed the check, deposited half, and had the other half in my pocket.

“So?” Tommy said, wheeling on me. He was ashamed that we'd seen him crying.

“So here's twenty-five hundred bucks,” I said, pressing the roll of bills into his hand. “Use it to hire someone who does what the Mountain did.”

Tommy curled his hand around the wad of hundreds and then opened it again. He pressed the bills back into my hand.

“Already did,” he said. “Whassa matter, you don't think I know what's important or something?” He sounded indignant.

“I don't mean to clear tables. I mean to send the kids home.”

He glared at me as though I were subhuman. “So do I,”

he said. Then he turned his back to me and stalked off toward a waiting car.

In front of me, Donnie and his mother were heading toward their car. She was hanging back, complaining that she didn't know why she'd been brought all this way to attend the funeral of someone she'd never met. Donnie kept darting ahead of her. He was restraining his impulse to run. The next time he really ran, I was wondering, who would catch him?

“For Chrissakes, hold on,” Hammond grumbled behind me, and I realized that I'd increased my pace, limping on my bad knee to keep up with Donnie. Hammond was following, pissed off and shamefaced and sucking on a new cigar. Behind him were Jessica and Morris.

They had their backs to the grave and they were holding hands.

About Timothy Hallinan

  Timothy Hallinan has written ten published novels, all thrillers, all critically praised.

In the 1990s he wrote six mysteries featuring the erudite private eye Simeon Grist, beginning with
The Four Last Things
, which made several Ten Best lists, including that of The Drood Review.  The other books in the series were widely and well reviewed, and several of them were optioned for motion pictures.  The series is now regarded as a cult favorite.

In 2007, the first of his Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers,
A Nail Through the Heart
, was published to unanimously enthusiastic reviews.  “Hallinan scores big-time,” said Kirkus Reviews, which went on to call the book “dark, often funny, and ultimately enthralling.”  
Nail
was a Booksense Pick of the Month and was named one of the top mysteries of the year by The Japan Times and several major online review sites.

Rafferty's Bangkok adventures continued with
The Fourth Watcher
(2008) and
Breathing Water
(2009), both of which also appeared on “year's best” lists.  New York Times bestselling author John Lescroart said about the 2010 book,
The Queen of Patpong
, “You won't read a better thriller this year,” and Ken Bruen said, “John Burdett writes about Bangkok.  Tim Hallinan is Bangkok.  I adore this book.”

For almost thirty years Hallinan operated one of America's leading television consulting firms, working with Fortune 100 corporations in New York, Los Angeles, and London to focus their television sponsorship activities.  He has written full-time since 2006.  Since 1982 he has divided his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia, the setting for his Poke Rafferty novels.

Other Books by Timothy Hallinan

The Simeon Grist Series

The Four Last Things (Simeon Grist #1)

 Simeon Grist knows the City of Angels inside and out--the sex for sale, the chic seductions, the clientele of every bar from downtown L.A. to Venice.  So when he's hired by a Hollywood recording company to shadow one Sally Oldfield, suspected of embezzlement, Grist discovers she's heavily invested in something far more lucrative than CDs--namely the Church of the  Eternal Moment--a million-dollar religious scam built around a 12-year-old channeler and the voice of a man who has been dead for a millennium.  Though he tails Sally all the Way to a seedy motel and a date with a murderer, he's too late to save her.  And now he knows snooping has gotten him in way too deep, for he's become the next target of a  very flesh-and-blood entity waiting in the twisted back alleys of sin and salvation to give him a brutal look at the four last things:  death, judgment, heaven and hell--revelations he could definitely
live
without...

Critical Acclaim for
The Four Last Things

“Terrific, well-crafted, thoroughly satisfying . . . updates Raymond Chandler's vision of life in Los Angeles through Grist's sardonic, often hilarious observations . . . leaves one looking forward to Hallinan's future endeavors.”   (Los Angeles Herald-Tribune)

“It's rare to find a first novel in the mystery genre that boasts a smoothly plotted story, crisp dialogue, and excellent characterizations . . . This exciting tale accomplishes all three . . . The book never falters, sustaining suspense and interest throughout . . . a sure winner.”  (Booklist)

Hallinan has a genuine ability to write effective prose, engaging repartee, sharp and witty characterizations . . . this laudable first effort could become a notable series.”  (The Washington Post Book World)

“Wonderful . . . you gotta love a novel that starts with the hard-drinking private eye sighing about the dame he's been following.”  (West Coast Review of Books)

“Hallinan neatly maximizes his gift for offbear characters and clever pacing . . . Simeon Grist, the sleuth he created, is in a class by himself.”  (Inside Books)

BUY
The Four Last Things
on Kindle by clicking
here
.

Everything But the Squeal (Simeon Grist #2)

 Simeon Grist is a private eye and Los Angeles is his city. It's Raymond Chandler country, especially the parts Grist sees – like the dank underbelly that lies between Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevards, where all the California dreaming is a nightmare. But beggars and private eyes can't be too choosy, and Grist is on a new case – one that leads him down the streets of LA and into the dead, dark places of a killer's heart.

It starts off on Hollywood Boulevard, a street filled with runaways who quickly lose their innocence and sometimes their lives. Missing is a thirteen-year-old from Kansas, Aimee Sorrell, a/k/a Dorothy Gale, who didn't find Oz over this rainbow. In fact, from the Polaroids her mother got in the mail, Aimee found nothing less than hell – drugs, pornography, and sexual slavery. It is the not-so-pretty pictures, and especially the marks on the girl's body, that convince Grist to take the Sorrell case and to begin his search among the castoffs and criminals of an all-night diner, a 24-hour magnet for the displaced.

But the trail soon leads him to the city morgue, where the kid on the slab isn't Aimee, but another runaway with the same kind of marks. Grist knows that there's more than a pedophile at work here. There's a child sex-for-sale ring that's proof positive of the human race's downhill slide into immorality and perversion. Grist's problem is finding out who's running the ring – and getting Aimee back before she's the next corpse in a refrigerated drawer.

His solution is to enlist the aid of another teen, a pretty, middle-class kid named Jessica, who thinks fun is flirting with a coke dealer ten years too old for her. Jessica needs a lesson in reality, but Grist doesn't anticipate that taking her along might jeopardize both their lives. For Grist and Jessica are going to find out what happens to the lost children of America when they go looking for love in all the wrong places.

Critical Acclaim for
Everything But the Squeal

“
Squeal
combines high-octane action, baroque violence, humor, and pathos in a self-assured manner that marks Mr. Hallinan as a capable practitioner of the private eye tale.  (Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal)

“. . . a grimly authentic portrait of L.A.'s sordid subculture.” (Robert Wade, The San Diego Union)

“. . . a chilling portrait of what life holds for kids who lose their innocence too soon, and we couldn't have gotten through it if the author weren't so damned talented.”  (Tom and Enid Schantz, The Purloined Letter)

“There are two ways to explore the Hollywood underground: Drive over the hill and spend a few dangerous days walking Hollywood Boulevard, or read
Everything But the Squeal
, the second Simeon Grist novel by Timothy Hallinan. . . Grist bears watching: He may turn out to be a modern successor to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.”  (Kate Seago, Los Angeles Daily News)

“Simeon Grist made his debut in
The Four Last Things
, and it was a smashing debut, as I reported in this space last August.  There is apparently no sophomore jinx in the private eye trade, because
Everything But the Squeal
is even better than the first one.”  (Dick Kleiner, The Desert Sun)

“Get a copy of
Everything But the Squeal
, but be prepared to shut off the phone or fax machine; you won't want to brook any interruptions once you start it.”  (Tom Hatten, KNX Radio, Los Angeles)

“
Everything But the Squeal
is a riveting page-turner . . . the Simeon Grist books are something special.”  (Jim Huang, The Drood Review)

“. . . exciting and original . . . above all, a story with moral as well as mortal consequences.  . . . They say that the second book in a suspense series is always the hardest to pull off, because a writer tends to use up all of his or her tricks bringing the characters to life.  Hallinan, who seems to have a natural supply of imagination, is a remarkable exception.”  (Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune)

The Poke Rafferty Series

A Nail Through the Heart (Poke Rafferty #1)

The first of Timothy Hallinan's Bangkok thrillers introduces Bangkok-based Poke Rafferty, who went to Thailand to write a book and stayed to fall in love -- with the country and with the people, especially two of them. Now he's quit writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored, and instead is trying to assemble a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out. Poke agrees to take in another displaced child, Miaow’s troubled and terrifying friend from the gutter. Then he agrees to help locate a distraught Aussie woman’s missing uncle--and accepts a generous payment to find a blackmailing thief. No longer gliding carelessly across the surface of a culture he doesn’t really understand, suddenly Poke’s plodding through dark and unfamiliar terrain--and everything and everyone he loves is in terrible danger. Hallinan's first Bangkok thriller won raves both here and in Asia.

Critical Acclaim for
A Nail Through the Heart

“I *highly* recommend A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, and anything else Hallinan has written.” -
Charlaine Harris, Best-selling author of “True Blood.”

From Publisher's Weekly:
Brutal torture and equally brutal empathy define this excellent, if sometimes familiar, thriller from Hallinan (The Bone Polisher). Poke Rafferty, a travel writer turned detective, intends to settle down in Bangkok with his ex-prostitute girlfriend, Rose, and a young urchin, Miaow, when Miaow brings her troubled friend Superman into the household. While dealing with this intrusion, Rafferty takes on dual sleuthing assignments to help pay for adopting Miaow. The first case involves finding Australian Claus Ulrich, a hardcore bondage aficionado. When Rafferty meets the powerful and rich Madame Wing while investigating Ulrich's disappearance, she offers him $30,000 to find an envelope and the Cambodian man who took it. The only catch? If Rafferty opens the envelope, he'll learn information about Madame Wing that will force her to kill him. Rafferty stumbles through the clues like the foreigner he is, always on the outside looking in. Despite an overly leisurely ending, the rich depictions of Bangkok's seedy side recall John Burdett's visceral mysteries.
(July)

From Booklist:
The author of the 1990s Simeon Grist series returns with a compelling new protagonist: American travel writer Poke Rafferty, who is out to right some serious wrongs on the predatory streets of Bangkok. While attempting to adopt a homeless girl, rescue a potentially murderous urchin known as Superman, and build a lasting relationship with the former bar girl he loves, Poke is pulled into two brutal mysteries. One involves a notorious Khmer Rouge torturer, the other a series of child-porn photos. As he doggedly plumbs these ghastly depths, Rafferty matures from a play-it-as-it-lays layabout into a man willing to meet his lover's culture more than halfway and find his moral compass at a time when the victims can be as guilty as the murderers are innocent. The fact that the referenced pedophile photo series and Phnom Penh torture house both existed heightens the impact of a narrative that's already deeply felt. If this opens a new series, Hallinan is off to a surefooted start with a supporting cast (including Poke's precocious, pugnacious, almost-daughter Miaow) well worth getting to know.--
Sennett, Frank