The Sweet Goodbye (A Danny Barrett Novel, Band 1) - Hardcover

Corbett, Ron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593440358 ISBN 13: 9780593440353

Verlag: Berkley, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

In this thrilling new series from Edgar®-nominated author Ron Corbett, the most dangerous predator in the Maine wilderness walks on two feet—and it is Danny Barrett's job to bring him down.

Something is not right in the North Maine Woods.
 
A small family-run lumber company should not have more than two hundred million unaccountable dollars on their books. Money like that comes from moving something other than wood across the border. 

The first agent the FBI sent undercover was their best man—sure to get the answers that were needed. He was dead within a month. 
 
Now, Danny Barrett is taking his place. Before he was a cop, Danny grew up in the woods of Northern Michigan. He is the only chance the feds have of getting answers, but how many more will have to die first?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ron Corbett is a writer, journalist, broadcaster, and cofounder of Ottawa Press and Publishing.  A lifelong resident of Ottawa, Ron’s writing has won numerous awards, including two National Newspaper Awards. He has been a full-time columnist with both the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun. He is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Canadian bestseller The Last Guide and the critically acclaimed First Soldiers Down, about Canada’s military deployment to Afghanistan. The first book in his Frank Yakabuski mystery series was nominated for the Best Paperback Original Edgar® Award. 

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1

 

Travis Lee left the Starlight Club and stumbled toward the cab pulling up to the curb. He bounced off the rear panel, bounced off it again, then found the door latch and steadied himself. He turned to the woman beside him and yelled, "Ta-da!"

 

After that, he opened the door and fell inside.

 

The woman didn't move. She was a tall woman dressed in a full-length mink coat that shimmered beneath the neon lights outside the nightclub, made the fur look like a gasoline spill rippling upon dark water. In a few seconds the cabbie got out to see what was happening. He looked at the woman, then at the open door, then leaned in the car and gave Lee a shake. When he stood up, the woman asked, "Is he passed out?"

 

"I don't think so, ma'am. He's not snoring or anything."

 

"Trav, darling," she yelled into the cab, "you need to put your legs inside the car. The man can't wait here all night."

 

But there was no answer. "I'll give him another shake," said the cabbie. "What's his name?"

 

"Travis Lee."

 

"Really?"

 

"No, I'm just having fun with you. Can't you see I'm having fun?"

 

The cabbie looked startled; then he blushed and put his head back inside the cab. "Mr. Lee, your wife can't get in. You need to sit up, sir. . . . Sir, do you hear me?"

 

The woman pursed her lips and waited; in anger or anticipation, it was difficult to tell. She had lips that might always leave you guessing about something like that. Eventually she bent her head and whispered something in the cabbie's ear.

 

His body twitched as she was talking, but when she was finished, he nodded, grabbed Lee's legs and started pulling him from the cab. When he was halfway out, the woman grabbed one of the legs and helped finish the job. They slowed a bit when Lee's head was coming out, but not enough to stop it from bouncing off the curb. It was a low curb. They slowed. There was still a bounce.

 

When he was laid out on the sidewalk, the woman stepped over him and got into the cab. The cabbie looked around a second-embarrassed, it was easy enough to tell-but when his eyes stopped darting around, he ran to his door, got in and drove away. Through the rear window, Amanda Lee could be seen shaking snow off the collar of her coat.

 

 

Damn, that was cold.

 

I looked at the departing cab. Back at Travis Lee. Almost a Muddy Waters song. March in Northern Maine? It was still cold enough to kill someone if they were left passed out on a sidewalk for the night.

 

I looked around but saw that the cabbie had been right. No one else was outside the nightclub. Last call in twenty minutes and not a car in the parking lot except mine, parked twenty feet from the front entrance. Good chance it was going to stay that way.

 

I reached inside my jacket pocket for my phone, about to make an anonymous 911 call. If that could have happened-that simple act of placing a phone call-a lot of things would have played out different in Birmingham. I'm not saying some people would still be alive, or that failure would have become success-nothing as grand as that-but it would have been different, what happened, and probably not as bad.

 

What did happen that night was three men suddenly came running down Delco Street. It looked like they were trying to make last call at the Starlight. They were dressed in dark green factory pants, heavy work boots and plaid jackets. They ran past Lee-lying there in his blue suit and camelhair overcoat, shiny black shoes pointing toes up like garden spikes-looked at him but kept going.

 

I watched them make the front door of the Starlight but not go through. Watched them stare over their shoulders, talk amongst themselves, laugh and, just like I knew they would, watched them come walking back.

 

Damn. This really is a Muddy Waters song.

 

 

They had surrounded Lee by the time I got there. Two of the men were staring at him. One of them was a fat man with a belly so large, it had the contours of a baby seal. The other was whippet thin, with dark cratered skin and sunken cheeks, restless eyes that darted around like mercury droplets. A bad meth addict. The third was a boy: a teenager poking Lee with the toe of his work boot, chuckling and waiting to see what might happen.

 

"Evening, boys. Want a hand getting him back in a cab?" I asked.

 

The boy put his boot down and looked at me. His face was covered in zits, half of them popped, so there were blood trickles on his cheeks. His skin was pale, and with the red lines on his face, he had the coloring of a clown.

 

"Look like a four-man job to you?" he said.

 

"You never know. He looks like a big enough lad."

 

"Thanks, pal. We got it covered."

 

"Are you sure? I figure a workingman can always use an extra hand. Know what I mean?"

 

The boy looked at me with an expression so curious and uncomprehending, I felt a pang of sadness. This was a kid who needed things simple and linear, no curves, nothing unexpected. We stared at each other a few seconds but it was the fat man who eventually said, "You're too late, asshole. Bugger off."

 

"Bugger off? What are you talking about? I'm just here offering to help."

 

"Help yourself to his pockets, I'm bettin'. It ain't happenin' for you, buddy."

 

"What the- Are you accusing me of being a thief?"

 

"I ain't accusing you of nothin', asshole. What I'm telling you is that if you don't fuck off right now, I'm gonna stomp your head till you're stupid. You missed your chance. Come back trollin' another night."

 

His friends laughed when he said this and the fat man broke into a broad smile. Their laughter continued for several seconds until they noticed I wasn't leaving.

 

"Are you fuckin' thick?" said the fat man, taking a step toward me. But the whippet didn't move. He licked his lips and turned to stare at the front door of the Starlight. The clown boy did the same.

 

It would just be the fat man.

 

When the swing came, it was a haymaker and that's what I'd been expecting, had already placed my bet on by the way I was leaning, so that when it came I could step under it easily, be in a crouching position when I brought my fist up at a perfect sixty-degree arc, at double the normal traveling distance for an uppercut. Landing it right where a man would never want a punch like that to land.

 

The fat man grabbed his groin and tottered several seconds before he fell. When he did fall, it was sideways, and slowly, like a felled tree might fall if it got tangled up in the branches of another tree.

 

Several seconds passed after that before he screamed. When it came it was like the screaming of late-stage childbirth. He was still screaming like that, his friends dragging him into the shadows surrounding the nightclub, when I heard a man's voice say, "Well, that was rather fun to watch. Why in the world did you bother?"

 

I looked down at Travis Lee. He was sitting now, rubbing his head and looking at me. I thought of the best way to answer his question. Decided to go with a partial truth.

 

"I work for you, Mr. Lee."

 

2

 

A light snow had started falling and Lee looked up and down Delco Street. Looking for his cab, looking for his wife, looking for more men approaching-I wasn't sure. He didn't seem in a hurry. Didn't seem surprised that he had just awoken on a sidewalk outside a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593440358
• ISBN 13: 9780593440353
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland