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Copyright Page
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To Robert B. Parker and Raymond Chandler, Jeff Rice, Chris Carter, Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. To Elmore Leonard, Ambrose Bierce, John D. MacDonald, Humphrey Bogart, and William Goldman, for bringing me up right, and to Phil Rowe, the man who introduced me to most of them.
To the memory of John Weddle, for whittling and picking the guitar and belly laughter, for the smell of sawdust, for being a kind, patient, and gentle man.
To the memory of Paul Franco: solider, father, loving warden of the Earth. You could make flowers grow in a desert. So much strength and so much kindness in one man is truly a gift to all who have the privilege to know him. Thank you.
And to the memory of my dad, Harrison Gordon Belcher. Thank you for that one good memory. I know you tried. Rest.
To my mom, Mabel T. Belcher, who took me fishing when she hated worms, camping when she hated bugs, and sat in warm silence with me as we both read. You taught me how to be brave when you are trembling, and to endure the unendurable.
You are all fathers to me.
To my godson, John Siegfried Peraro Santos. I’m very proud of the young man you are growing up to be.
To my children, Jon, Emily, and Stephanie: I love you all more than there are words to express. You are my light.
ONE
I watched the playground on the other side of the high, chain-link fence, trying to figure out which of the elementary school children had the gun. The kids were doing like kids do, running around, chasing each other in circles, laughing, screaming. A few climbed on the monkey bars, others jockeyed to get a turn on the swings or the slide; a few played hopscotch. I couldn’t recall ever being that young, happy, or clueless. I hoped to hell I could keep them that way. “Hoped to hell,” I’m a fucking riot. The sun was beating down on me, but no one had noticed I didn’t cast a shadow on the sidewalk. I had hocked it a while back.
I was getting the stink-eye from the circle of teachers near the double doors that led into the school, probably into the school cafeteria if it was anything like my old alma mater, Welch Elementary, back in West Virginia.
The teachers’ worried frowns as I stood at the fence, studying the children at play, insulted me. I had tried so hard to blend in. Jeans, steel-toed work boots, a maroon-and-black paisley button-down with the sleeves up and the tails out. An old army medic satchel hung over one shoulder as my “murse.” My long black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. I was goddamned eye candy. Shit, I even left the Aqualung trench coat at home. It was too damned hot for it anyway. Late spring in Texas is kinda like autumn on the surface of the sun.
I saw one of the teachers raise a blocky walkie-talkie to her lips and speak into it as she bored death rays into me with her baby browns. I smiled my most sincere smile—Aw, shucks, I’m jist a good ol’boy, standing here, minding my own beeswax. I mean no harm to y’all’s planet—and lit up an American Spirit. I needed to find the little darling quick, because I was sure I was about to get a visit from the school’s cop, and I didn’t have time to try to convince Officer Friendly I wasn’t a perv or a psycho.
I tuned out the heat, the teachers’ resting bitch faces, and the sounds of traffic behind me. I did catch a quick burst of a car’s radio through a rolled-down window blasting “Nasty Freestyle” by T-Wayne, then I pushed that away too. I focused on the tingling pressure up and down my spinal column, the bone road to the seat of self. I felt a geyser of aggressive, passionate, and destructive crimson power wash over my root chakra and gush upward to guide my Ajna, my “third eye.” My gaze was pulled to the far left, near the school’s brick wall, and I found the source of the scarlet energy. It was a little boy, about nine years old, wearing a red-and-blue-striped T-shirt, jeans, and an Avengers backpack. He was pulling something out of it, looking about furtively as he did. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and glassy. His skin was like wax. He was licking his lips. We locked eyes, the child and I, and I knew, and so did the thing behind his eyes.
“Excuse me,” a deep voice with a Texas twang next to my ear said. “Is there a problem, sir?” I knew from the tone, from the way he spit out “sir,” that he was a cop.
“Yeah,” I said, my West Virginia accent in full bloom as I blew smoke in the cop’s eyes and ducked around him, running fast. “Call for backup! That kid’s got a fucking gun!” I sprinted to the end of the fence, turned the corner, and passed through the open gate toward the boy. The teachers were reacting to my
