AIDAN TRUHEN
Aidan Truhen lives in London. He worked in commodities of one sort or another until he was thirty, which is an age when a man wants his positive achievements to outnumber his acquittals. He’s trying to reinvent himself as a writer. We’ll see how it goes.
Also by Aidan Truhen
The Price You Pay
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME / BLACK LIZARD EDITION, MAY 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Aidan Truhen
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime / Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Truhen, Aidan, author.
Title: Seven demons / Aidan Truhen.
Description: First Vintage Crime / Black Lizard edition. | New York : Vintage Crime / Black Lizard, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020045429 (print) | LCCN 2020045430 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593311622 (paperback) | ISBN 9780593311639 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Criminals—Fiction. | Bank robberies—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6120.R84 S48 2021 (print) | LCC PR6120.R84 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045429
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045430
Vintage Crime / Black Lizard Trade Paperback ISBN 9780593311622
Ebook ISBN 9780593311639
Cover design and illustrations by Madeline Partner
Cover photograph (explosion) © Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Moment/Getty
www.vintagebooks.com
ep_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Also by Aidan Truhen
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
[The first I…]
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.
—Sergio Leone
This book is dedicated to everyone who still believes in more than that. You people are idiots, and if we didn’t have you, we’d all be even more screwed than we are.
THE FIRST I KNEW IT WAS ALL GOING WRONG was when Evil Hansel came running out of a pastry shop and stabbed me in the leg, and that was really just the best thing that happened that day. If you do not get stabbed in the leg by a nine-year-old once every so often, then that is nice for you. Hi I’m Jack hi and this story is about me and I am the kind of person who has enemies who know nine-year-olds who will run out of a pastry shop and stab you in the leg, not because they think it is a game but because they are commercially minded fucking psychopaths and that is the world.
Hi.
I did not know that Evil Hansel was called Evil Hansel at that point and indeed it is not his actual name. Evil Hansel was a little Sound of Music–looking motherfucker in actual lederhosen and a white frilly shirt and he came out of the pastry shop like he was about to break into song and then he stuck an oyster knife into my thigh so close to the femoral artery that I can still feel it in my sphincter. If someone cuts your wrists, you have quite a long time before the problem is irretrievable. The femoral is like if you are a balloon animal.
Sploosh.
And that’s it.
Happily, Evil Hansel is left-handed and I carry my billfold in my right-hand pocket so what the little fuckhead actually stabbed was about a thousand Swiss francs in twenties and fifties, which is totally appropriate because money is your sword and shield here, although I guess in that case Evil Hansel should have stabbed me with a hundred and he did not. He used an oyster knife. I did not have quite enough money in quite the right denominations so the knife did absolutely pierce me in a tender region and I was very unhappy.
Doc said: “Do not touch the knife.”
I did not touch the knife because I am not a fucking idiot.
I said: “What the fuck ow you little what the fuck?”
Evil Hansel did not respond to this question. Instead he tried to twist the knife and Volodya the sniper threw him under a car, and I do mean under because Evil Hansel just hunkered down and the chassis went right above him and he ran away.
I said: “What the fuck is wrong with you man, you couldn’t aim for the fucking wheels?”
Volodya said Evil Hansel was lighter than he thought he would be.
I said I did not care about if Evil Hansel was lighter than Volodya thought he would be because right now I had about a thousand Swiss francs nailed to my leg with an oyster knife.
Like he just realized he’d left the oven on, Volodya said: “Ah shit, Price.”
“What, man?”
“I told you we should not come.”
Then I fell over because that is what happens when you leak a bunch of red stuff out of your body onto foreign currency.
I fucking hate Switzerland.
ONE
DOC WHO IS MY NOT-GIRLFRIEND and a global science felon has a dog. The dog is called Tycho and looking at Tycho you would not think he was named for the guy who lost the middle part of his nose in a duel with swords. Tycho is a saluki and that is a tall skinny expensive dog like if Gaultier styled a greyhound for Miley Cyrus. Looking at Tycho you would assume he was gentle and shy and that is true insofar as it is mostly true and things that are mostly true are not true at all. Tycho is gentle and shy but he is also a dog and he will therefore attempt fornication with anything at all. The animal has no discretion and no sense of boundaries. Beneath the elegant exterior of a dog bred for generations by emirs and
