Whiplash River (32 page)

Chapter 51

G
ina was not pleased to see that Quinn's son had booked them into coach. Shake laughed. He could think of worse fates.

“How long is this flight?” Gina said five minutes after takeoff. “Are we there yet?”

“Who do you think Gardenhire will call first for a favor, me or you?”

“Me. But my favor will be easier to do.”

“Were you worried?”

“When? Yes. Of course. Are you nuts?”

“Marry me,” Shake said.

“No.”

“Then think about it.”

“I don't need to think about it.”

“You love me too.”

“So?”

“So marry me. We'll have kids. Do you want kids?”

“I don't know what I want. Neither do you.”

“We'll figure it out together.”

“A recipe for bliss.”

“It might be.”

Gina squirmed and wriggled and thrashed around in the confines of her coach seat, trying to get comfortable.

“If you're going to propose,” she said, “do it right. With a ring, and not both of us smelling like an Egyptian jail. Not on an airplane. Not in coach.”

“On the Palisades. At sunset. And then you'll say yes?”

“No. I'll still say no. But you'll feel better about yourself. You'll know you gave it your best shot.”

The flight attendant braked her drink cart in the aisle next to Shake.

“What can I get you?” she asked him.

“Everything,” he said.

“I'm sorry?”

“I don't have any money. My restaurant blew up. I don't have a place to live. I don't have any job prospects. I still owe back pay to the people who used to work in my restaurant. My ability to love any woman but the one sitting next to me has been permanently compromised.”

The flight attendant glanced at Gina, smiled nervously.

“Give him a ginger ale,” Gina told her. “Me too.”

The flight attendant gave them ginger ales and moved on.

“If you need to crash with me for a while,” Gina said, “all you have to do is beg.”

“I'm begging.”

“Whatever,” she said, and put her headphones on. “Are we there yet?”

Acknowledgments

A
s a character in this novel points out, you need help when you rip off a dangerous black-market dealer of stolen antiquities. Well, the same thing goes when you write a novel, and there are a lot of people I'd like to thank for their help along the way.

I'm incredibly grateful for the supremely good taste, good sense, and good will of my literary agent, Richard Parks, and my editor at William Morrow, Trish Daly. This book, and this writer, are better because of them.

The sales, marketing, and publicity departments at William Morrow and HarperCollins have been phenomenal. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and to discover that I've accidentally sold my soul to them (I do, now that you mention it, remember signing something in blood). In particular I'd like to thank the people I've had the fortune to get to know personally: Michael Brennan, Carla Parker, Jean Marie Kelly, Danielle Bartlett, and Joanne Minutillo. And though she's gone to a better place now (upstate New York, I believe), I remain indebted to Peggy Hageman.

I make it a point to visit the places I write about (or, maybe, the other way around). I'd still be wandering lost in the highlands of Belize, or maybe in an Egyptian prison cell myself, were it not for the invaluable and gracious assistance of the friends I made at Chaa Creek and Lady Egypt.

A quick word about Belize and Egypt. You might gather, from this novel, that both countries seethe with murderous drug lords, exotic pet smugglers, and dangerous black-market dealers of stolen antiquities. They do! Well, not really. In my experience, the people of both countries are warm, friendly, and welcoming, and I can think of two no better places to visit on your next vacation.

The mystery-crime community—writers, readers, bloggers, magazine editors, and booksellers—has been a fantastic source of support and advice. I really can't overstate how much I've appreciated it, and I don't think I've ever encountered a group that has been so relentlessly generous and welcoming. There are too many people to thank individually, so I plan to buy each of them a beer in the hotel bar at the next Bouchercon.

This list is starting to drone on, I realize, and I don't want to be that costume designer at the Oscars who has to be dragged off stage as the orchestra swells. So here, without the elaboration they deserve, and in no particular order, are people I'm grateful to for one reason or another (usually multiple reasons): Dana Kaye, Jeremy Bell, Michael Sheresky, Ramses Ishak, Ben Jacobson, Frank Lunn, Jim and Katy Harrigan, Steve and Sue Ellen Harrigan, the Sanchez-Westenberg family, Thomas Cooney, Rick Klingenberg.

And finally I'd like to thank my wife, Christine, without whom I would be completely lost.

About the Author

LOU BERNEY is an accomplished writer, teacher, and liar who has written feature screenplays and created TV pilots for Warner Brothers, Paramount, Focus Features, ABC, and Fox, among others. His short fiction has appeared in the
New Yorker
,
Ploughshares
, the Pushcart Prize anthology, and other publications. His first novel,
Gutshot Straight
, was named one of the ten best debut crime novels of the year by
Booklist
and nominated for a Barry Award.

 

www.louberney.com

 

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Also by Lou Berney

The Road to Bobby Joe and Other Stories

 

Gutshot Straight

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WHIPLASH RIVER.
Copyright © 2012 by Lou Berney. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-211528-7

EPub Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN: 9780062115294

12   13   14   15   16  
OV/RRD
  10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1