Dead Ringer

Начало книги

Horace Nighthyde stood at the bus stop on Atlantic in front of Sammy’s Bagels, a trendy new bakery in Downtown Long Beach. He checked his Timex. Five to twelve. Five minutes before he was supposed to kill a man. He heard the drone of a small plane, looked up. A Cessna was on a straight out over the harbor. He sighed. He had his own Cessna. Flying soothed him, Mozart on the CD player, the ocean below, like he was God looking down on his creation.

The sky had just cleared. It had been raining earlier, the kind of hot rain that’s common in the south, but rare in California. He heard the hiss of Striker’s tires against the steamy pavement before he saw his black BMW. He took a last, quick look upward, saw the clearing rain as a sign, a good one. He stepped off the curb, got in the car.

“Ready?” Striker slid over a pump shotgun. He was a big man, dark hair cropped close, white walls, like he was back in the Army or still on the force. He looked like a fight waiting to happen, but he was the kind of man who stayed in the background, a planner, a fixer.

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