Riot Act (52 page)

Not only that, but the story ends with big questions over Charlie’s entire future.

By the start of
FOURTH DAY
, where Charlie, Sean and Parker Armstrong are planning a cult extraction in California, Charlie has still not solved the problems that arose during the previous book – nor has she found the courage to explain it all to Sean. When she volunteers to go undercover into the Fourth Day cult, she’s looking as much for answers about her own life as about the man who died.

It's this battle with her own dark side that is one of the most fascinating things for me as a writer about the character of Charlie Fox. I wanted a genuine female action hero, but one who had a convincing back story. I've tried to ensure she stays human, with all the flaws that entails – a sympathetic character rather than just a 'guy in nylons' as someone described some tough heroines in fiction.

In the latest instalment,
FIFTH VICTIM
– involving a deadly kidnap plot among the jet-set of Long Island – there are complications with Sean’s ongoing condition, and Charlie’s increasing awareness that her boss, Parker, views her as so much more than a mere employee. Charlie is forced to make decisions this time out that will change her life forever . . .

The instinct and the ability to kill

Characters who live on the fringe have a certain moral ambiguity that we find seductive, I feel. Charlie has that obscurity to her make-up. She discovers very early on that she has both the instinct and the ability to kill. And although she does it when she has to and doesn't enjoy what it does to her, that doesn't mean that if you push her in the wrong direction, or you step over that line, she won't drop you without hesitation.

Dealing with her own capacity for violence when she's put under threat is a continuing theme throughout the books. It's not an aspect of her personality that Charlie finds easy to live with – a difficulty she might not have if she was a male protagonist, perhaps? Even in these days of rabid politically correct equality, it is still not nearly as acceptable for women to be capable of those extremes of behaviour.

But Charlie has evolved out of events in her life and, as you find out during the course of the series, things are not about to get any easier. I do rather like to put her through it! She's a fighter and a survivor, and I get the feeling that if I met her I'd probably like her a lot. I'm not sure she'd say the same about me!

Although I've tried to write each of the Charlie Fox books so they stand alone, this is becoming more difficult as time goes on and her personal story overlaps from one book to the next. I'm always expanding on her back story, her troubled relationship with her parents and her even more troubled relationship with Sean, who was once her training instructor in the army and, when she moves into close protection, he then becomes her boss. He continues to bring out the best and the worst in her.

And their relationship is becoming ever more complicated as the series goes on. In the next outing, Charlie is struggling to deal not only with the dangers faced by her client, but also from the one person she should be able to trust with her life . . .

If you’re a fan of Charlie Fox, you may well enjoy the second Junior Bender novel from multi-award nominated author, Timothy Hallinan:

Timothy Hallinan, the 2011 Edgar and Macavity nominee for Best Novel, brings back Junior Bender, who made his debut in last year's highly praised CRASHED. Junior is a Los Angeles burglar who moonlights as a private eye – for crooks. The “Little Elvises” of the title were Philadelphia teenagers plucked off the city’s stoops in the 1960s by a mobbed-up record producer named Vinnie DiGaudio and turned into pallid imitations of the boy from Tupelo until their fourteen-year-old fans got tired of them and moved on to the next one. When Vinnie is in the cops’ sights for a murder, Junior is brought in, unwillingly, to prove Vinnie’s innocence. Unless, of course, Vinnie did it.

But one way or another, Vinnie – a gangster whose product was innocence – has made a central mistake. Some things never go away. And that’s what drives the plot of LITTLE ELVISES.

Praise for Timothy Hallinan:

“Timothy Hallinan is one of the great unsung mystery writers.” Ken Bruen, author of LONDON BOULEVARD

“Hallinan is terrific.” T. Jefferson Parker, author of IRON RIVER

“A stunning talent.” Gregg Hurwitz, author of YOU'RE NEXT

“Hallinan has a genuine ability to write effective prose, engaging repartee, sharp and witty characterizations.” Washington Post Book World

“Exceptional – a thriller with a heart . . . haunting and insightful.” The Denver Post on THE QUEEN OF PATPONG

“Another masterpiece of contemporary crime fiction.” Adrian McKinty, author of FIFTY GRAND

www.TimothyHallinan.com

Chapter Two – An Original Void

The month's motel was Marge 'n Ed's North Pole at the north end of North Hollywood. The advantage of staying at the North Pole was that none of the small number of people who believed I'd lived in motels since my divorce from Kathy would figure I'd stoop that low. The disadvantage of staying at the North Pole was everything else.

Generally speaking, motels have little to recommend them, and the North Pole had less than most. But they made me a moving target, and I could more or less control the extent to which anyone knew where I was at any given time. I'd been divorced almost three years, and the North Pole was my 34th motel, and far and away the worst of the bunch.

I'd been put into Blitzen. In an explosion of creativity, Marge 'n Ed had decided not to number the rooms. Since Clement Moore only named so many reindeer in “The Night Before Christmas,” Marge 'n Ed had pressed Rudolph into service and then come up with some names on their own. Thus, in addition to the reindeer we all know and love, we had rooms named Dydie, Witzel, Tinkie, and Doris.

Doris wasn't actually being passed off as a reindeer. She was Marge 'n Ed's daughter. Marge, who grew confidential as the evenings wore on and the level in the vodka bottle dropped, had told me one night that Doris had fled the North Pole with someone Marge referred to as
Mr. Pinkie Ring
, a pinkie ring being, in Marge's cosmology, the surest sign of a cad. And sure enough, the cad had broken Doris's heart, but would she come home? Not Doris. Stubborn as her father, by whom I assumed Marge meant Ed, whom I always thought of as
'n Ed.
Ed was no longer with us, having departed this vale of sorrows six years earlier. It was probably either that or somehow orchestrate a global ban on vodka, and death undoubtedly looked easier.

The string of Christmas lights that outlined the perimeter of Blitzen's front window blinked at me in no discernible sequence, and I'd been trying to discern one for days. They sprang to life whenever anyone turned on the ceiling light, which was the only light in the room. I'd tried to pull the cord from the outlet, but Marge 'n Ed had glued it in place.

“YouTube-dot-com,” Rina said on the phone. “Y-O-U-Tube, spelled like
tube
. Aren't you there yet?”

Something unpleasant happens even to the most agreeable of adolescents when they talk to adults about technology. A certain kind of grit comes into their voices, as though they're expecting to meet an impenetrable wall of stupidity and might have to sand their way through it. Rina, who still, so far as I knew, admired at least one or two aspects of my character, was no exception. She sounded like her teeth had been glued together.

“Yes,” I said, hearing myself echo her tone. “I've managed somehow to enter the wonderland of video detritus and I await only the magical search term that will let me sift the chaff.”

“
Dad
. Do you want help, or not?”

“I do,” I said, “but not in a tone of voice that says
I'd better talk really slowly or he'll get his thumb stuck in his nostril again.
”

“Do I sound like that?”

“A little.”

“Sorry. Okay, the interview is called ‘Vincent DiGaudio Interview,’ have you got that?”

“Slow down,” I said. “Did you just ask me whether I can follow the idea that The Vincent DiGaudio Interview is called ‘Vincent DiGaudio Interview’?”

“Oh.” She made a clucking noise I've never been able to duplicate. “Sorry again.”

“Maybe I'm being touchy,” I said. “Thanks. Anything else?”

“Not on video. I'll e-mail you the links to the other stuff, the written stuff. There's not much of it. He doesn't seem to have wanted much publicity.”

“Wonder why,” I said. I figured there was no point in telling her I was going to be getting involved with a mob guy. She might worry.

She said, “But the FBI files are kind of interesting.”

“Excuse me?”

“Somebody used the Freedom of Information Act,” said my thirteen-year-old daughter, “to file for release of a stack of FBI files on the outfit's influence in the Philadelphia music scene. Since DiGaudio's still alive and since he never got charged, his name is blacked out, but it's easy to tell it's him because a lot of the memos are about Giorgio. The files are on the FBI's site, but I'll send you the link so you don't have to waste time poking around.”

“The FBI site?” I said. “Giorgio?”

“Wake up, Dad. Everything's online.

Was I, a career criminal, going to log onto
the FBI site?
“Who's Giorgio?”

“The most pathetic of DiGaudio's little Elvises. Really pretty, I mean fruit-salad pretty, but he couldn't do
anything
. Tone deaf. He stood on the stage like his feet were nailed to the floor. But really, really pretty.”

“I don't remember him in the paper you wrote.” I was taking a chance here, because I hadn't actually read all of it.

“I didn't talk about him much. He was so awful that he kind of stood alone. He wasn't an imitation anything, really. He was an original void.”

“But pretty.”

“Yum yum yum.”

“Thanks, sweetie. I'll check it out.”

“You can look at Giorgio on YouTube, too,” she said. “Although you might want to turn the volume way, way down.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “It's under ‘Giorgio.’”

“Try ‘Giorgio Lucky Star.’ That was the name of his first hit. ‘Lucky Star,’ I mean. Little irony there, huh? If there was ever a lucky star, it was Giorgio. If it hadn't been for Elvis, he'd have been delivering mail. Not that it did him much good in the long run, poor kid. Anyway, search for ‘Giorgio Lucky Star.’ Otherwise you're going to spend the whole evening looking at Giorgio Armani.”

“Is your mom around?”

A pause I'd have probably missed if I weren't her father. “Um, out with Bill.”

“Remember what I told you,” I said. “Whatever you do, don't laugh at Bill's nose.”

“There's nothing wrong with Bill's nose.”

“Just, whatever happens, next time you see Bill's nose, don't laugh at it.”

“Daddy,” she said. “You're terrible.” She made a kiss noise and hung up.

It was okay that I was terrible. She only called me daddy when she liked me.

I've had more opportunity than most people to do things I'd regret later, and I've taken advantage of a great many of those opportunities. But there was nothing I regretted more than not being able to live in the same house as my daughter.

***

I'd wanted to stay in Donder, but it was taken.

Donder is a convincing name for a reindeer. “Blitzen” sounds to me like the name of some Danish Nazi collaborator, someone who committed high treason in deep snow. But Donder was occupied, so I was stuck with either Blitzen or Dydie. I chose Blitzen because it was on the second floor, which I prefer, and it had a connecting door with Prancer, which was unoccupied, so I could rent them both but leave the light off in one of them, giving me a second room to duck into in an emergency, a configuration I insist on. This little escape hatch that has probably saved me from a couple of broken legs, broken legs being a standard method of getting someone's attention in the world of low-IQ crime. And as much as I didn't like the name “Blitzen,” there was no way I was going to stay in Prancer. It would affect the way I thought about myself.

Blitzen was a small, airless rectangle with dusty tinsel fringing the tops of the doors, cut-outs of snowflakes dangling from the ceiling, and fluffs of cotton glued to the top of the medicine cabinet. A pyramid of glass Christmas-tree ornaments had been glued together, and then the whole assemblage had been glued to a red-and-green platter, which in turn had been glued to the top of the dresser. Marge 'n Ed went through a lot of glue. The carpet had been a snowy white fifteen or twenty years ago, but was now the colour of guilt, a brownish gray like a dusty spiderweb, interrupted here and there by horrific blotches of darkness, as though aliens with pitch in their veins had bled out on it. The first time I saw it, it struck me as a perfect picture of a guilty conscience at three AM: you're floating along in a sort of pasteurized colourlessness, and
wham
, here comes a black spot that has you bolt upright and sweating in the dark.