When the Thrill Is Gone
Read When the Thrill Is Gone Online
Authors: Walter Mosley
Table of Contents
ALSO BY WALTER MOSLEY
LEONID McGILL MYSTERIES
The Long Fall
Known to Evil
EASY RAWLINS MYSTERIES
Blonde Faith
Cinnamon Kiss
Little Scarlet
Six Easy Pieces
Bad Boy Brawly Brown
A Little Yellow Dog
Black Betty
Gone Fishin’
White Butterfly
A Red Death
Devil in a Blue Dress
OTHER FICTION
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
The Tempest Tales
Diablerie
Killing Johnny Fry
The Man in My Basement
Fear of the Dark
Fortunate Son
The Wave
Fear Itself
Futureland
Fearless Jones
Walkin’ the Dog
Blue Light
Always Outnumbered,
Always Outgunned
RL’s Dream
47
The Right Mistake
NONFICTION
This Year You Write Your Novel
What Next: A Memoir
Toward World Peace
Life Out of Context
Workin’ on the Chain Gang
RIVERHEAD BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,
Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell
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(Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2011 by Walter Mosley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mosley, Walter.
When the thrill is gone/ Walter Mosley.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-50301-0
1. McGill, Leonid (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—
New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.
4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563. O88456W45 2011
2010039098
813’.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty websites or their content.
To Gary Phillips
The tenor sax of the noir genre
1
SOMEWHERE BEYOND my line of sight a man groaned, pathetically. It sounded as if he had reached the end of his reserves and was now about to die.
But I couldn’t stop to see what the problem was. I was too deep into the rhythm of working the hard belly of the speed bag. That air-filled leather bladder was hitting its suspension plate faster than any basketball the NBA could imagine. Nothing in the world is more harmonizing than hitting the speed bag at three in the afternoon when most other workers are sitting in cubicles, dreaming of retirement, praying for Saturday, or finding themselves crammed-in down underground on subway cars, hurtling toward destinations they never bargained for.
Battling the speed bag, first with the heels of your gloved fists and then with a straight punch peppered in for variety, you hone the ability to go all the way, as far as you can; getting in close but never allowing the bag to slap you in the face. Then, after that hard leather sack is moving more rapidly than the eye can follow, your hips and thighs, neck and head begin to move quickly, unexpectedly, like water, unerring in its headlong rush over and around any obstacle, wearing down your imagined opponent with the inevitability of time.
And, as any boxer can tell you, time is always running out.
Anybody you get in the ring with you is bigger and stronger, the worst problem you evah had in your lazy life,
Gordo would say when I was a young man, sweating hard and thinking that I might be a professional boxer one day.
The only chance you got is to wear him down, them fists like pistons and your head a movin’ target. You use your skull and shoulders, stomach and spit, anything you can to keep him off balance. And the whole time your fists is at him, they don’t even know how to stop.
“Give me four more.” The words came, and then a whining groan of agony.
“I can’t,” the bodiless voice pleaded.
“Four more!”
The strain audible in the ensuing grunt sounded like a man vomiting up his guts.
“My chest!” he cried. “It hurts!”
“You won’t die,” the torturer promised. It was more like a pledge of vengeance than any assurance of survival.
Without looking in their direction, I lowered my shuddering arms and headed for the showers. Pain is of no consequence in a gladiatorial gym; neither is blood or bruises, broken noses or concussions, unconsciousness, or even, now and then—death.