Dead Man (2 page)
Authors: Joe Gores
“Excitingly paced.”
—
Atlanta Journal & Constitution
“Not since Hammett and Chandler has anyone written quite as well as Joe Gores.”
—Ross Thomas
“Gores has established himself securely as one of the best and most versatile authors of crime novels.”
—Twentieth Century
Crime
&
Mystery Writers
“A chilling tale… . The redemptive power of death permeates the action… . Gores tells his original story in an original way.”
—San
Jose Mercury News
“Reading Joe Gores’s novel is like wrestling a bull bare-handed… . You succumb to the brute force of his writing.”
—
Charlotte Observer
“A marvelous writer.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Plot twists and turns and a shocking surprise ending… . This is a terrific book. The characters are colorful, exciting, and
real.”
—I love
a Mystery Newsletter
“Gores has mastered the hard-boiled Hammett irony… Taut, colorful, stylistically convincing, and satisfyingly complex.”
—
Detroit Sunday News
“One of the very few authentic private eyes to enter the field of fiction since Dashiell Hammett.”
—Anthony Boucher
NOVELS
A Time of Predators (1969)
Interface (1974)
Hammett(1975)
Come Morning (1986)
Wolf Time (1989)
Dead Man (1993)
*
DKA FILE NOVELS
Dead Skip (1972)
*
Final Notice (1973)
*
Gone, No Forwarding (1978)
*
32 Cadillacs (1992)
*
*
Published by
THE MYSTERIOUS PRESS
Grateful acknowledgment is given to quote from the song “I Am a Rock” by Paul Simon.
Copyright © 1965 by Paul Simon. Used by permission of the publisher.
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MYSTERIOUS PRESS EDITION
Copyright © 1993 by Joe Gores
All rights reserved.
The Mysterious Press name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56834-0
For my beloved
DORI
who walked through snakes
so I could
get
it right
and in memory of
SHENZIE
I am a rock, I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain
,
And an island never cries.
Paul Simon
No man is an island, entire of
itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part
of the main.
John Donne
Contents
PRAISE FOR JOE GORES AND DEAD MAN
Baghdad by the Bay
SEEN AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH
O nobly-born, the time hath now come for thee to seek the Path. Thy breathing is about to cease. The Clear Light is like the
void and cloudless sky. At this moment, know thou thyself; and abide in that state.
T
HE
T
IBETAN
B
OOK
OF THE
D
EAD
Sherman Rare Books was a narrow elegant storefront across Post Street from the side entrance to the St. Francis Hotel. The
steel gates padlocked shut in the recessed entryway at night were now, in midmorning, folded open for trade. The books were
in locked breakfront hardwood cabinets; in recessed alcoves between them were original oil paintings. An unhurried place,
sybaritic in its appointments, rugs, and furnishings, where the book was at least as important as its selling.