Fresh Kills (39 page)

“Great,” Billy said. “It's great, Artie, right?”

I turned around and, not looking at his face, noticed that the laces from the one sneaker he wore were trailing across the lawn.

“Yeah,” I said. “Go on, get your stuff.”

Smiling, he hobbled across to the house.

I said to Tolya, “I can't do it.”

“I know,” he said. “That's what I'm here for.”

“Don't tell me, OK, not now.”

“Yes,” he said.

I gave Tolya back his gun.

While Billy was still inside packing – I could hear him there, whistling something that had no tune – I got into my car and slowly, trying not to make much noise, backed out of the drive. I hoped Billy would come out of the house so I could see him before I left; I hoped like hell he wouldn't.

He didn't come out. When I got to the main road, I turned the car around and, trying not to look back over my shoulder, hit the gas and headed back to the city.

ALSO AVAILABLE IN ARROW

Red Hook

Reggie Nadelson

It's a late summer Sunday in downtown New York City, and Artie Cohen is getting married. Watching the sun rising over the East River, he's content.

A message comes in from an old friend, Sid McKay, asking Artie to come out to Red Hook in Brooklyn. It's his wedding day, but Artie owes Sid, so he goes. On arriving he finds a dead man spreadeagled in the water off the old docks. When Sid eventually shows up, he's scared, edgy and evasive, Artie suspects he's holding something back.

Even at his own wedding party, later that day, Artie can't stop thinking about Sid. Why has the death of a vagrant spooked him so much? It's not his case, but the more he digs, the more it drags him in, implicating – and threatening – his closest friends . . .

‘It's rare that crime writing should so passionately and precisely examine its own time. Its also reassuring to find a writer who is so magnificently up to the job.' Literary Review, Book of The Month

‘Artie Cohen is the detective New York deserves: smart, wounded, emotional, haunted, and not as tough as he thinks. Reggie Nadelson's Cohen books get better and better' Salman Rushdie

Also available in Arrow by Reggie Nadelson
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