This is the second novel featuring Nick Stefanos, Greek roustabout, who works in a down and out bar called The Spot. Nick is working the bar, serving the regulars, when an old high school buddy walks in, Billy Goodrich, and Nick knows something is up. In fact, Billy's wife is missing and he wants Nick to help him find her. This story takes up half the novel, the other half dealing with the unexplained murder of an old friend of Nicks. Nick reluctantly decides to help Billy and finds out that not only has Billy's wife been unfaithful, but left Billy and seems to have headed home. Nick soon discovers that Billy has been lying about the reasons for her leaving. Billy eventually fesses up, that the two of them had stolen a couple of hundred grand from her lover but she absconded with the money and left Billy empty handed. The trail leads to his wife's old stomping grounds, an ex lover who happens to be a pig butcher and you can imagine the rest. She is never found; Nick ends up shooting the pig butcher, recovering the money, giving it away and telling Billy that he never wants to see him again.
Too much of the story involves Nick's drinking, at the bar, after work, and in various bars around the city of DC when he tries to make sense of things. The second story is not as bizarre. A reporter friend of Nick's is found dead. Nick hunts around, finds the kid who let the suspect into the condo, and finds that his buddy, William Henry, got to close to the mafia like dealings of a series of pizza parlors and they had him killed. Nick uncovers the kingpins and along with Boyle, a straight cop who frequents Nick's bar, they take down the group, leaving the law out of it, vigilante style I suppose. O, yea, Nick becomes friends with a couple of lesbians, is asked to father a child, which he does. He becomes a father but not in the traditional sense since his lesbian friend has moved to San Francisco, a typical aside in a Pelecano's novel. We read the book as much for atmosphere as for the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment