Randall Quinn has been a cleaner for the mob for over ten years, but a particularly violent scene sets him to drinking alone and contemplating his options. At thirty-nine, it’s possible this is just a mid-life crisis so he tries buying himself a flashy car to satisfy the itch, and agrees to take another job to test his conviction. He’s expecting easy money when he arrives at a seedy motel to clean up after what the Boss told him was supposed to have been a simple execution. But what he discovers in that motel room is anything but simple, and from that moment on every decision he makes for himself makes his life more and more complicated.
Available for preorder on March 21 at Pride Publishing!
Excerpt:
Surveying the premises from the parking lot didn’t improve Quinn’s assessment one bit. This place was the very definition of shithole. The roof was warped, the siding moldy, and the main office wasn’t really an office at all—it was just a glass window with a fucking pass-through. Chances were good he was looking at bulletproof glass, too. Classy. He took note of the surveillance camera over the window as well.
Erring on the side of caution, Quinn left the car running and the driver’s side door open. He knocked on the thick glass, summoning a small man with greasy hair, dirty fingernails and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
He squinted at Quinn. “Yeah?”
“I’m here for three-twenty-nine.”
The guy nodded. “Heard you was comin’. I’m Davis.” He slipped a key into the pass-through.
Quinn shook his head. “I’m not touching that. You let me in.”
Davis sighed. “I don’t want nothin’ to do with nothin’.”
“You wanna keep that paycheck?” Quinn asked, pulling his Beretta off his hip and holding it flat against the glass. “Or see what’s behind door number two?”
Davis sighed. “Right.” He took the key and disappeared back into the office, appearing again in the breezeway.
Quinn nodded and got back in his car. He’d be damned if he was going to let his baby out of his sight. He drove her down the length of the building again and parked outside room number three-twenty-nine, then pulled his kit off the front seat and got out of the car. “Don’t go anywhere, beautiful,” he said, polishing a fingerprint off the driver’s side door. Yep. Pretty sweet ride.
While he waited for Davis to catch up, he dropped his kit on the concrete slab outside the motel room door and took out a pair of latex gloves. After pulling them on with practiced ease, he tugged his gun from his belt again.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Davis called nervously, picking up his pace. He’d gotten the wrong idea, but Quinn was fine with that if it lit a fire under his ass. Davis put the key in and hastily unlocked the motel room door.
“Thank you,” Quinn said, tapping the gun against his thigh for effect. “Now. The surveillance camera—”
“Hasn’t worked in years. It’s not even hooked up to anything. I just keep it there so people think—”
“Fine. You can go now.”
Davis turned and hurried back into the office.
Quinn chuckled. This really was a great location. If Davis stayed nervously respectful, his motel could see some repeat business. Davis could even make enough money to put some lipstick on this pig.
The metal door to number three-twenty-nine looked as though it had been kicked in more than once in its lifetime. The jamb was bent, the doorknob sat at a bit of an angle and rust had eaten through the olive paint in several places. Quinn gave the knob a turn and it protested weakly, but then the door swung away from him.
He held his gun up near his face, sighting down the barrel as he scanned the room. Satisfied, he put the piece back in his belt and went inside, closing and locking the door behind him. The motel room was a pit. The bed was hollow, the drapes hung unevenly and were a hideous shit brown, and the carpet was industrial, worn with the traffic of many feet, and looked like vomit. He noted the older model TV, a tall lamp in one corner and a ragged-looking lounge chair underneath that. He squinted at what he supposed was meant to be art hanging on the wall over the bed. He sure saw a lot of fucking shit in this room.
What he did not see was a body.
