Dead Cat Bounce by Robert White

Release date: September 12, 2019

Subgenre: Hard-boiled crime fiction

About Dead Cat Bounce:

 

Old Mrs Bello lived above the family grocery store all her life, she worked hard, was frugal and lived an ordinary life. There was one thing that people knew about Mrs B though - she absolutely didn’t trust banks.

When she died at the age of 88 there was only one question on everyone’s lips – what happened to the family money?

Despite frantic searching from her surviving relatives, not a single cent was ever found and the missing family fortune passed into local legend.

Butchie Parmenter doesn’t believe in legends.

Experience has taught Butchie not to believe in anything except himself, so when good fortune unexpectedly lands at his feet he grabs the opportunity with both hands, determined not to let go. No matter what.

Butchie should have figured that nothing worth having ever comes easy and if something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

 

Excerpt:

 

The day Butchie Parmenter found the money, he was inside the place on legitimate business. He’d used his father’s position as sergeant-at-arms with the Christopher Columbus Lodge to pull enough strings to get him hired on with the city as a housing inspector.  For Butchie, this was locking a kid with a sweet tooth inside a candy store; he was a thief. Being free to walk into houses was his dream job. He scoped out empty houses during work hours and came back in the evenings to rip out copper pipes and tubing.  Trouble was, the junkies didn’t leave much.  But anything of value, anything worth fencing, went into the back of his Ford F-150, a rusted-out junker, under a blue plastic tarpaulin. His new Jeep Wrangler sat out front of his apartment in his allotted space; it was too obvious to take on his off-duty “excursions.”  He even drove to the municipal parking lot with stolen goods still tied down in the back. 

There was an unexpected bonus to Butchie’s job:  he encountered some single mothers who weren’t repulsed by his flirting and a few more than willing to supplement their welfare checks with a quick romp in a bedroom while their toddler watched cartoons.  He’d gotten good at sensing which women were amenable to his charms and which were merely polite from those who’d report him in a heartbeat.  Butchie loved the challenge.  Taking bribes from landlords who failed inspections was the other side of that coin. All in all, he felt himself a lucky man—that is, until the day he found the shoeboxes stuffed with tens, twenties, and fifties behind that old refrigerator in the Bello building.  The city planned to tear it down, but the family engaged a lawyer to halt the proceedings. The filing of writs by both sides resulted in a declaration of lis pendens in which the court assumed control over the building until the matter could be formally settled. Butchie was there to ascertain the current status of the building as a fire or pedestrian hazard.

Butchie had just come from the building after one of his cursory inspections and was killing time in a bar on Main with Nino Frabutt when Odraye Suggs walked in. Nino called him over to their booth and introduced him to Butchie.

“Odraye here’s a boxer,” Nino said. “Come sit down, champ.”

He barely placed his hand in Butchie’s and avoided giving a squeeze, which irked Butchie.  Man thinks his hand’s a Fabergé egg.

“That so?” Butchie said. “You fight anybody I know?”

Odraye named three of the five fighters with whom he’d had bouts in club fights around Massachusetts, all heavyweights like him, but omitted the fact all three of the eight fights of his career were losses, two technical KOs and a split decision.

“They call him ‘The Wild Panamanian,’ Nino said. “He likes to head-butt.”

“Fuck you, Nino,” Odraye said.

“You from Panama?” Butchie asked. Like most Caucasians, he didn’t distinguish mixed races easily, and Odraye’s features appeared altogether African-American.

Nino laughed.

“What is it?  Did I say something funny?” Butchie asked Nino.

“Yeah, he’s Panamanian, all right,” Nino said.  “Panama City, Florida.  The ‘Wild’ part comes from his head-butting.  How many fights got you disqualified, Odraye?”

Odraye raised three fingers and slowly lowered all but the middle one, which he aimed at Nino. All three laughed.

 

Amazon | Fahrenheit Press

 

About Robert White: 

Robb White lives in Northeastern Ohio. He has published several crime, noir, and hardboiled novels and published crime, horror, and mainstream stories in various magazines and anthologies. He’s been nominated for a Derringer. “Inside Man,” a crime story, was selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2019. His new hardboiled series features private-eye Raimo Jarvi Northtown Eclipse (Fahrenheit Press, 2018). Murder, Mayhem and More cited When You Run with Wolves as a finalist for its Top Ten Crime Books of 2018.

 

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