Authors: G. M. Ford

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Thrillers, #Suspense

Black River (26 page)

Wednesday, October 25

1:19 p.m.

T
he
Attorney General of the United States stood behind the bank of
microphones, her short hair rippling in the breeze. “And I am
pleased that the jury has so quickly and unequivocally brought this
matter to an end, so that the long-suffering victims of Nicholas
Balagula’s criminal empire can finally find some sense of closure
and some measure of peace in this tragedy,” she concluded. The
press began to fire questions but she ignored them. Smiling and waving
like the queen, she turned and walked away from the podium.

“How long was the jury out?” Corso
asked.

“Twenty-eight minutes. Guilty on all sixty-three
counts.”

Meg Dougherty pushed the button on the remote control.
The screen went black.

“Am I crazy or did that woman just take credit
for the whole thing?”

“Only the winning part,” Corso said.

“So you’ve finally got an ending for your
book.”

Corso couldn’t help himself. He laughed out
loud.

“Guess what?” Dougherty said.

“I’ll bite.”

“The
Times
’s
insurance company is picking up my hospital bill. Since I was working
for them when it happened, they figured it was only fair.”

“Not to mention good publicity.”

“There’s that.”

Corso wandered over to the window and pushed the
curtain aside. The morning sun poured itself onto the floor. As Corso
stood looking down on Ninth Avenue, Meg Dougherty asked, “You
okay?”

Without turning her way, he said, “I
suppose.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

He shook his head.

“It’s that bad?”

“It’s that something,” he said. He
released the curtain and ambled toward the bed, then stopped in the
middle of the floor and shrugged. “One of my oldest movies up and
changed its ending on me.”

She tilted her head on the pillow. “What movie is
that?”

“The Western. The one where the intrepid sheriff
”—he patted his chest—“faces down the lawless
gang.” He waved a hand. “All alone.” He read her
puzzled expression. “You know,” he said. “Sun
directly overhead, lots of dust, guy with a star on his chest. That
kind of thing.”

“
High
Noon
?”

“More or less.”

“So?”

He hesitated, seeming to listen to some inner voice,
and then said, “So maybe I didn’t turn out to be as brave
and intrepid as I’d always imagined.”

“How so?”

He winced. “It was much more ambiguous than I
figured. It was hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. There
didn’t seem to be any moral high ground. More like we all just
got down in the swamp together and rolled around in the
muck.”

“And you
do
love the
moral high ground.”

He nodded sadly but did not speak. The streaming
sunlight highlighted flecks of airborne dust, filling the room with a
glittering curtain of mist. Corso eased his right hand into the
shimmering shaft of light, turning it this way and that until,
satisfied that the sun had touched it all, he returned it to his
pocket.

“When are they going to let you out of
here?” he said finally.

“Two weeks,” she said.

“Ought to take me about that long to put an
ending on the Balagula book,” he said. “After that I could
use some help on—”

She waved him off. “Thanks,” she said,
“but I’ve still got a lot to process. A lot of healing to
do.”

She almost smiled as he tried to speak with boyish
enthusiasm.

“Maybe we could…you know…after
you’ve had time to—”

“We’ll see,” she said, turning her
face away.

Corso hesitated and then wandered over to the bedside,
where he stood looking down at her. He bent over the rail and kissed
her once on the cheek, lingering a moment before straightening and
making for the door.

“Corso.”

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. She had
tears in her eyes.

“You’re the best friend I ever had,”
she said.

She couldn’t tell whether the movement of his
head was a nod or a tremor. Either way, he grabbed the door handle,
slid through the narrow crack, and disappeared.

About the
Author

G.M. Ford is the author of five previous, widely praised Frank Corso novels,
Fury, Black River, A Blind Eye, Red Tide
, and
No Man’s Land
, as well as six highly acclaimed mysteries featuring Seattle private investigator Leo Waterman. A former creative writing teacher in western Washington, Ford lives in Seattle and is currently working on his next novel.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Resounding
praise
for
G. M. FORD
and
BLACK RIVER

“Another two-fisted shot from the
hard-boiled school of crime fiction…Ford demonstrates an adroit
hand with roughhouse action and crackling dialogue and gonzo
humor…
Black
River
zips along with relentless drive, a Dodge Charger
of a novel.”

Seattle
Post-Intelligence

“G.M. Ford has decided to get
serious…Seattle takes on more interesting shades from
Corso’s darker perspective.”

New York Times Book
Review

“Beach Book of the Week.”

People

“Ford serves up great dollops of
intrigue, danger, and edge-of-the-seat suspense…What more could
a mystery fan want?”

Booklist

“Corso is a terrific, unpredictable
character worth spending time with.”

Albany
Times-Union

“The best writer of Seattle-based crime
fiction these days is…G.M. Ford.”

Seattle
Magazine

“
Black River
overflows with a
well-conceived plot, true villains, and an anti-hero whose focus never
strays. Ford invests a subtlety in
Black River
that makes the story seem
deceptively simple. It’s not…A briskly moving plot that
never falters…Ford delivers a thoughtful thriller.”

Ft. Lauderdale
Sun-Sentinel

“Pace, plot, pitch, prose: all
precisely as they should be in a model modern
mystery…Corso’s terrific.”

Kirkus Reviews
(* Starred Review *)

“Gritty…atmospheric…Balagula
is a well-rounded villain…Ford tells an engaging story with
several clever twists. Plot is clearly his forte.”

Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette

“Frank Corso is irresistible, part Sam
Spade, part

Hunter S. Thompson…You’re in the
hands of a superior storyteller.”

Martha C. Lawrence

“Welcome back, Mr. Corso—and Mr.
Ford.”

Publishers
Weekly
(* Starred Review *)

“G.M. Ford…may be the best-kept
secret in mystery novels…He’s at the top of his genre and
that’s as good as it gets.”

Dennis Lehane

“Ford is a stylish and supremely
confident writer. His depiction of Seattle is masterful, his scenes of
violence deft and chillingly convincing…Corso may…develop
into one of the more interesting and durable series heroes
around.”

St. Petersburg
Times

“The Raymond Chandler of
Seattle.”

San Antonio
Express-News

“[Ford] continues to create some of the
most colorful major and minor characters in mystery
fiction.”

Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel

“Corso is definitely Ford’s
hottest character to date.”

Toronto Globe and
Mail

“Ford is wham-bang, straight-laced, no
fooling around…I admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of
series mysteries… [
Black
River
] may just keep me coming back.”

Denver Post

Also by G. M.
Ford

F
URY

The Leo Waterman
Series

T
HE
D
EADER THE
B
ETTER

L
AST
D
ITCH

S
LOW
B
URN

T
HE
B
UM
’
S
R
USH

C
AST IN
S
TONE

W
HO IN
H
ELL
I
S
W
ANDA
F
UCA
?

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BLACK RIVER
. Copyright © 2002 by G. M. Ford. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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