Back from the Dead (24 page)

We hope you enjoyed
Back from the Dead
. The Story Plant has published two other Peter Leonard novels, and we thought you might like a taste of each.

The year is 1971. The place is Detroit. Harry Levin, a scrap metal dealer and Holocaust survivor, has just learned that his daughter was killed in a car accident. Traveling to Washington, DC to claim the body, he learns that the accident was caused by a German diplomat who was driving drunk. This is only the beginning of the horror for Harry, though, as he discovers that the diplomat will never face charges – he has already been released and granted immunity. Enraged and aggrieved, Harry discovers the identity of his daughter’s killer, follows him to Munich, and hunts him down. What Harry finds out about the diplomat and his plans will explode his life and the lives of everyone around him. Brimming with action and dark humor,
Voices of the Dead
, firmly positions Peter Leonard as a writer every suspense fan needs to read.

Turn the page for an excerpt:

Sara cashed out her last table, tipped Kenny the bartender, and the busers, and walked outside. It was just past midnight, still hot and muggy. It felt good after being in an air-conditioned restaurant for six hours. It had been a great night. She had made $180 in tips alone. Life was good. She’d been lucky enough to get the job at Bistro 675, a trendy new restaurant on 15th Street, not far from the White House. But it had been a lucky year. She was on the Dean’s List at George Washington, and a month before the semester ended, her English professor, Dr. Lund, had asked if she’d be interested in house-sitting for the summer. Two months, anyway. He’d rented a country home in the south of France, three kilometers from Aix-en-Provence, and needed someone to water the plants and bring in the mail.

A chance to stay in Washington for the summer, she’d said to herself. Are you kidding? How cool was that? She’d called her father and told him the good news.

He said, “That’s great. I want your life. Things always seem to fall into place.”

She hadn’t told him about Richard yet, this cute boy in her psych class. They had been hanging out for a few months and Sara liked him a lot, maybe even loved him. Next time her dad came to DC she was going to introduce them.

She found her car in the lot, a baby blue ’68 Ford Falcon her father had bought for her, cruising north on 15th, windows down, listening to Joni Mitchell do
Blue
. Passed the statue of Alexander Hamilton and the Treasury building and New York Avenue, approaching Pennsylvania, green light, heading into the intersection, singing with Joni, really belting it out:

Hey blue, here is a song for you
 …

Hess had no idea where he was. He had been driving west on Pennsylvania Avenue, and now was somehow on K Street. He regretted stopping at the gentlemen’s club but he’d needed several drinks to calm him down, he had been so charged up, so high on adrenalin.

To the right was a sign for Lafayette Park, and he realized he was traveling in the wrong direction. The White House was somewhere south through the trees. He tapped a cigarette out of his pack and lighted it with a match, steering the big Mercedes-Benz with his knees. He was drunk, the white line dividing the road, blurring into two. He closed one eye to correct his vision.

Hess brought the cigarette to his mouth, but it slipped through his fingers. He fumbled, tried to catch it with dulled reflexes, cigarette dropping in his lap, falling to the floor. He glanced down, saw it and reached to pick it up, but it rolled toward the accelerator pedal. He looked up now, approaching an intersection, red traffic light sending an alarm to his brain, foot going for the brake pedal, but too late.

He slammed into an automobile, hitting it broadside with serious impact, crushing it, pushing it through the intersection. Hess was conscious of his head striking the steering wheel, the Mercedes spinning, crashing into a storefront. He heard voices and the high-pitched whine of a radiator under pressure, the sound of a siren some distance away, and saw faces staring at him through the windows.

Harry was in his office at the scrap yard, writing a check to the IRS, he couldn’t see the amount, but it was enough to put him out of business. He was signing his name when he heard the phone ring, sounding like it was far away. He woke up, opened his eyes, the phone on the table next to his bed, ringing. Slid over, glanced at the clock. 3:17 a.m. Answered it, barely awake. “Hello.”

“Mr. Levin, this is the Huntington Woods Police Department.”

“Yeah? You know what time it is?” Harry said.

“Sir, your daughter has been in an automobile accident. There is a police officer at your house. Will you please answer the door?”

No way it was Sara. “My daughter’s in Washington DC. What’s going on?” He heard the doorbell.

“The officer will tell you.”

He hung up the phone. It had to be a misunderstanding. Heard the doorbell ring again as he was putting on his robe. He went downstairs, opened the front door. A Huntington Woods cop in a blue uniform was standing on the porch.

“Mr. Levin, may I come in?”

Harry swung the door open further. The cop stepped into the foyer and took off his hat. He looked young, thirty maybe. Blond hair parted on the side, creased where the hat rested, ruddy complexion. Seemed nervous.

“Mr. Levin, your daughter, Sara, was killed in a car accident this morning in Washington DC.”

Harry felt like he’d been punched in the chest. Stepped back and tried to take a breath. It couldn’t be. He’d talked to her just before she went to work.

But the cop assured him it wasn’t a mistake. His department had been contacted by the DC police. Sara was at Washington Hospital. He gave Harry the name and number of a Washington DC detective named Taggart and a woman named Judy Katz at the hospital. The cop told him how sorry he was, and let himself out and closed the door.

Harry went back upstairs, sat on the bed, holding it in, and called Eastern Airlines, booked a seat on the 6:31 a.m. flight to National Airport.

Rome:

McCabe and Chip, two American exchange students, are about to become embroiled with a violent street gang, a beautiful Italian girl, and a flawed kidnapping plan.

Detroit:

Sharon Vanelli’s affair with Joey Palermo, a Mafia enforcer, is about to be discovered by her husband, Ray, a secret service agent.

Brilliantly plotted and shot through with wry humor,
All He Saw Was The Girl
sees these two narratives collide in the backstreets of Italy’s oldest city.

Turn the page for an excerpt:

They were taken to a room and interrogated by a no-nonsense cop, a detective in a black sport coat. He was built like a soccer player, stocky and still muscular in middle age, thinning salt-and-pepper hair combed back. He introduced himself as Captain Ferrara. McCabe told him their names and told him they were students at Loyola University.

Chip said, “We weren’t actually stealing the taxi.”

Ferrara said, “No? What were you doing?”

Chip said, “We were drunk. It was a joke. Scherzo.”

Captain Ferrara said, “Scherzo? This is how a man makes his living and you dismiss it as something trivial, unimportant. You have too much to drink and use this as an excuse? The man’s automobile is damaged. Now he has no way to earn a living, support his family.”

Chip said, “I’ll buy him a new one.”

He held Chip in his laser gaze, eyes locked on him. Chip said, “You know who Senator Charles Tallenger is, right?”

He sounded drunk.

Captain Ferrara stared at him, studying him.

Chip said, “Well I’m his son, Charles Tallenger III.” Captain Ferrara didn’t say anything, didn’t seem impressed, gave him a stern look.

Chip was a smartass, but McCabe had never seen him turn on this arrogant superiority. Based on the captain’s expression it didn’t seem to be going over very well.

Chip said, “I have to make a phone call.”

He said it like a spoiled Greenwich rich kid, which McCabe decided was redundant, maybe even tri-dundant if there was such a word.

“It’s my right as an American citizen,” Chip said.

Captain Ferrara said, “You are a prisoner, you have no rights. In Italy, you are guilty until proven innocent.”

Chip said, “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.”

The captain’s face tightened, like he wanted to go over and knock Chip on his ass. He said, “No, I think you are the one who does not understand, but you will.”

He turned and walked out of the room and closed the door. McCabe said, “Do me a favor, don’t say anything else, okay?”

Chip said, “What’s your problem?”

“You’re being an asshole. Every time you open your mouth the situation gets worse.” He’d never seen Chip act like this before. Jesus.

“You want to get out of here?” Chip said. “We’ve got to tell these idiots who they’re dealing with.”

“All you’re doing is pissing him off,” McCabe said, “making things worse. I’m in this thanks to you, and I don’t want you talking for me.”

Captain Ferrara never came back, and a few minutes later a cop in a uniform came in and cuffed McCabe’s hands behind his back and took him to the garage and pushed him in the rear seat of a Fiat. Two heavyset cops squeezed in on both sides, flanking him like he was a hardened criminal, a flight risk.

The cops sitting next to him had breadcrumbs on their jackets and there was a comic-opera quality about them, big men in fancy, over-the-top uniforms with red stripes running down the sides of the pants and white leather sashes worn diagonally across their jackets, and matching white leather holsters. They held their brimmed blue hats in their

laps. McCabe thought they looked like cops from some made-up Disney dictatorship.

They pulled out of the garage and turned right and drove down Via del Corso past Victor Emmanuel, the Wedding Cake, also known as the Typewriter, past the Colosseum and the Forum and Campidoglio, the cops talking about Italy playing in the World Cup.

The cop on his left said, “Did you see Grosso score the winning penalty?”

The cop on his right said, “How about that crazy Frenchman?”

“Unbelievable,” the cop behind the wheel said. “Zidane’s a madman. Ten minutes to go, he headbutts Materazzi. That was the game.”

“It was a factor, sure,” said the cop to his right.

The cop to his left said, “A factor, it was the difference.”

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and said, “What are you, head of the Zidane fan club?”

“I don’t like him,” the cop to his right said. “But you have to admit he is one of the all-time greats – up there with Vava and Pele.”

“How much have you had to drink?” the cop to his left said.

When they got on the autostrada, McCabe said to the cop on his right, “Where’re we going?”

The cop looked at him and grinned like something was funny.

Twenty minutes later McCabe understood why, the walls of a prison looming in the distance, 3:30 in the morning. The cop on his right said, “Rebibbia. Your new home.”

He’d heard of Rebibbia, the prison for hardcore cons, and wondered why they were taking him there. Stealing a taxi didn’t seem serious enough. They drove along a fence topped with razor wire, the prison set back on acres of flat open land.

They entered the prison complex and McCabe’s carabinieri escorts took him into the processing area, released the cuffs and handed him over to the Polizia Penitenziara, a prison cop signing a form and giving it to one of the carabinieri cops, making the transaction official.

Then he was standing in line with at least twenty other prisoners – some he recognized from the holding cell – waiting to be processed. Each prisoner was photographed and fingerprinted. Then they went through a room where they were given a blanket, a tin cup, a spoon, a bar of soap, a towel.

McCabe heard Chip’s voice and saw him at the far end of the line. “I’m an American. My father is a US senator. Capisce?” The guard looked bored, his expression saying he had no idea what Chip was talking about, but there was no way he could mistake Chip’s attitude, his arrogance.

McCabe said, “Hey, Tallenger, with your connections I thought you’d be out by now. Don’t they know who you are?”