When the Thrill Is Gone

Read When the Thrill Is Gone Online

Authors: Walter Mosley

BOOK: When the Thrill Is Gone
3.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 48

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

ALSO BY WALTER MOSLEY

LEONID McGILL MYSTERIES

The Long Fall

Known to Evil

 

EASY RAWLINS MYSTERIES

Blonde Faith

Cinnamon Kiss

Little Scarlet

Six Easy Pieces

Bad Boy Brawly Brown

A Little Yellow Dog

Black Betty

Gone Fishin’

White Butterfly

A Red Death

Devil in a Blue Dress

 

OTHER FICTION

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

The Tempest Tales

Diablerie

Killing Johnny Fry

The Man in My Basement

Fear of the Dark

Fortunate Son

The Wave

Fear Itself

Futureland

Fearless Jones

Walkin’ the Dog

Blue Light

Always Outnumbered,

Always Outgunned

RL’s Dream

47

The Right Mistake

 

NONFICTION

This Year You Write Your Novel

What Next: A Memoir

Toward World Peace

Life Out of Context

Workin’ on the Chain Gang

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,

Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,

London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell

Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-

110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa)

(Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

Copyright © 2011 by Walter Mosley

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mosley, Walter.

When the thrill is gone/ Walter Mosley.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-50301-0

1. McGill, Leonid (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—

New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.

4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3563. O88456W45 2011

2010039098

813’.54—dc22

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty websites or their content.

http://us.penguingroup.com

To Gary Phillips

 

The tenor sax of the noir genre

1

SOMEWHERE BEYOND my line of sight a man groaned, pathetically. It sounded as if he had reached the end of his reserves and was now about to die.

But I couldn’t stop to see what the problem was. I was too deep into the rhythm of working the hard belly of the speed bag. That air-filled leather bladder was hitting its suspension plate faster than any basketball the NBA could imagine. Nothing in the world is more harmonizing than hitting the speed bag at three in the afternoon when most other workers are sitting in cubicles, dreaming of retirement, praying for Saturday, or finding themselves crammed-in down underground on subway cars, hurtling toward destinations they never bargained for.

Battling the speed bag, first with the heels of your gloved fists and then with a straight punch peppered in for variety, you hone the ability to go all the way, as far as you can; getting in close but never allowing the bag to slap you in the face. Then, after that hard leather sack is moving more rapidly than the eye can follow, your hips and thighs, neck and head begin to move quickly, unexpectedly, like water, unerring in its headlong rush over and around any obstacle, wearing down your imagined opponent with the inevitability of time.

And, as any boxer can tell you, time is always running out.

Anybody you get in the ring with you is bigger and stronger, the worst problem you evah had in your lazy life,
Gordo would say when I was a young man, sweating hard and thinking that I might be a professional boxer one day.
The only chance you got is to wear him down, them fists like pistons and your head a movin’ target. You use your skull and shoulders, stomach and spit, anything you can to keep him off balance. And the whole time your fists is at him, they don’t even know how to stop.

“Give me four more.” The words came, and then a whining groan of agony.

“I can’t,” the bodiless voice pleaded.

“Four more!”

The strain audible in the ensuing grunt sounded like a man vomiting up his guts.

“My chest!” he cried. “It hurts!”

“You won’t die,” the torturer promised. It was more like a pledge of vengeance than any assurance of survival.

Without looking in their direction, I lowered my shuddering arms and headed for the showers. Pain is of no consequence in a gladiatorial gym; neither is blood or bruises, broken noses or concussions, unconsciousness, or even, now and then—death.

Other books

Sharing Hailey by King, Samantha Ann
Tears of No Return by David Bernstein
The Nightmarys by Dan Poblocki
Coda by Thea Astley
Ranch Hands by Bonnie Bryant
Ella's Wish by Jerry S. Eicher