The Get

The GetA Crime NovelDietrich Kalteis ContentsAlso by Dietrich KalteisDedication… the mourning after… shakedown street… love means zero… a little on the side… friendly fire… a kind of soapbox… rent control… the merchant of mink… omertà… the mantrap… backfire… katz meow… the whipping boys… zimmering… game plan… blossoms and fish… every man a king… raincheck… sweatbox… the wind-up… take the money… no perry mason… money with menace… timekeepers of the world… man trapped… face to the music… father time staring down… feet on a trap door… a space between the lies… down in the ward… the head of the rat… treading the boards… rattus… the flip side… the canary… lying in wait… kitty punchers… a drop off the map… meet navalha… half moon of hell… gunning for gabe… dame fortune… going for zoller… pillow talk… busting out… the canary can sing, but he can’t fly… some woman… doing the wife… fathers and daughters… death do us part… two birds, one stone… too far from shore… scene of the crime… fade out… c17 h19 no3AcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorCopyright Also by Dietrich KalteisRide the LightningThe Deadbeat Club TriggerfishHouse of BlazesZero AvenuePoughkeepsie ShuffleCall Down the ThunderCradle of the DeepUnder an Outlaw MoonNobody from Somewhere DedicationTo Andie, always . . . the mourning afterTwo years of marriage and Lenny Ovitz was thinking of tying a different kind of knot — the one around his sweet angel’s neck. Not something most guys think about back when they’re saying their vows. His Galaxie 500 sat parked the next street over, Lenny kept eyes across the tiny park, past the kids’ swings and slide between him and their house, hoping to catch her coming out. Finger and thumb spinning his wedding band around the ring finger, replaying the rabbi’s words: “Behold, you are consecrated to me with this ring . . .” Talking to a sleazy lawyer about a divorce, Paulina was wanting to take Lenny to the cleaners, and he was guessing she had another man in the shadows. The reason he was parked there, hoping to catch her. Saying to himself, “Yeah, and I’m the bad guy.”It crossed his mind to save the time in court and the money on a lawyer. Be easier to just fix her: a car coming out of nowhere, or a mugging gone wrong. Or work up an alibi, then face her himself with his .32 and do it straight up. Yeah, he could do it, then sit shiva, put in the seven days. Move back into the house, lug the old recliner from the rafters, put it back in front of the Zenith, pull the side handle and up’d go his feet. Then hit the Bakelite buttons on the clicker.No dividing the assets, and no hearing her kvetch how the chair’s green vinyl didn’t . . . shakedown street“You oughta be shamefaced, what you do to your people.” The tiny man looked at him, wiping his hands on the dirty apron stained with grime and poverty. But wiping wasn’t doing much good. 1965: combat troops setting foot in Vietnam, Watts going up in flames, dead cosmonauts orbiting the Earth, and these people were living on sawdust floors, no heat and no hot water. “Think you’re my people, huh?” Gabe Zoller stepped out of the sun and into the doorway, letting his eyes and nose adjust to what lay inside — more a shack than a shop, not a wall that looked like he couldn’t push a hand through it — swatting at the bottle flies buzzing around on account of the chickens and capons hanging in the front window. Its striped awning supposed to keep the light off the poultry. Live ones in crates clucking over by the chopping table, a tip of a cleaver sunk in the stained wooden top. One of the birds flapped, sending dust and feathers up into the thin stream of sunlight coming past the door. Gabe thinking the smell of the place belonged in a barn. More crates were lined and stacked out front. This guy whose name Gabe didn’t remember, Kohn or Kahn or something, calling Gabe his people. Collecting for Ernie Zimm, same way he did at the beginning of every month. This tiny man acting like he didn’t know why Gabe was here, giving him the same hard-luck story about mouths to feed, showing the height