Flinch - Hardcover

Ferrigno, Robert

 
9780375401251: Flinch
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0375401253 ISBN 13: 9780375401251
Verlag: Pantheon Books, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

At the center is Jimmy Gage, a tabloid writer for Slap magazine who's been contacted by someone calling himself "The Eggman," a serial killer who has laid claim to six unsolved murders around Los Angeles - except the whole thing is declared a publicity hoax by the police, who've branded Jimmy a publicity hound.
But then a year later, crime-scene photographs of the murders turn up in the possession of Jimmy's brother, Jonathan, a high-profile plastic surgeon. Although Jimmy acknowledges that this makes Jonathan a suspect, he also realizes that this might be simply one more round in the psychological games the brothers have been playing - and Jonathan mostly winning - since they were children. It's a twisted sibling rivalry newly charged by Jonathan's recent marriage to Jimmy's former girlfriend.
Throw into the mix Jonathan's impeccable standing in the community (as compared to Jimmy's lack of one) ... the female detective who can't decide which brother to believe ... and the thugs, con-artists, baby-faced brainiacs, and hard-edged women who are potentially lethal distractions in Jimmy's life.
But the distractions will have to wait: Jimmy's committed to discovering the identity of the killer, and no one gets a better pay-off from his obsession than the reader of this edgy, fast-forward, unstoppably entertaining novel.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Ferrigno is the author of five previous novels, including <b>Heartbreaker</b> and <b>The Horse Latitudes</b>. He lives with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

Aus dem Klappentext

<br>His last novel, <b>Heartbreaker</b>, was called by the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> “recklessly exciting and wildly funny. [It leaves the] reader gasping for air and begging for more.” With <b>Flinch</b>, Robert Ferrigno’s electrifying and darkly funny new novel, we get what we’ve been waiting for.<br><br>At the center is Jimmy Gage, a tabloid writer for Slap magazine who’s been contacted by someone calling himself “The Eggman,” a serial killer who has laid claim to six unsolved murders around Los Angeles―except the whole thing is declared a publicity hoax by the police, who’ve branded Jimmy a publicity hound.<br><br>But then a year later, crime-scene photographs of the murders turn up in the possession of Jimmy’s brother, Jonathan, a high-profile plastic surgeon. Although Jimmy acknowledges that this makes Jon-athan a suspect, he also realizes that this might be simply one more round in the psychological games the brothers have been playing―and Jonathan mostly winning―since they were children. It’s a twisted sibling rivalry newly charged by Jonathan’s recent marriage to Jimmy’s former girlfriend.<br><br>Throw into the mix Jonathan’s impeccable standing in the community (as compared to Jimmy’s lack of one) . . . the female detective who can’t decide which brother to believe . . . and the thugs, con-artists, baby-faced brainiacs, and hard-edged women who are potentially lethal distractions in Jimmy’s life.<br><br>But the distractions will have to wait: Jimmy’s committed to discovering the identity of the killer, and no one gets a better pay-off from his obsession than the reader of this edgy, fast-forward, unstoppably entertaining novel.

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Chapter 1

"Never take a woman on vacation to someplace where the cockroaches are bigger than your dick," said Jimmy, scratching away at his reporter's notepad.

"We went to Costa Rica, man, land of enchantment," said Rollo.

"The land of enchantment is New Mexico," Jimmy corrected him, raising his voice over the cheers from the crowd. "Costa Rica is the land where your date rips off your bankroll and passport, then ditches you eighty miles from a phone."

Not that Jimmy was in any position to give advice. Rollo's brief vacation might have left him broke and desperate, but Jimmy himself had just gotten back after a ten-month absence that had been even more disastrous. He had quit his job at SLAP without giving notice, quit everything else, too, leaving Olivia with less notice than he gave his landlord. Most people thought he'd been reeling from the Eggman fiasco, burning bridges in his haste to get out of town, but Rollo knew better. Jimmy was surprised he hadn't asked to come with him.

"You still staying with the cop?" asked Rollo. "I don't think Desmond likes me, man. That one time I was over, he gave me a look like he wanted to frisk me."

"Desmond is a good judge of character," said Jimmy, watching Blaine the Robo-Surfer strut stiffly around the ring in a victory lap, the young wrestler grimacing in genuine pain, blood pouring down the side of his face. He was a blond behemoth in knee-length Aussie-print jams, silvery duct tape wrapped around his bulging biceps, power dials drawn crudely onto his shaved chest with orange Magic Marker. One hand held his ear in place from where the Kongo Kid had practically torn it off, trying to show off for the chubby ring girl. While the Robo-Surfer completed his glory circuit, the Kongo Kid was carried out on a stretcher to a chorus of boos. The ring girl adjusted her gold lamé bikini top in the far corner, oblivious to it all.

"Look at that ear." Rollo pushed back his black-framed glasses; he was a nervous nineteen-year-old with flyaway hair, a braided hemp necklace, and a scraggly soul patch under his lower lip. "Oh man, I am so fucked."

Jimmy and Rollo had met about three years before, after Rollo sent him a series of vicious but well-reasoned critiques of his movie reviews, plus a couple of petite mal?inducing animated shorts that he'd made for his tenth-grade media studies class. Rollo should have been studying filmmaking at USC by now, should have been churning out scripts or interning at Fox, but instead he chose to hustle hot electronic gear from the back of his VW van, using the profits to finance interminable documentaries on mall walkers and carpet installers that couldn't even get screened at Slamdance, let alone Sundance. Rollo was always overextended, always over budget, always in trouble. He was Jimmy's best friend.

"No way is Blaine going to talk to me with his ear thashed," complained Rollo. "All he's going to care about is Does it look infected and should he get a rabies shot and--"

"Stop sweating on me," said Jimmy, scribbling notes while watching the ring girl clomp around the ring in her high heels and baby fat, holding up an ARE WE HAVING FUN YET? sign. He was thirty-six years old, loose and lanky as a colt, wearing black jeans and a billowy gray checked shirt that resembled a TV test pattern circa 1955. The ring girl stepped around the spattered blood on the canvas, her smile faltering, and Jimmy stopped writing. There was nothing about her that was even vaguely reminiscent of Olivia, nothing but that uneasy smile, a brave smile, trying to tough it out. It was enough.

Olivia had been in the middle of a sweet dream the morning he left for the airport, a half smile on her face as she slept, one bare brown leg outside the sheets. The cab was already out front, but he had lingered in the doorway to the bedroom, watching her in the warm light, her hair spread out across the pillow, lips parted, as though about to say something, maybe ask him to stay. Ten months later and he still wondered what would have happened if she had awakened.

"You listening to me, Jimmy?"

The ring announcer climbed through the ropes, thumped the microphone, Testing, testing, one-two-three, but Jimmy's chest was pounding so loudly he barely heard it.

Club wrestling had come to southern California this Sunday afternoon, Retro Wrestling, an unapologetic blend of semipro contestants, unscripted violence, and net-stocking cocktail service. The cheap seats overflowed with accountants and frat boys, WWF cable potatoes looking for live-action body-slams. The plush ringside seats of the Big Orange Arena were reserved for richies slumming the latest trend: ash-blond yacht-club wives with smooth, bare arms and cigar-club morons with florid faces and thick fingers, mouths full of Stone Cold Steve Austin trivia and the exact height of the late, great Andre the Giant. Next month the nasty-cool thing could be cockfighting, and the richies would be name-dropping their favorite bird at the Monday-morning sales meeting, pontificating about titanium heel spurs over drinks and yellowfin at the Five Feet Café.

"Jimmy? Lose the fugue state, man." Rollo fumbled in his oversize black trench coat--a baby-faced brainiac who could play complete chess games in his head but couldn't use a self-serve gas pump without splashing his shoes. He finally pulled out a Palm Pilot speckled with pocket lint. "I was going to give this to Blaine as a peace offering, ask him to put in a good word for me with Pilar." He pulled off a Certs that was stuck to the case. "Now I don't know if--"

"Yeah, Blaine probably can't wait to E-mail his senator or access his on-line stock portfolio." Jimmy deftly caught the Palm Pilot as it slipped from Rollo's grasp, then tucked it back into his trench coat. "You'd do better with an autographed photo of the Rock and a lifetime subscription to Muscle Mania."

Rollo bundled the trench coat around himself. "I should never have come here tonight anyway. You shouldn't be here, either. I saw Great White when I first came in, that big fucker gliding around on the other side of the arena, and I half expected to hear the theme from Jaws. I don't think he spotted me, but--"

"If you saw him, he saw you."

Rollo shivered. "Sometimes when Great White looks at me . . . I think maybe he can read my mind."

"If that were true, you'd be dead already. We both would." Jimmy checked the crowd, barely moving his head. "Don't worry, the pure of heart have nothing to fear."

Rollo wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "What's that got to do with you or me?"

Jimmy grinned.

"Go ahead, make with the happy face--you got luck, what do you care?" Rollo burrowed deeper into the trench coat. "Me, I was born under the sign of fucked-up-and-fucked-over. Jimmy walks through a shitstorm and never gets wet. Meanwhile, back at the motorcade, Rollo takes a five-point-five-six-millimeter slug to the head, a hot shot from the grassy knoll."

"You're no JFK," said Jimmy. "I see you more like Jackie O, lunging for the rear bumper, making that percentage move out of the range of fire." He saw sweat rolling past Rollo's eyebrows. "If you're so worried about Great White, why are you here?"

"You're here, aren't you? I figure you know what you're doing."

"Since when?"

Rollo tugged at his lower lip as if he were pulling open a trap door. "Great White and Macklen, those two are last year's paranoia, over and done with. But Pilar, she's a right-here, right-now...

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Verlag
Pantheon Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375401253
ISBN 13 
9780375401251
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
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