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The Substitution Order: A novel - Hardcover

Clark, Martin

 
9780525656326: The Substitution Order: A novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0525656324 ISBN 13: 9780525656326
Verlag: Knopf, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE

Kevin Moore, once a high-flying Virginia attorney, hits rock bottom after a tumultuous summer leaves him disbarred and separated from his wife. Short on cash and looking for work, he lands in the middle of nowhere with a job at SUBstitution, the world’s saddest sandwich shop. His closest confidants: a rambunctious rescue puppy and the twenty-year-old computer whiz manning the restaurant counter beside him.

Kevin’s determined to set his life right again, but the troubles keep coming, including a visit from a mysterious stranger who wanders into the shop armed with a threatening “invitation” to join a multimillion-dollar scam. Before long, Kevin will need every bit of his legal savvy just to stay out of prison.

In The Substitution Order, Martin Clark—hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “hands down our best legal-thriller writer”—takes readers on a remarkable tour of the law’s tricks and hidden trapdoors and delivers a wildly entertaining novel that will keep you guessing and rooting for its tenacious hero until the very last page.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Martin Clark is a retired Virginia circuit court judge who served twenty-seven years on the bench. His novels have appeared on several best-seller lists and have been chosen as a New York Times Notable Book, a Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year, a Bookmarks Magazine Best Book of the Year, a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, a Book of the Month Club selection, a finalist for the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, and the winner of the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award in 2009 and 2016. He received the Patrick County Outstanding Community Service Award in 2016 and the Virginia State Bar’s Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award in 2018. Martin’s wife, Deana, is a photographer, and they live on a farm with dogs, cats, chickens, guinea fowl, and three donkeys.

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Chapter One

For years, I was an excellent lawyer, as honest and effective as you could ever want, and I’m a decent enough per­son, and despite my mistakes, which—I concede—were hella­cious, I deserve better than this misery.

It’s the middle of June, hot and stagnant, especially behind the counter here in the restaurant, a Subway knockoff called SUBstitu­tion, and the heat will soon become worse because Luther, the owner, insists that we switch on the old oven at noon and then again at six, as if we were really baking fresh bread. Twice daily, when the big lunch and dinner crowds are waiting in line, I cover my hand with a mitt and slowly slide the store-bought decoys out of the oven, a sham show that allows a two-hundred-degree belch to escape and loiter and clot the air. Sometimes, to entertain myself, I quick-drop the lukewarm silver tray, pull off the mitt and shake and blow on my fin­gers. The few minutes of fake-bake dries and hardens the prop rolls, but I’m able to stash them in the refrigerator and use them over and over for weeks, until the first greenish-gray mold spots appear.

Today, the first customer through the door is a Sutphin girl from the apartments down the street. She’s wearing flannel pajama bot­toms, the fabric pilled and grimy. Her hair’s a mess, straight, dirty and brown. She’s hardscrabble bony, pasty white, braless under a T-shirt and covered in tats, none of them worth a damn, amateur ink that some dolt applied with a safety pin and a cigarette lighter. This is exactly how she looked when she went to bed on a floor mattress last night, exactly how she’ll look the entire day, exactly how she’ll look tomorrow.

She’s brought along a kid, and the poor little toddler is shoeless, and, of course, why bother with any kind of shirt or shorts when a disposable diaper will do just fine. A scrawny boyfriend is also with her. He’s high and slit- eyed at eleven in the morning, and he’s mumbling dopey slang and jibber- jabber into an iPhone. His tennis shoes are new and untied and at least a size too large. His half- ass Afro is uneven, way out of whack on one side. A gauze bandage is taped across his wrist. He flops into the booth closest to the door, the phone against his ear. I’d speculate that the child is his, given the lad’s beautifully blended skin and their matching eyes and mouths.

“Good morning and welcome to SUBstitution.” Kevin M is felt- tipped on my white plastic name tag. My khakis are dotted with faint mustard stains, but the pants are laundered and ironed and presentable.

The Sutphin girl looks at the wall menu behind me. “I want a twelve- inch steak- and cheese with double meat. Regular bread. Toasted.”

I nod at the kid. “And for the young man?”

“He’ll be okay,” she says dismissively. “I’ll pinch him off some of mine.” She glances down at the child. “He’s done had cereal and a Little Debbie.”

I shake the meat from four cardboard tubs onto a sub roll, add cheese slices and put the sandwich in a toaster oven. I smile at the boy, and bless his heart, he grins big back at me.

“What would you like on it?” I ask his mama.

“Tomatoes and extra, extra, extra mayonnaise.”

I hover the squirt bottle filled with Lowes generic mayo over the length of the sandwich, strangling the plastic with both hands so the dressing coils onto the cheese dense and thick.

“More! Extra means you can’t see no yellow under it.”

“New rule for me,” I say. “Guess I need to read our manual again.”

I hear Blaine come in behind me through the rear entrance. He’s been working at the restaurant since he was a junior in high school, and he’s twenty now, smart as hell and a pleasure to have around. When I check over my shoulder, he’s leaning against the wall next to the oven. He’s a sizable man, over six feet tall and a weight lifter. “Hey,” he says to the girl, “we’re not the food bank. It’s already Deepwater Horizon on your sandwich. Leave Lawyer Kevin alone.”

“Screw you, Blaine,” she snaps. “I’m reportin’ you.”

“To who?” Blaine snorts. “God forbid Luther demote me to assis­tant assistant manager.”

I slapdash squirt another line of mayo, step sideways and land the tray and food beside the register. “Anything else? A drink? Chips or cookies?” Unlike Subway, we keep the sodas behind the counter so people can’t steal them.

“Mountain Dew Code Red,” she announces.

We’re in Stuart, Virginia—the county seat, though only fourteen hundred people live here—so we have plenty in the cooler, the large size, twenty ounces. Luther hauls it to the restaurant from a Sam’s Club in Greensboro. I set the red bottle on the tray. “Okay—your twelve-inch, double-meat sandwich with complimentary extra mayo and the large Code Red will be eleven dollars and fifty-six cents.”

She dips into the T-shirt’s breast pocket and hands me a credit card, but as soon as I take it, I notice it’s an EBT card. “We don’t accept food stamps,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“Because we don’t. It’s not allowed. I’m pretty certain you know as much.”

“There’s nearly twenty left on it,” the girl claims. “I could sell it to you for what I owe, then you can pay Luther and keep the rest.”

“Which would be illegal,” I inform her.

“Drop the legal juju on her, Lord Mansfield.” Blaine is smiling. He waves and wiggles his fingers at her as if casting a spell. “Behold the majesty of the law, citizens.”

“Either of you have any money?” I pull the tray away from her.

“We could pay next month, after the third,” she offers.

“No,” I inform her. “Are you seriously trying to use this welfare card? Really?”

“So you ain’t goin’ to give me my sandwich?” she demands. The child has heard this tone of voice before and understands nothing good is coming. He starts to cry—not a bawl or an outburst, just steady tears with his miniature arms flat against his rib cage and his eyes fixed on his mother.

I frown at her. “I’ll gladly sell you the food if you can pay for it. Simple as that.”

The boy reaches up for his mom, who ignores him. “Kiss my ass, Kevin. Least I ain’t no loser fixin’ sandwiches for Luther Foley.” She makes a splashy, oh-snap gesture with her index finger, air-writes an angry S to emphasize the insult. “You ain’t even from here,” she idiotically adds.

“Adiós,” I say. “See you again when you have twelve dollars cash to your name.”

“Kiss my ass,” she repeats. She snatches her son’s hand. “Shut up, LaDarius. Quit cryin’.”

“In your case, Malik,” Blaine says, addressing the spindly boy­friend in the booth, “you’ll need to show up with an extra fifty, right? You’re already runnin’ a tab, aren’t you?”

“Whatcha talkin’ bout, bro?” Malik replies. “You trippin’, Blaine.”

Weary as I am, I feel sorry for the sobbing child. I’d planned to slip him a cookie or an apple, but his...

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Verlag
Knopf
Erscheinungsdatum
2019
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0525656324
ISBN 13 
9780525656326
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
352
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Verantwortliche Person
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