The Shamshine Blind: A Novel - Hardcover

Pardo, Paz

 
9781982185329: The Shamshine Blind: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1982185325 ISBN 13: 9781982185329
Verlag: Atria Books, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

A beguiling blend of noir detective story and science fiction perfect for fans of Michael Chabon and Emily St. John Mandel, this unputdownable debut imagines a world where emotions have been weaponized, and a small-town law enforcement agent uncovers a conspiracy to take down what’s left of American democracy.

In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.” Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).

Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat in Daly City, just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend shows up with a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that this case will send her down a tangled path of conspiracy and lead to an overdue reckoning with her family and with the truth of her own emotions.

Told in the voice of a funny, brooding, Latinx Sam Spade, The Shamshine Blind is “a rip-roaring beautifully crafted mash-up of cop noir, sci-fi, and alt-history that left me dazzled by its prescience and literary zing” (Leah Hampton, author of F*ckface).

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paz Pardo is an Argentine-American award-winning playwright and novelist. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers, her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, and is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship. Raised in America, she currently lives in Argentina. The Shamshine Blind is her first novel. Find out more at PazSays.com. 

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
Shamshine and Sunshine are not the same thing. Anybody with training can tell the difference. Just like anybody with training could tell that Winfred Pimsley was a crook. But he was my kind of crook.

His antique shop perched on a hilltop just south of the ruins of San Francisco. On the Daly City side, little houses made of ticky-tacky sat back from the street, guarded by picket fences. Cars smuggled up from Mexico were parked across lawns, rusting steadily in the Pacific fog as they waited to get their plates changed. Kids playing hooky raced bikes held together with duct tape and resignation. A block away in San Francisco, moldy Victorians crumbled onto shattered sidewalks. Wild anise poked through the cracks in the deserted streets. Even daredevil teens knew to stay out of the old city.

The area had seen plenty of illicit psychopigment spills over the last thirty years, permeating the landscape with a thick emotional haze at odds with its appearance. As Tommy and I drove past yards overgrown with mile-high dandelions, the aging pigment’s mix of ennui and affection made me feel like I’d just walked into my dad’s old hardware store. Most antique dealers would’ve chosen a nicer neighborhood, but Pimsley had weighed the weeds against the ambient nostalgia and moved his operation from downtown faster than you could say “Falklands.” That was the inveterate salesman for you: everything calculated to pull customers’ heartstrings before they passed the fence.

We left my red Renault 4 on the curb outside the shop. I made sure it was locked before heading to the cornflower-blue garden gate. Not that anyone would bother breaking into a clown car with a lousy paint job, but it was the principle of the thing. Tommy jerked open the shop’s stained-glass door and shouted, “Psychopigment Enforcement! Hands up!”

A low-throated chuckle greeted us from the back. Pimsley’s gray pompadour peeked over the top of an overstuffed recliner. A lever thumped, lowering the footrest, and he stood slowly. His impeccably tailored pewter suit needed no smoothing, but he plucked at his pant legs to make sure they fell straight.

I’d known him since his mane had been a lush chestnut, but he’d embraced the first strands of white as a sign it was time to go full silver fox. He’d always played a man of another era. With his shift in hair color his persona had become even more outlandish. Sometimes I felt like I was talking to a parody of a 1920s matinee idol. But the sharp mind underneath cut through the gingerbread often enough to keep me on my toes.

“Agent Kay Curtida herself!” He spread his manicured hands at me in welcome. “With her delightful cadet! I was just thinking of putting on another pot of tea.”

We weren’t there for a social visit, and he knew it. Getting information out of Pimsley always happened on his terms, but the beverage was negotiable. “Don’t suppose you’ve still got that coffee maker lying around,” I said, producing a packet of old-school grounds from my navy fanny pack.

Pimsley’s smile cut lines in his pale cheeks. He looked like an albino lizard hiding its teeth. “I’m still waiting for the buyer on that one. Perhaps it will be you?”

“Guys, do you have to go through the whole thing about the coffeepot every time?” Tommy asked, sauntering over to the vintage records lining the back wall. “Couldn’t you just drink the instant stuff like everyone else?”

“Youth! That lack of patience, that burning urgency—what a thrill!” Pimsley sighed. “I will make the java. I have a new disc for you, Tommy, darling. Let me get the key to the turntable.” He took the grounds and moved to a Victorian rolltop desk. Reaching for a hidden lever, he shooed me away. “This is not for the prying eyes of the law, Agent.”

I already knew plenty about his fondness for clandestine compartments, but I dutifully wandered off to look over his wares. Even with a dead-end case on my hands, the shop was soothing. Something about the abundance of stuff, the sumptuous piles of costume jewelry, the stacks of elegant chairs from another age. A cluster of Tiffany lamps shed wholesome, comforting light on a dish overflowing with currency from back before we had a thousand-dollar coin; a ten-gallon jar of marbles gleamed in the corner. Everything came in oodles and gobs.

In the cozy confines of the space, it was easy enough to forget that the antique bounty was a front for Pimsley’s real business. It was a poorly kept secret that he was involved in off-label psychopigment collection, plying a network of wealthy collectors hungry for the rarest of pigments: batches of vintage experiments from the 1980s or recent breakthroughs that had yet to reach even the black market. More than once, I’d waited across the street while a bodyguard escorted a bespoke suit out to his Lamborghini. After spending a good part of an hour watching one particularly geriatric patron make her way across the lawn, I’d asked Pimsley why he hadn’t set up shop in one of the big cities. “They all think I’m their special discovery. That’s catnip to collectors,” he’d said.

I figured there were other reasons but I’d immediately regretted my question. The less I knew, the better. Our deal was that I didn’t peer too closely into the darkened corners of the store, and he kept me in the loop about the goings-on in the rinky-dink underworld of Daly City. If he ever needed out of a tight spot, he had my number. Our arrangement worked just fine for me—it was his tip that had led me to the cache of unstable Cobalt pigment that had been turning folks maudlin in San Carlos. That job had almost gotten me a mention in the union quarterly. Almost. Would’ve been the highlight of a career spent chasing hoodlums too dumb to tie their own shoes.

Pimsley put on the coffee and started up the record player. With those two appliances running, we could have been back in my childhood, before boom boxes, microwaves, or the war. Tommy settled into the recliner. The first time I’d brought him here, he’d jittered all over the place, anxious to get the scoop and get out. Over time, he’d gotten the hang of the gentleman’s rhythm. Now I wondered whether he would notice if I left without him. The strains of the vinyl 45 drifted across the room, a girlish voice soaring over a drum machine and the twanging beat of an electric bass. “What is it?” Tommy asked.

“Bootsie Poots’s first single,” Pimsley said, producing three porcelain cups with rose-pink detailing. “She was an R & B singer before Hollywood got ahold of her.”

“R & B?” Tommy asked.

“Rhythm and blues, dear. Back before electronic tango took over the airwaves, there were whole radio stations devoted to it.”

We all listened to Bootsie croon. I thought I’d found happiness, but all I’ve got is something like hope…

Tommy let out an appreciative “mmmmm.” Pimsley’s eyelids drooped with pleasure. I tried to figure out what was so great. It was just another lady trying to convince me she was having feelings. I found a pile of laminated paper clippings next to the Tiffany lamps. On top was a WHAT IS PSYCHOPIGMENT? pamphlet I’d seen in my high school nurse’s office. A cartoon dog said...

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Verlag
Atria Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1982185325
ISBN 13 
9781982185329
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
320
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
Niedersachsen
49078
Deutschland

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