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  Advance Praise for Lucky Bastard

  “Browne hits the funny bone hard. . . . Smartly constructed fiction . . . that sets it apart from the crowd.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Full of witty writing and hilarious adventures . . . I laughed out loud many times. Read the book: it’ll be your good fortune.”

  — New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson

  “Lucky Bastard is wonderful San Francisco noir, full of humor, irony, hot women, and cranial trauma. What more could you ask for in a book? The titular bastard may be in for a very bad day, but Browne’s readers are the lucky ones.”

  — New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden

  Praise for S. G. Browne’s previous novels

  “So unexpected and pitch-perfect that it’s obvious Creativity knocked Browne out of his chair and started typing herself.”

  — The Washington Post, for Fated

  “These days there are very few American comedy writers bringing their A-game, but Browne is swinging for the fences. . . . Radically funny.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review), for Fated

  “Neatly mixes humor and extreme violence with a surprisingly tender love story, some witty social satire, and an extremely strong narrative voice.”

  — Publishers Weekly (starred review), for Breathers

  Meet Nick Monday: a private detective who’s more Columbo than Sam Spade, more Magnum P.I. than Philip Marlowe. As San Francisco’s infamous luck poacher, Nick doesn’t know whether his ability to swipe other people’s fortunes with a simple handshake is a blessing or a curse. Ever since his youth, Nick has swallowed more than a few bitter truths when it comes to wheeling and dealing in destinies. Because whether the highest bidders of Nick’s serendipitous booty are celebrities, yuppies, or douche bag vegans, the unsavory fact remains: luck is the most powerful, addictive, and dangerous drug of them all. And no amount of cappuccinos, Lucky Charms, or apple fritters can sweeten the notion that Nick might be exactly what his father once claimed—as ambitious as a fart.

  That is, until Tuesday Knight, the curvy brunette who also happens to be the mayor’s daughter, approaches Nick with an irresistible offer: $100,000 to retrieve her father’s stolen luck. Could this high-stakes deal let Nick do right? Or will kowtowing to another greedmonger’s demands simply fund Nick’s addiction to corporate coffee bars while his morality drains down the toilet? Before he downs his next mocha, Nick finds himself at the mercy of a Chinese mafia kingpin and with no choice but to scour the city for the purest kind of luck, a hunt more titillating than softcore porn. All he has to do to stay ahead of the game is remember that you can’t take something from someone without eventually paying like hell for it. . . .

  S. G. BROWNE is the author of Breathers and Fated. He graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, and worked for several years in Hollywood before moving to Santa Cruz to write. He currently lives in San Francisco. Visit him at www.sgbrowne.com.

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  JACKET ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW BANNECKER

  AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY LESLIE LAURENCE

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

  LUCKY BASTARD

  ALSO BY S.G. BROWNE:

  Breathers

  Fated

  Gallery Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

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

  Copyright © 2012 by Scott Brown

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Gallery Books hardcover edition April 2012

  GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Jaime Putorti

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Browne, S. G.

  Lucky bastard / S. G. Browne. — First Gallery Books hardcover edition.

  pages cm

  1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. Fortune—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.R7369L83 2012

  813'.6—dc23 2011050997

  ISBN 978–1–4516–5719–7

  ISBN 978–1–4516–5720–3 (eBook)

  For Perry, Joe, Keith, Brad, Dave, Matt, Kristie, Steve, Michelle, Andrea, Kim, and Doug.

  I’m one lucky bastard.

  Contents

  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

  Acknowledgments

  LUCKY BASTARD

  It’s my understanding that naked women don’t generally tend to carry knives.

  But considering all that’s happened since I woke up this morning, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d pulled out a meat cleaver. Or a chain saw.

  “Why don’t you put that thing away,” I say, before I realize that was probably a bad choice of words.

  From the glint in her eye I can see she’s considering obliging me, so I take a couple of steps back, which is about all of the wiggle room I have, since it’s less than three feet before my luck runs out.

  Where I am is the roof of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco after ten o’clock on a late-August night with an angry, naked woman holding me at knifepoint. Which doesn’t completely explain my current predicament, but at least it gives you an idea of what my day’s been like.

  A helicopter approaches, the propeller thwup thwup thwupping, the lights cutting through the darkness and fog. At first I think it’s the cops until I see the CBS logo painted across the side.

  Great. I’m making the evening news. This is all I need.r />
  Maybe I could have prevented all of this from happening had I paid more attention to my better judgment.

  Or found a four-leaf clover.

  Or eaten another bowl of Lucky Charms.

  I’m not superstitious, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to take precautions.

  “This is all your fault!” she says, holding on to the eight-inch carving knife with both hands. “All of it. Your fault!”

  It’s at times like this that I wish I’d taken some classes in situational diplomacy.

  Even though I grew up in a somewhat lax home environment and had the opportunity to embrace a lot of personal freedom at an early age, I still know how to behave in a civilized manner. Like saying please and thank you. Or turning off my phone in a movie theater. But tact and finesse have never been my strong suits. Not that I have an inflammatory personality. I’ve just never been particularly adept at managing interpersonal relationships. And if any situation called for a little skill and tact in dealing with someone, this is it. But I don’t know if this type of scenario calls for humor or reason. Plus it’s a little awkward considering she’s naked, so I try to keep my eyes above the horizon.

  Still, I have to do something to let her know I’m not the enemy, so I give her a smile, one that’s meant to be reassuring. Something to ease the tension and lighten the mood. Not that I’m thrilled to be here. I can think of other things I’d rather be doing. Like sleeping or playing naked Twister. Instead, I’m on the roof of a hotel trying to defuse a tense situation before anyone else gets hurt. But like any naked woman holding a knife, she completely misreads my intention.

  “Do you think this is funny?” she says, pointing the knife at me, stabbing at the air. Not in a menacing way, but more like Rachael Ray making a point about how to properly slice eggplant. Only this isn’t the Food Network. And I’m not a big fan of ratatouille.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s not funny at all.”

  A crowd has gathered on Sutter Street, twenty-two stories below, their faces upturned and indistinct in the hollow glow of the streetlights, but even from this height I can make out the media circus pitching its tent. News vans, reporters, floodlights. A dozen cameras trained at the top of the hotel. The CBS helicopter circles us, the cameraman hanging out the open door with a video camera, his lens pointed my way.

  I smile and wave.

  I feel like I’m in a Hollywood movie, a dark action-comedy, with a little bit of intrigue and personal drama thrown in for fun. Characters die, illusions are shattered, and things get messy. I just wish I knew how this ended. How things wrapped up. My personal denouement. But I forgot to read my copy of the script. So I just wait and hope that someone gives me a cue.

  The helicopter circles, the videotape rolls, the people on the street below wait for the scene to play out, and I’m an actor trying to remember my lines.

  The name’s Monday. Nick Monday.

  I’m a private investigator.

  At least that’s what I tell people when they ask what I do for a living.

  I have my own little office in downtown San Francisco. And when I say little, I don’t mean in a quaint or a charming kind of way. Like a little cottage or a little eccentric.

  It’s more like a little hungover. Or a little anorexic.

  Barely more than a hundred square feet, my office sits on the third floor at the corner of Sutter and Kearny, a few blocks from Union Square. In spite of my limited accommodations, I do have an official private investigator’s license, issued by the State of California, authenticating my job title.

  But let’s get one thing straight. I’m no Sherlock Holmes. Intellectual prowess and astute observation were never my strong points. Plus I don’t have a constant companion to document my exploits. And I’m not the type of private investigator you’d read about in a Raymond Chandler or a Dashiell Hammett novel. I’m not the pessimistic and cynical type. I’m not encumbered with a tarnished idealism that comes from dealing with a corrupt society.

  I’m more over easy than hard-boiled.

  Ever since I was a kid, I’ve approached life with a certain level of cheerful irresponsibility. A carefree opportunism. I never really made any plans or thought about the consequences, but just did what seemed to help me get what I wanted. A search for the path of least resistance. A means of attaining an end.

  My father, who worked nine to five all his life and came from stock that did the same, used to tell me I had all the ambition of a fart and that I’d probably amount to not much more than just that. A reflex of convenience. A by-product of societal indigestion. Something that would make people wrinkle their noses and say, What’s that smell? or Oh my God!

  We never did see eye to eye.

  I know my father wouldn’t approve of how I turned out and what I do to make a living. But then, he never really had much say in the matter. I’m the way I am because of my mom, and he could never accept that. He always thought people should have to work for what they got in life. I guess my father figured he could instill that same philosophy in me. But his blue-collar morals didn’t stand a chance against Mom’s genetic expedience.

  Still, when you’re in my line of work, it doesn’t hurt to stick to a process. Something that creates at least the illusion of a sense of order. I don’t believe in heaven and hell, but I do believe the devil is in the details.

  I also believe in routine.

  I wake up every morning at seven thirty.

  I eat Lucky Charms for breakfast.

  I drink cappuccinos from Starbucks and mochas from Peet’s.

  The coffee is more habitual than routine, but everyone has his vices. And I have more vices than your average detective.

  So this morning—before the Sir Francis Drake; before the naked woman with the butcher knife; before the helicopter and the crowds—I’m sitting in my office in my T-shirt and jeans and Chuck Taylors, drinking my cappuccino and eating Lucky Charms while researching my current case, which involves a lot of web surfing and coffee drinking and time spent looking out my single window in my cramped closet of an office.

  A common literary misconception about private investigators is that we lead these glamorous lives, filled with mystery and intrigue and seductive femmes fatales. Filled with murder and extortion and corruption. Filled with missing persons and stolen artifacts and cases of mistaken identity.

  No one wants to read about what really happens, about what private investigators really do. Process serving and insurance fraud and corporate investigation. Tracing debtors and investigating copyright infringement and working computer forensics. Spending most of your time in your shabby little office doing research on the Internet.

  Yawn.

  But that’s the reality. That’s what most of today’s private investigators do to earn their keep. Some of them specialize in one particular field, while others might dabble in two or three areas of investigation, but no one’s getting shot at. No one’s meeting clients in dark alleys. No one’s having sex with Lauren Bacall.

  At least not me.

  Most of my cases involve suspicious insurance claims, antifraud, calls from frustrated creditors, and investigations of adultery. Even with no-fault divorce, infidelity is still one of the most lucrative activities for PIs, since marital indiscretions can be used by spouses as leverage for child custody, alimony, and property disputes.

  Apparently, when it comes to for better or for worse, most couples are opting to pursue the latter.

  Lately, however, I’ve been getting calls from people asking me to help them retrieve their stolen luck.

  HALF A DOZEN times over the past several months I’ve been contacted by would-be clients who wanted to hire me to find their good luck. I’m not talking about crank phone calls from teenagers. These aren’t homeless people or mental patients off their meds. These are normal, everyday people who had been living nice lives filled with good fortune and happy moments and circumstances that more often than not fell their way.

  Until one
day, something went wrong.

  They lost a big client. Got in a car accident. Discovered they had termites. Maybe one of them had to go to the dentist for a root canal. Another took a beating in the stock market. Someone else is sick for the first time in years.

  Most of these people who call are just overreacting to the normal ebbs and flows of life. Normal things that happen to normal people. Even if you’re born lucky, there’s no guarantee everything will always fall your way. Sometimes, things just go wrong.

  But these people who call me believe they’re entitled to the life they were living and that the only possible explanation for these tragedies that have befallen them is that their luck has been stolen. They believe this because of the news reports about luck poachers. About people who have the ability to actually steal another person’s luck.

  These aren’t stories that have appeared in reputable newspapers, national magazines, or on twenty-four-hour news channels. You won’t hear about them from the Wall Street Journal or Newsweek or CNN. These are more like urban legends and pop-culture myths you’d find in supermarket tabloids and on celebrity news programs and tabloid talk shows.

  A story in the Weekly World News. A report on Inside Edition. An episode of Jerry Springer.

  “My Ex-Husband Slept with a Luck Poacher!”

  These more unsavory media outlets discuss how the thieves steal luck from normal people and then sell it on the black market for tens of thousands of dollars, creating an entire unregulated commerce and culture of luck-dealing.

  Some people think luck poachers are extraterrestrials. Others think they’re genetic mutants. Other, more paranoid types think they’re government science projects created to steal all of the good fortune in the world and give it to corporations and politicians. That the government hasn’t done anything and denies the existence of luck poachers only adds fuel to that particular fire.

  At least once a week I read something in the tabloids or see something on trash television about luck thieves preying on people who survive lightning strikes or who win the lottery or who bowl a perfect game. And most of those who call me asking to help them find their stolen luck are just incapable of taking responsibility for their own problems or dealing with their bad decisions.