Thanks to all of you who bought a copy of Dive Bartender: Sibling Rivalry, ebook or paperback. I hope you enjoyed it and the cast of characters making up Zenith City’s underworld.
As a matter of fact, a couple of characters found their way from earlier TK O’Neill ebooks into Dive Bartender–boxer Johnny Beam of Fly in the Milk and Keith Waverly from Dead Low Winter. If you haven’t read them yet, let me share some excerpts with you and where you can purchase the ebook.
Meet Johnny Beam:
March 1978, Zenith, Minnesota
One of the harshest winters on record didn’t leave without a struggle, but the cold snap had finally broken, the temperature rising during the night to above the freezing mark for the first time in three weeks. At six a.m. the mercury hovered in the mid-thirties at the airport and slightly warmer downtown by the big lake.
Officer Adams of the Zenith Police Department wondered how the steaming wreck in front of him—a late model Olds with the crumpled body of a black man slumped against the steering wheel—had ended up a battered and broken mess at the bottom of a fifty-foot embankment. There was no ice on the streets, only a little ground fog in the low spots. Shouldn’t have any trouble stopping on that.
The location and condition of the auto suggested that it had blown through the railing at the top of the cliff and bounced down along the jagged rocks to the street where it now rested uneasily, crushed in upon itself like a four-door squeezebox, the front end dented and shattered and all four tires flat.
Poor bastard’s brakes must have given out, Adams thought. Pretty new vehicle, though, to have the brakes go out like that and pick up enough speed to rip through the guardrail.
Adams bent over and looked through the empty hole where the driver’s window had been. Chunks of glass lay on the broad but lifeless back of the man in the seat. His head rested at a crazy angle against the steering wheel, blank eyes facing the passenger window. There was a large bloody dent above his right temple.
A flare of recognition hit Adam’s gut and his heart got heavy in his chest. Something familiar about the shoulders and the dark wool overcoat and the shape of the head.
Adams bent in and peered at the bruised and bloodied face. Then he straightened up and filled his lungs with the damp air and squinted up at the top of the cliff again.
Once more he bent down and stuck his head inside the Olds. He was pretty sure now. The face was swollen and distorted but who else could it be? He heard Patrolman Hayes coming up behind him. Adams took another long look inside the wreck.
It was Johnny Beam, without a doubt.
Johnny Beam looking like he’d lost his last fight.
Adams stepped back and fought away the sick feeling as he watched Hayes bend over and study the body, hands in the pockets of his uniform like he was window shopping.
“Looks like there’s one less nigger on the planet,” Hayes said, snapping his gum.
“Don’t let me hear that kind of shit again, Dennis,” Adams growled, balling his fists. “I knew this man. Used to watch him play football when I was a kid. He may not have been the most responsible guy you’ll ever meet, but he wasn’t a nigger, and I won’t tolerate that shit.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything, you know—I was just saying…”
Adams stared down at the body, eyes narrowed. “This is Johnny Beam, used to be the state light-heavyweight boxing champion. Great athlete. And a good guy.”
“Ain’t he the one they brought in on that weapons sting back in January?”
“Yeah, that was him. He’d fallen on some hard times, made some bad decisions.”
“Well, it looks like he’s fallen on even harder times now,” Hayes said, the corners of his mouth rising into a smirk. “You might say he finally hit bottom.” He spit his gum on the pavement, hitched his shoulders and gave Adams a stare.
Adams returned the stare. “You really are an enlightened guy, Hayes. For a fucking cretin.”
(To be continued)
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