Pimp by Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online Page A

noir with a soft edge. Otto Penzler told me he’s a big fan. I had to say, ‘My eyes, they’re like up here, Otto,’ but he seriously thinks I have talent.”
    She thought,
Hear that and weep muthahfuckah
. Wondering if the Swedes had such a term, she’d have to download a Swedish dictionary from the app store. Then hello, light-bulb moment, worthy of her being on
Ellen
. She said, “I love tennis.”
    He was lost, said, “I don’t know from…”
    She nearly said,
Speak fucking American
. Jesus, it was bad enough that the likes of Rankin, Hughes and company refused to write in real English, i.e., USA English, hello, but a Swede who didn’t know about tennis? Seriously, apart from fucking Bjorn, ABBA and suicide, what had they given the world? Okay, okay, not that she was moralizing, she left that to the Lippmans of the world and their ilk, but really, when you’d given the planet little else but shit music and a surly tennis player, could you really afford to be judgmental?
    She said, “I’d like to have a discussion about tone. I’d like the book to be a paean to noir, to illustrate the neo-noir deconstruction of post-modernist genres. To demystify the whole concept of the legacy of Goodis, Willeford, Thompson, Guthrie, and Aleas, to bring out all the shades of noir, as a palate of such dark delicacy that Lee Child and his crew throw down their mega-million contracts and gasp, ‘I want me some of that shit, nigger.’ ”
    So, okay, they wouldn’t phrase it like that, but she added, “I hope we are on the same page, Mr. Stiegsson.”
    Silence.
    She was delighted, knew she’d got the great man, that her humble treatise had been received with warmth.
    She took a deep breath, figured, that was the first step. She was on her way. Should she leak the story to the blogs, get a buzz going? Or was it too early? Probably be better if she and the Swede wrote something first.
    “Why don’t you sleep on it,” she said, “let me know what you think in the morning. But I know you’re going to love it. This could really be an important opportunity for you, a chance to show the world that Lars Stiegsson is a writer to be reckoned with. A writer that, no offense to your departed colleague, can kick Stieg Larsson’s pussy ass. You know you want to.” And then she disconnected before he could say another word.
    Switching apps on her phone, she recorded a voice memo for herself:
    “Get fucking ABBA greatest hits.”
    Jesus, that was punishment, no one could say she wasn’t prepared to suffer for her art.
    She added:
    “Get Swedish dictionary.”
    Later, at a bar in Bushwick, into her third cosmo, she slurred:
    “And check out the tennis players. The Swedish ones.”

FOUR
    How’s everything in the pimp business?

T RAVIS B ICKLE
    Max never, ever, forgot a grudge or a slight. Back in his day, the freaking glory days, when NetWorld was riding high, he’d considered at one point offloading the whole set-up. Like that dude who’d sold off his Internet company and got like billions and went off and set up a publishing company.
    Like that.
    Max had put out feelers and gotten a nibble from Nick Dunne, who was buying up networking companies around the country. Dunne was a minor Trump, just had a little combover where The Donald had a freaking field. Max, at that time, was covering his bald spot with spray-on hair and sometimes when he got nervous and sweated, the hair would like melt and drip down onto his forehead and ears. Not exactly a great impression at a power lunch; he should’ve just worn a yarmulke.
    Dunne had seemed seriously interested and after tense negotiations and all that due diligence, he had summoned Max to his apartment, on fucking Central Park South. Trying the old power move of trying to intimidate a potential business partner with his digs. Max knew this move well, he’d done it often himself throughout his career as a businessman and then later as a drug dealer, but Max could usually intimidate