Fifty-to-One Read online

  Raves For the Work of CHARLES ARDAI!

  “Deliciously entertainin...[one of those] crime tales so sharp they’ll slice your fingers as you flip the pages.”

  —Playboy

  “Excellen...[Ardai] has done a fine job of capturing both the style and the spirit of the classic detective novel.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “An instant classic. The...climax of this novel, as unexpected as it is powerful, will move you in ways that crime fiction rarely can.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Barrels forth at the speed of [a] Manhattan taxi...and contains some whiplash-inducing plot twists...Tightly written from start to finish, this crime novel is as satisfyingly edgy as the pulp classics that inspired it.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A wonderful novel, brilliantly plotted, beautifully written, and completely satisfying. I loved the book.”

  —Richard S. Prather

  “Dark energy and period perfection.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “It isn’t just great—it’s phenomenal. Easily, this is the best crime novel [of the year] thus far.”

  —Bookgasm

  “Hands down, the best mystery novel of the year. It might be the best mystery written in America in years. [This] book...packs a punch that left me breathlessly turning the pages.”

  —Book Reporter

  “Another sure-fire winner...Reads like a collaboration between Henry Miller and Mickey Spillane.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Expertly crafted in every way and ending with one of the most shocking...conclusions in recent memory.”

  —Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  “Reads like O. Henry run amok in McBain’s 87th Precinct.”

  —Ink19

  “Classic pulp.”

  —Kevin Burton Smith, January Magazine

  “A wonderful chase from start to finish.”

  —Charlie Stella

  “Excellent...terrific.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “Able to cut to the heart of a character or a situation with equal ease, he has a voice as unforgettable as his stories.”

  —Billie Sue Mosiman

  “[Ardai] builds his tale slowly and really throws it into high gear in the emotional final chapters.”

  —George Pelecanos

  “A pleasant visit to an unpleasant society where honor and loyalty count for more than life.”

  —James Crumley

  “Another standout [about a] man on a memorable downward spiral.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “[A] layered hard boiled work [with] an ending that leaves readers mouthing ‘wow!’...Essential reading.”

  —Library Journal

  “Gives Chandler a run for his money.”

  —Paramour

  “The best thing since bread sliced with a bloody knife...[Ardai] writes with genius.”

  —Dick Adler

  “It knocked my socks off. The last 30 pages, I don’t think I took a breath.”

  —Megan Abbott

  “The best Hard Case Crime offering I’ve read in a very long time. It’s fast, suspenseful, profound, violent, witty, disturbing, and heartrending.”

  —About to Charge

  “A crime novel with an end that you won’t soon forget...there’s something so classic about it that, when you read it, you can’t help but picture the story unfolding in crisp black-and-white.”

  —Nights and Weekends

  “This guy’s a gold mine,” Borden said, jabbing with the back of his pen at the newest book to grace his desk. “He’s the genuine article. Gold Medal wishes they could find a guy like this.”

  The book was titled I Robbed the Mob! and was credited to that most prolific of authors, Anonymous, but Tricia was as proud of it as if her name had been plastered all over the cover. The illustration showed a man in a heavy overcoat, his face hidden in shadows, advancing on a buxom woman in a torn blouse. What that had to do with robbing the Mob, Tricia had no idea. But Borden said it would sell books.

  Beneath the title it said

  Torn From the Headlines!

  The Scandalous True Story of One Man’s

  LIFE in the UNDERWORLD!

  “You know what Casper Citron said about us on his program yesterday?” Borden said. “He called the book reprehensible. Said we glorified crime. That’s good for a thousand copies, easy. The thing’s selling, Trixie. You did good—you and this guy you found.” Borden grabbed his jacket from a hook on the back of the door, shrugged it on. “You think he really ripped off his boss?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” Tricia said.

  “Man,” Borden said. “The guy has guts. I tell you, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes the day someone hands Nicolazzo a copy of the book.”

  It was at that moment that the frosted glass pane in Borden’s door shattered...

  SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

  SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

  FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

  KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

  SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

  DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

  DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

  A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

  MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust

  ZERO COOL by John Lange

  SHOOTING STAR/SPIDERWEB by Robert Bloch

  THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin

  SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald E. Westlake

  NO HOUSE LIMIT by Steve Fisher

  BABY MOLL by John Farris

  THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

  GUN WORK by David J. Schow

  KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block*

  THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny*

  THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake*

  HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt*

  CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner*

  * coming soon

  FIFTY-to-ONE

  by Charles Ardai

  A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

  (HCC-050)

  First Hard Case Crime edition: December 2008

  Published by

  Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street

  London

  SE1 OUP

  in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Copyright © 2008 by Winterfall LLC

  Cover painting copyright © 2008 by Glen Orbik

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

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

  Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-324-3

  E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-396-0

  Cover design by Cooley Design Lab

  Design direction by Max Phillips

  www.maxphillips.net

  Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

  The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

  Printed in the United States of
America

  Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

  For Max Phillips, Without whom

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One: Grifter’s Game

  Chapter Two: Fade to Blonde

  Chapter Three: Top of the Heap

  Chapter Four: Little Girl Lost

  Chapter Five: Two for the Money

  Chapter Six: The Confession

  Chapter Seven: Home Is the Sailor

  Chapter Eight: Kiss Her Goodbye

  Chapter Nine: 361

  Chapter Ten: Plunder of the Sun

  Chapter Eleven: Branded Woman

  Chapter Twelve: Dutch Uncle

  Chapter Thirteen: The Colorado Kid

  Chapter Fourteen: The Girl With the Long Green Heart

  Chapter Fifteen: The Gutter and the Grave

  Chapter Sixteen: Night Walker

  Chapter Seventeen: A Touch of Death

  Chapter Eighteen: Say It With Bullets

  Chapter Nineteen: Witness to Myself

  Chapter Twenty: Bust

  Chapter Twenty-One: Straight Cut

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Lemons Never Lie

  Chapter Twenty-Three: The Last Quarry

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Guns of Heaven

  Chapter Twenty-Five: The Last Match

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Grave Descend

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Peddler

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lucky At Cards

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Robbie’s Wife

  Chapter Thirty: The Vengeful Virgin

  Chapter Thirty-One: The Wounded and the Slain

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Blackmailer

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Songs of Innocence

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Fright

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Kill Novo, Pay Later

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Slide

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Dead Street

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Deadly Beloved

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Diet of Treacle

  Chapter Forty: Money Shot

  Chapter Forty-One: Zero Cool

  Chapter Forty-Two: Shooting Star and Spiderweb

  Chapter Forty-Three: The Murderer Vine

  Chapter Forty-Four: Somebody Owes Me Money

  Chapter Forty-Five: No House Limit

  Chapter Forty-Six: Baby Moll

  Chapter Forty-Seven: The Max

  Chapter Forty-Eight: The First Quarry

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Gun Work

  Chapter Fifty: Fifty-to-One

  Author’s Note

  1.

  Grifter’s Game

  The day she got the job dancing, they asked her what her name was and she told them the first thing that came to mind: Trixie. It wasn’t her real name, of course, her sister had told her enough to know better than to give them her real name; but it was close enough that if someone called it out to her she wouldn’t think they were calling someone else.

  Her name was Tricia Heverstadt, Patricia Heverstadt. She was five foot one and weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She was pretty enough, but her body wouldn’t make any man look at her twice—no bosom to speak of and nothing much in the way of hips. She had long legs for her frame, but what did that mean when your frame was as small as hers was? Her hair was brown, her eyes were brown, her skin was pale, her smile didn’t shine. But she could move.

  You put Tricia Heverstadt on a stage with a spotlight on her and a quartet pounding out some dance hall melody and you’d have yourself a show. Hell, forget the spotlight and the quartet. You put Tricia Heverstadt on the street in broad daylight, just walking along, and you’d see men’s heads turn. It wasn’t obvious just why. She wasn’t beautiful. But when she moved, your eyes wanted to follow.

  Coral Heverstadt, Tricia’s older sister, had come to New York four years before, had gotten work in the chorus of a rooftop cabaret in Times Square, had written back home to Tricia in Aberdeen, South Dakota, telling how her feet ached and her shoulders chafed from the straps of the cigarette tray they made her carry around between performances, and how she couldn’t get enough sleep because an hour after she finally made it home the garbage men were pulling up outside her window, making a racket. She wrote about the men, taking liberties in the club and whistling at her on the streets, and about one masher who walked out on her in the middle of a meal at Rosie O’Grady’s when she shook her head no to the suggestion he whispered in her ear. She wrote about all this and signed her letters “Your struggling sister” but the day Tricia turned eighteen and her mother could no longer prevent her, she was on a train to New York.

  She arrived at Grand Central Station and for a good fifteen minutes couldn’t find her way out, just kept dragging her luggage in circles through its cavernous rooms and underground corridors, till finally a policeman pointed her toward the Vanderbilt Avenue exit. And as she headed off, the poor flatfoot’s eyes followed her and he beat a little tattoo on his palm with his nightstick.

  She had her sister’s letters in a bundle in her purse, and she showed the return address to the cab driver at the head of the line. He heaved her two bags and her typewriter case into the trunk, ushered her into the back seat, slammed the door behind her, and took off down Lexington Avenue, aimed smack at the heart of Greenwich Village. At first Tricia didn’t even notice the buildings speeding by outside, she was so taken with the pair of fold-down jump seats leaning up against the back of the driver’s seat and the automatic taxi meter ticking away her fare. She didn’t even mind watching the numbers rise, higher and higher. A taxi ride through New York City! It was an extravagance, a luxury, perhaps the last she’d enjoy for a good, long time; but she did enjoy it so. It felt as though her childhood in Aberdeen was dropping away from her at last with each city block they drove, with each expensive tick of the meter.

  Coral greeted her at the door of the rooming house on Cornelia Street, hugged her and lifted her off her feet while the cab driver unloaded her luggage. Coral took after their mother, had the broad shoulders and muscular arms, and she picked up one heavy bag in each hand and carried them up the front steps without the slightest show of effort, chattering nervously as she went. It was lovely to see Tricia, it had been so long, what a wonderful idea, to drop by for a visit—how was mama? Tricia picked up the typewriter case and followed her sister up to the big glass door leading into the building’s vestibule. “Mama’s good,” she said. “But Cory, I’m not here for a visit. I’m here for good.” And then when Coral didn’t respond, just stood there staring, she said, “I want to live in the city. I’ve moved here. To stay.”

  And the smile that had slowly been eroding on Coral’s face as Tricia spoke fell all to pieces. “No,” she said, putting the suitcases down on either side of her. “No, no...you come for a visit, Patty, you see the Empire State, you eat at Lindy’s and you go right back home. You can’t move here. You can’t live here.”

  “Why not? You do.”

  That seemed to be a stumper. Coral Heverstadt heaved a sigh up from the depths of her abdomen. “I do lots of things, kiddo. You wouldn’t want to do them. I wouldn’t want you doing them, and mama sure as hell wouldn’t.”

  “You mean dancing?”

  “I don’t mean dancing.”

  “Well, then what do you mean?”

  Another sigh, long and plangent. “It would never work. What were you going to do for money?”

  “I have some money,” Tricia said, patting her purse. “I’ve been saving up for a while now. Maybe it won’t last long, but it’ll hold me for a month, I figure, and by then I’ll have a job, and...I’ll get by. I don’t eat much.” She smiled hopefully.

  “And where were you planning to stay?”

  The smile widened.

  “No,” Coral said. “Honey, no. I can’t put you up. I—I just can’t. Don’t ask me why.”

  “Why?”

  “Patty, listen to me. I live in one room. Bathroom’s down the hall. There are ten other people on the same floor and in the morning you’ve got to figh
t the whole lot of them just to pee.”

  “That’s okay. I can hold it.”

  “Patty, listen to me. I...don’t live alone.”

  “Okay, so it’s tight, I understand, but I wouldn’t stay long. And it might even be fun, three girls in the big city—”

  “Two girls,” Coral said. “It’d be two girls.”

  “Two? But you said you don’t live alone...” Tricia’s hand leapt to her mouth. “Oh!”

  “Yeah: Oh. So would you please just get yourself back on that train and go home to mama and tell her you saw me and everything was fine and you had a nice visit but now you’re home to stay? Please?” She reached a hand out and ruffled Tricia’s hair. “Please.”

  But Tricia didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Her face was blank, her breathing slow. Comprehension was just beginning to break through.

  “Please,” her sister said again. “Go home.” Coral held her eyes for a second, then turned, went inside, drew the door shut behind her. Through the glass, Tricia watched her retreat up the stairs.

  Tricia set the typewriter case down beside her other two bags. She looked around. The street was bustling, as every street in New York City seemed to be; but she might as well have been alone. She was alone.

  In the first-floor window beside her head, a hand-lettered cardboard sign proclaimed “NO VACANCIES.”

  She felt a sob start climbing up inside her chest and a sense of panic gripped her, but she sensibly forced it down. This wasn’t turning out the way she’d planned, but panicking wasn’t going to make it better. So Coral wouldn’t have her—fine. It was a big city, there were lots of places for a girl to stay. So she didn’t happen to know any of them—fine. Fine. How hard could they be to find? She looked around her. Maybe one of these people would know, maybe this man coming toward her, with his nice panama hat and glasses and his white seersucker suit with the wide braces peeking out under his jacket.