December 8, History. An edition of Six Bad Things: a novel This edition was published in by Ballantine Books in New York. Written in English — pages. Paperback in English - Lrg edition. Not in Library. Libraries near you: WorldCat.
Audio CD in English - Unabridged edition. Six bad things: a novel , Ballantine Books. Audio cassette in English - Unabridged edition. Edition Notes Genre Fiction. I light a cigarette. The backpacker points at the pack.
Pedro is sitting on the far side of the bar with his guitar, strumming almost silently, whispering a song to himself. No one else is at the bar. I take a paperback from the rear pocket of my shorts, bend it open till the spine cracks a little, and lay it flat on the bar in front of me. The backpacker turns around on his swing to face the ocean again, still sitting right next to me. I read the same sentence a few times. I hold up the book, show it to him.
East of Eden. I flatten the book on the bar again and stare at the sentence, waiting. I surrender, flip the book facedown, light another cig, and turn to face him.
What about you, been on the road long? Doing the whole vagabondo thing or just on a quick vacation? Which is how I end up spending the next hour chatting with Mikhail the Russian backpacker who really likes to be called Mickey. Then he leans closer to me, shaking his head. He says it so I hear the quotation marks. Mother was actress, married him for money.
Big fucking deal, you know. Everybody in Russia married for money if they could. Mother was so happy I wanted to be artist like her. Pissed father off, pissed him fucking off. But I go to film school. Make film about dancer marries gangster. He dies before he can see film. I nod my head. He slips off the swing, almost hangs himself on the ropes.
I steady him and get him standing. He wipes the tears from his eyes. Got to put up tent. He stumbles away from the bar. Pedro comes over. They take fuel cans and fishing gear out of the buggy and start hauling it all down to the waterline. I go over and lend a hand. Rolf bumps fists with me.
He grabs one end of an ice chest, I grab the other and we lift it out of the buggy. He mostly works up in town as a diving instructor for the tourists. He has the same flat face and short round body as his brother, but the roundness covers muscles made hard by hauling fishing nets. Rolf splashes up, pushing a sealed plastic tub that bobs low in the water.
I boost up onto the gunwale and help Leo pull it aboard. Through the translucent plastic I can see a GPS rig, a high-power halogen spotlight, battery cells, and the AK they bring along for these trips. Leo nods his thanks as we clunk the tub down in the bottom of the long-hulled, open fishing boat. I jump back into the water and head for shore. Looking back at Leo, I give him a thumbs-up. I pass Rolf on his way to the boat with a six-pack, the last of the supplies.
I bump fists with him again. Supposed to be offshore in a raft. See you in the morning, you can buy me a beer. At the bar Pedro and I watch the boat grind off into the surf. American policy says that any Cuban who can reach U. Get stopped in the water a foot from dry land, and forget it. The average Cuban peasant will still get in his raft and cross his fingers. Pedro watches until the boat disappears from view, shaking his head.
Leo is his younger brother and Pedro worries about him. Anyway, nothing I can do about it. I push away from the bar. And I head off to take my swim. I can see that the girls are passing around a couple bottles of something and I think I can smell a little hash on the breeze. Inside, I pull on a pair of cutoff jeans. The music ends and I throw in some Bill Withers. I grab a bottle of water, my book and a lantern, and go back out on the porch.
The smiling Spanish girl is standing there in the sand at the foot of the steps, holding an empty two-liter jug. It takes a couple minutes to fill the jug from my water tank. Through the open door, I can see her reclining sideways in the hammock, her feet dangling over the edge. I should put on a shirt, I should put on a shirt before I go back out there. I bring out the filled jug, set it at her feet on the porch, and sit down on the chair. She plays with the jug with her toes, tilting it this way and that, daring it to fall over.
I pump up the lantern, light it, and turn it very low. The waves slap lightly and the lantern hisses. Her hair shines black. No tan lines on her shoulders. The jug falls over. I lean out of my chair and right it before more than a cup can glug out. She giggles, points at one of my many tattoos, the one on the inside of my left forearm. Six thick, black hash marks. She asks again. Turns out her English is great. We thought you were Costa Rican.
With the German blood, you know? And also your accent, your Spanish, is somewhat like that, and you do not act American. She laughs. Her toe grazes the jug. She rocks in the hammock. With me? She takes a small baggie out of her pocket and shows it to me. I can see papers, a little chunk of hash, a tobacco pouch.
She smiles, and wobbles around in the hammock getting herself balanced cross-legged. I toss her my book. She looks at the title before putting it in her lap. She takes a rolling paper from the bag and sprinkles tobacco into it. I shift uncomfortably on my chair.
Watching a pretty girl roll a smoke. Something inside me shakes its head. The lines. What are they for? The tobacco is spread evenly and she starts to grate hash over it, tiny flecks falling into the European-style joint. Bad things. You are very good, then. She runs her tongue across the glue strip, rolls her thumbs upward, spinning the whole thing into a tight, experienced joint, then pops the whole number in her mouth, covering its length with the thinnest film of her saliva.
She holds it out to me, eyes sparkling. In New York, four years ago, a woman lays spread-eagle on a table, her body covered with bruises. She still has her arm extended, the joint offered to me. Is there something? I want you to go away. My body starting to tremble. Can I? Get the fuck off my porch. Go back to your fucking friends. Keeping my voice as steady and quiet as possible. Watching her flinch back from the first obscenity.
Struggling out of the hammock, all her grace disappeared in the face of my abuse. Stumbling off the porch and running away, across the sand to the safety of the fire as I pick up the water jug and fling it into the darkness after her.
I kill the lamp, walk through the door over to the boom box, kick it to the floor, and the song ends. I go around the room, pulling the rods that drop the storm shutters, close and lock both doors. Bud is hiding under the bed. Fucking cat! Nothing would have happened, nothing without you. Bud is terrified.
I tear the back door open and run. I run across the twenty yards of sand to the tree line where the jungle begins and then I run through the jungle, tripping and falling a dozen times before I huddle in the roots of a tree, shivering and sobbing, hugging the trunk. Having been reminded of Yvonne who liked to roll her own cigarettes, and who is dead because of me. And crouched here all night long, wretched and sobbing, I never once feel sorry for myself. He gave me the cat to watch and then he disappeared and then guys started showing up and hurting me and killing my friends because Russ had failed to let me in on a key piece of information.
Still, things turned out a fuck of a lot better for me than for Russ. He ended up dead from having his head beat in with a baseball bat. I know because I was on the other end of the bat when it happened. My reason was fogged at the time. A barroom full of my friends had just been machine-gunned to death. Or the first. I pick up the boom box and the spilled CDs and pop the shutters open. Sorry, girls. So sorry. But the less I expose myself to life, the easier it is.
The less chance there is that something might remind me of who I am. So last night is a reminder: keep your life small, keep the people in your life few, and keep them in front of you.
And you can lose control of it in an instant. Bud watches me from the bed until I come over and sit down next to him. Then he climbs into my lap, stretches, and rubs the top of his head against my chin. Not your fault, I know that. He jumps off the bed and walks over to the cabinet where his food is. I take the hint and get off my ass to feed him. Want to make me feel better, feed me.
I leave him to eat and go into the little bathroom. A rain tank with a filter unit is on a small tower right outside. That takes care of my washing-water needs, and Leo brings me a few five-gallon jugs of drinking water every week.
Where I really luxuriated when I had this place built was the septic tank. That cost a pretty penny, as does getting it pumped. But, trust me, when you grow up with indoor plumbing, you are simply not prepared for the places most people in the world have to crap.
I wash up and find several cuts on my arms, legs, and feet from my run through the jungle. I sterilize those and take care of them with a few Band-Aids. Then I go for my morning swim, get my ears clogged so that I have to do the cigarette trick, put on shorts and a guayabera shirt, lock up, and walk over to The Bucket, where I find Mickey already sitting on my swing, drinking from my coffee cup, and reading my paper.
And I start to remember very clearly just what it feels like when you really want to kill a man. And they poked. I mean, in the forty-eight hours I spent running around Manhattan getting chased, the death toll reached fourteen. At the time, it was a pretty impressive number. Then some really fucked-up people rammed a couple airplanes into these tall buildings in New York and I dropped off the radar.
So things had been quiet for awhile. That shit never seems to last. After Tim told me his story about people maybe looking for me in Mexico, we changed our MO. I started calling him every week at a pay phone in Grand Central. But then, lately? I think I may have noticed something, a trend in the topics of conversation. The rain gets heavier and, all at once, is a deluge. Is the mayor doing all he can? Seems it was better when Rudy was around. With exceptions, of course.
Shit happened even when big bad Rudy was sheriff around these parts. And then, some guy might chime in, Yeah, like remember that time? And guess what time he means? Water is pouring down my body. I might as well be in the ocean. What the hell was that about? The dusty ground has already turned to mud. The rain stops and the sun comes out and hits my drenched body. And I tell Tim, fuck it, get your boss to give you a transfer and get the hell out of town. And I ended up being on edge every time I heard a Russian accent.
I lean on the bar next to Mickey. He looks up from my paper, smiles. I bought it in town, brought it all the way down here because I wanted a really big, heavy cup for my coffee. He looks confused. Because I live here and I pay him extra for it to be that way. Pedro has his back turned to us, rotating my chorizo and stirring my eggs.
His shoulders are shaking as he tries to keep from laughing. Mickey starts to slide the paper and coffee cup over to me. Pedro is starting to lose it, little pops of laughter escaping from his mouth. It is OK? Puppy dog all over his face, he just wants to make me happy. Just to end the noise of my voice so his head will hurt a little bit less. He smiles, relaxes a little. I am very embarrassed. Mickey gets tangled in the ropes again and almost falls from the swing.
I grab his arm and direct him onto the next swing over. I did not know this was for you. I sat and I thought. I sit. Still laughing, Pedro brings my plate, the tortillas, and a cheap plastic cup for Mickey. I stick a chorizo into a tortilla.
I finish making the little burrito and hand it to him. Trust me, I know what to do to a hangover. My mother must have me home for Christmas. How did I forget that? But I know why I forgot it. Because I wanted to. I always used to go home for Christmas, too. How nice it was. He insists on paying for breakfast and I let him. Then he takes his water bottle and walks off to loll in the sand and sweat out the rest of the hangover. Pedro picks up my plate and wipes the bar. Where do you come from.
Do you work. Little shit bastard. He looks at me and snorts through his nose. I kept my mouth shut. I stick out my hand and he takes it. I never talk about you. Shaking his head, he starts scraping the grill. He never scrapes the grill. I light a smoke.
The only way I can make up for insulting him will be to stay up late into the night while he gets drunk and we sing songs together and repledge our friendship. No relationship, no number of psycho girlfriends, can prepare you for how easy it is to hurt the feelings of a Mexican man.
We have him on the bar. Fuck, his whole body is cold and clammy from shock. Pedro stays to get the bar ready for business, and Rolf takes care of the boat while I help Leo and the other Cuban carry the injured guy to my bungalow. No one but Pedro has been inside. Bud runs for cover when we bang through the door. We set him on the table. He goes for it. I take hold of his fingers and pry them free. He looks at me. His eyes are bugging from his head. He shakes his head. I tilt my head toward the bathroom.
Muchas toallas. He goes to the bathroom for the towels. Leo puts the big, green first aid kit on the table. Hold this. He takes the tourniquet from me while I open the kit, find some latex gloves and slip them on. I take the tourniquet back and start to loosen it. He puts on the gloves. The other Cuban comes back with a stack of towels.
I pull it loose. Blood gushes onto my table. He gets the idea and holds the towels in place. I pull off my blood-slicked gloves, roll on a clean pair. Leo is just standing there. He starts a stream of curses under his breath and rubs the foot. I find the suture set. With my free hand I get the bottle of antiseptic, bite the cap off, pour some on the needle, then hold the bottle over the wound. The other Cuban guy pulls the towel away and I pour antiseptic into the wound. The guy on the table moans a little and his leg jerks.
I empty about half the bottle, then use one of the towels to wipe some of the blood away. Add to Wish List failed. Remove from wish list failed. Follow podcast failed. Unfollow podcast failed. The Plus Catalogue—listen all you want to thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts, and audiobooks. Narrated by: Christian Conn. No default payment method selected. Add payment method. Switch payment method. We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method.
Pay using card ending in. Tax where applicable. Publisher's Summary Henry "Hank" Thompson's got a good thing going - a hut on a quiet Mexican beach, morning swims, a nice breakfast place a few miles down shore…until a backpacker with a Russian accent shows up and starts asking questions about his past.
Hard-Boiled Suspense Crime Fiction. Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews. Amazon Reviews. No reviews are available.
Sort by:. Most Helpful Most Recent. Filter by:. All stars 5 star only 4 star only 3 star only 2 star only 1 star only. Ketil Mickey the Russian kid. Mickey aka Mikhail the ambitious kid of a Mafia father. Hank has to hightail it again, this time leaving Bud behind. Now he decides the only way to keep them safe is to make them unimportant again: that is, to give up the money, return it to the Russians. Leaving behind a blood-drenched trail—the Russians have been joined by an array of rapacious others—Hank wends his way to Las Vegas.
Bullets fly, more people die—good people, too, some of them—and finally Hank faces the one-on-one that was always in the cards for him. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z A zombie apocalypse is one thing.
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