We rumbled through the rickety bridge and then pulled off to the left as we exited the north end. From the back seat I yanked out the duffel and then the two of us, like gangsters in fedoras and topcoats dragging a dead body, lugged the eighty-five pounds of money to the underbrush just past the north end of the bridge.

“All right,” I said. “Now you head back.”

He blinked at me. “You mean we head back.”

“No.” I lifted the nine mil. “I’m waiting for these bastards…”

HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS:

THE BIG BUNDLE

TOO MANY BULLETS*

SKIM DEEP

TWO FOR THE MONEY

DOUBLE DOWN

TOUGH TENDER

MAD MONEY*

QUARRY

QUARRY’S LIST

QUARRY’S DEAL

QUARRY’S CUT

QUARRY’S VOTE

THE LAST QUARRY

THE FIRST QUARRY

QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE

QUARRY’S EX

THE WRONG QUARRY

QUARRY’S CHOICE

QUARRY IN THE BLACK

QUARRY’S CLIMAX

QUARRY’S WAR (graphic novel)

KILLING QUARRY

QUARRY’S BLOOD

DEADLY BELOVED

SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT

DEAD STREET (with Mickey Spillane)

THE CONSUMMATA (with Mickey Spillane)

MIKE HAMMER: THE NIGHT I DIED

(graphic novel with Mickey Spillane)

* coming soon

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A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-156)

First Hard Case Crime edition: December 2022

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 2022 by Max Allan Collins

Cover painting copyright © 2022 by Paul Mann

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 978-1-78909-852-5

E-book ISBN 978-1-78909-853-2

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.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

For my grandson
Sam
when the time comes

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Although the historical incidents in this novel are portrayed more or less accurately (as much as the passage of time and contradictory source material will allow), fact, speculation and fiction are freely mixed here; historical personages exist side by side with composite characters and wholly fictional ones—all of whom act and speak at the author’s whim.