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Back The Devils You Know Save as PDF
Chapters (46)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. PRAISE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  45. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  46. SNEAK PEEK: EXIT .45

Pass Quinny the mustard.

ONE

ONE

Before the shooting and everything else that happened, Vincent’s only problem was that Freeman didn’t like him. He imagined the main issue was that he didn’t seem like a bodyguard. He knew they’d had protection before, and no doubt Freeman had formed a view on what people in the trade were supposed to look like. Vincent was pretty sure that he didn’t fit the mould.

At the very least, he’d come across well on day one: new suit, new shoes, new sunglasses. Freeman had seemed impressed, which was to say he didn’t exhibit any overt signs of disapproval. Freeman was one of those guys whose deportment, in Vincent’s view, overstepped ‘professional’ and erred toward ‘prim and chilly’. Vincent had the feeling that even if he worked here for ten or fifteen years, there wouldn’t come a day when they’d have a drink together. Something about him—something about Freeman in his fitted suit with the coat buttoned, pocket square matching his tie, chin up to aim his gaze down his nose—Vincent just couldn’t see him in a deckchair with his feet on the rail, sipping beer between chuckles.

The house was up on Mountain Drive, in the hills behind Santa Barbara. He thought ‘palatial’ was the right term, though you wouldn’t know it from the street. Once they’d buzzed you in via the intercom, you came in off the sidewalk through a wooden door made to look weathered—strips of rusty steel framing splintered timber like old railway sleepers—and into a little courtyard big on botany: vines everywhere, and heady with the scent of flowers. Then in through the front door, and the view hit you. The far end of the living room was all windows, the hills beyond receding gently, contours smoothing as the land scooped down to meet the water.

It was Freeman who’d let him in on that first day, and he greeted Vincent with a handshake as firm and dry as a dentist’s. There was another guy sitting on a couch by the windows, reading the New Yorker. This was one of the few times he’d actually seen the New Yorker being read, and definitely the first time he’d seen it being read by a man with a Glock on his hip.

Freeman led him to an office off the living area and shut the door behind them.

‘Have a seat. Would you like a drink?’