Guest Post: D J McIntosh, author of The Witch of Babylon

Today being my stop on The Witch of Babylon blog tour, I'm very happy to share a few words from the author, D J McIntosh. Here, Ms. McIntosh gives us a sneak peak at how her main character developed and what he means in her life. So, please give a warm welcome to my special guest and read on!:


My Leading Man

I’ve developed a steady relationship with a certain guy over the last couple of years and we just seem to grow closer as time goes on. He’s exceptionally good looking, comes from an exotic background, is smart though no snooty intellectual, has great social skills, oh….and, did I mention he’s thirty-three years younger than me?

He does have his failings. A tendency to skim the edges of legality if the money is good enough, a proclivity that stands him in good stead in his profession as an art and antiquities dealer. He has a strong sense of self-doubt that he covers up with bravado and occasional flashes of quick temper. But, hey, no one’s perfect. And he loves rock/blues guitar just as much as I do. That pretty much restores the balance for me.

I speak, of course, about my leading man – John Madison – the central character in The Witch of Babylon and the next two books in the Babylon Trilogy to come.

Book Excerpt and Trailer: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

With many thanks to Anna at FSB Media, I'm happy to share with everyone an excerpt from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreaduls by Steve Hockensmith. (Click here to see my review.) Make sure you get all the way to the bottom for the trailer. This one looks like a mini-movie worthy of A&E or BBC. Very well done!

Remember to let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :-)

Chapter 1
by Steve Hockensmith,
Author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale.

When the service began, Mr. Ford was as well behaved as any corpse could be expected to be. In fact, he lay stretched out on the bier looking almost as stiff and expressionless in death as he had in life, and Oscar Bennet, gazing upon his not-so-dearly departed neighbor, could but think to himself, You lucky sod.

It was Mr. Bennet who longed to escape the church then, and the black oblivion of death seemed infinitely preferable to the torments he was suffering. At the pulpit, the Reverend Mr. Cummings was reading (and reading and reading and reading) from the Book of Common Prayer with all the verve and passion of a man mumbling in his sleep, while the pews were filled with statues -- the good people of Meryton, Hertfordshire, competing to see who could remain motionless the longest while wearing the most somber look of solemnity.

This contest had long since been forfeited by one party in particular: Mr. Bennet's. Mrs. Bennet couldn't resist sharing her (insufficiently) whispered appraisal of the casket's handles and plaque. ("Brass? For shame! Why, Mrs. Morrison had gold last week, and her people don't have two guineas to rub together.") Lydia and Kitty, the youngest of the Bennets' five daughters, were ever erupting into titters for reasons known only to themselves. Meanwhile, the middle daughter, fourteen-year-old Mary, insisted on loudly shushing her giggling sisters no matter how many times her reproaches were ignored, for she considered herself second only to the Reverend Mr. Cummings -- and perhaps Christ Himself -- as Meryton's foremost arbiter of virtue.

At least the Bennets' eldest, Jane, was as serene and sweet countenanced as ever, even if her dress was a trifle heavy on décolletage for a funeral. ("Display, my dear, display!" Mrs. Bennet had harped at her that morning. "Lord Lumpley might be there!") And, of course, Mr. Bennet knew he need fear no embarrassment from Elizabeth, second to Jane in age and beauty but first in spirit and wit. He leaned forward to look down the pew at her, his favorite -- and found her gaping at the front of the church, a look of horror on her face.

Mr. Bennet followed her line of sight. What he saw was a luxury, hard won and now so easily taken for granted: a man about to be buried with his head still on his shoulders.

That head, though -- wasn't there more of a loll to the left to it now? Weren't the lips drawn more taut, and the eyelids less so? In fact, weren't those eyes even now beginning to --

Yes. Yes, they were.

Mr. Bennet felt an icy cold inside him where there should have been fire, and his tingling fingers fumbled for the hilt of a sword that wasn't there.

Mr. Ford sat up and opened his eyes.

The first person to leap into action was Mrs. Bennet. Unfortunately, the action she leapt to was shrieking loud enough to wake the dead (presuming any in the vicinity were still sleeping) and wrapping herself around her husband with force sufficient to snap a man with less back-bone in two.

"Get a hold of yourself, woman!" Mr. Bennet said.

She merely maintained her hold on him, though, her redoubled howls sparking Kitty and Lydia to similar hysterics.

At the front of the church, Mrs. Ford staggered to her feet and started toward the bier.

"Martin!" she cried. "Martin, my beloved, you're alive!"

"I think not, Madam!" Mr. Bennet called out (while placing a firm hand over his wife's mouth)."If someone would restrain the lady, please!" Most of the congregation was busy screeching or fleeing or both at once, yet a few hardy souls managed to grab Mrs. Ford before she could shower her newly returned husband with kisses.

"Thank you!" Mr. Bennet said. He spent the next moments trying to disentangle himself from his wife's clutches. When he found he couldn't, he simply stepped sideways into the aisle, dragging her with him.

"I will be walking that way, Mrs. Bennet." He jerked his head at Mr. Ford, who was struggling to haul himself out of his casket. "If you choose to join me, so be it."

Mrs. Bennet let go and, after carefully checking to make sure Jane was still behind her, swooned backward into her eldest daughter's arms.

"Get her out of here," Mr. Bennet told Jane. "Lydia and Kitty, as well."

He turned his attention then to the next two girls down the pew: Elizabeth and Mary. The latter was deep in conversation with her younger sisters.
"The dreadfuls have returned!" Kitty screamed.

"Calm yourself, sister," Mary said, her voice dead. She was either keeping a cool head or had retreated into catatonia, it was hard to tell which. "We should not be hasty in our judgments."

"Hasty? Hasty?" Lydia pointed at the very undead Mr. Ford. "He's sitting up in his coffin!"

Mary stared back at her blankly. "We don't know he's a dreadful, though.
But Elizabeth did know. Mr. Bennet could see it in her eyes -- because now she was staring at him.

She didn't grasp the whole truth of it. How could she, when he'd been forced to keep it from her for so long? Yet this much would be obvious to a clear-thinking, level-headed girl like her: The dreadfuls had returned, and there was more to be done about it than scream. More her father intended to do.

What she couldn't have guessed -- couldn't have possibly dreamed -- was that she herself would be part of the doing.

"Elizabeth," Mr. Bennet said. "Mary. If you would come with me, please."
And he turned away and started toward the altar. Toward the zombie.

The above is an excerpt from the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2010 Steve Hockensmith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Author Bio
Steve Hockensmith is an award-winning novelist and reporter. His debut mystery, Holmes on the Range, was a finalist for the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards. Critics have hailed the novel and its sequels as "hilarious" (Entertainment Weekly), "dazzling" (The Boston Globe), "clever" (The New York Times), "uproarious" (Publisher's Weekly), "wonderfully entertaining" (Booklist), and "quirky and original" (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). He lives in Alameda, California, with his wife and two children.

For more information, please visit http://www.quirkclassics.com/.

Excerpt/Recipe: Ciao Italia Five-Ingredient Favourites: Quick and Delicious Recipes from an Italian Kitchen by Mary Ann Esposito

Thanks to Julie at FSB, I am happy to present a book excerpt (which in this case is actually a recipe) from Ciao Italia Five-Ingredient Favourites: Quick and Delicious Recipes from an Italian Kitchen to share with everyone. I love homemade Mac and cheese and these look awesome, especially for those of us cooking for kids. So give them a try and come back to let me know the results. Stayed tuned for another article from Mary Ann Esposito next week, too!

Macaroni and Cheese Reinvented

By Mary Ann Esposito,

Author of Ciao Italia Five-Ingredient Favorites: Quick and Delicious Recipes from an Italian Kitchen

We are only half way through winter and that tells me that more comfort food is necessary. I'm craving good ol' macaroni and cheese. Macaroni and cheese is an all-American comfort food that even Thomas Jefferson loved and served frequently to his guests. I'm putting a new twist on it though by making this beloved casserole in a cupcake pan. That way I can get twelve individual mini macaroni and cheese "casserolettes". It is a good way to gauge portion control -- something we all need -- and the recipe will not leave you feeling guilty because I use non-fat evaporated milk and low-fat cheese; the texture is velvety and moist. Use a standard, non-stick cupcake pan. Mini macs can also be individually wrapped and frozen for future use. There are so many ways to present them as well; how about at your next ladies bridge lunch, a bridal luncheon, or as a starter to a casual dinner party? The kids will love them too. Mini macs are comfort food indeed.

Mini Macaroni and Cheese

MAKES 12

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons flour
2 ½ cups fat-free evaporated milk
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons salt
Grinding black pepper
2 cups grated reduced fat cheddar cheese
½ pound elbow or other small macaroni

Preheat the oven to 350F°.

In a medium size sauce pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and stir in the onion. Cook until the onion is very soft but not brown. Sprinkle the flour over the onion and stir to combine the ingredients well. Slowly pour in the milk and stir over medium heat to combine the ingredients. Add the mustard, salt and pepper and continue to stir until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not make the sauce too thick. Stir in 1½ cups of the cheese and set the sauce aside off the heat and covered.

Cook the elbow macaroni in 6 cups of boiling salted water just until the macaroni is not hard. Do not overcook the macaroni because it will also be baked.

Drain the macaroni in a colander and transfer it to a large bowl. Pour the sauce over the macaroni to combine well. Use a ¼ cup measure to scoop and fill the cupcake pan with the macaroni mixture. Be sure to evenly fill the pan right to the rim.

Place the cupcake pan on a larger baking sheet to catch any spills.

Sprinkle the remaining ½ cup of cheese evenly over the macaroni and cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes or just until the macaroni and cheese is set.

Turn on the broiler and broil the macaroni and cheese just until the tops are crusty brown.

Let the macaroni and cheese cool slightly in the pan before removing them individually with a butter knife. Serve.

For variation add minced carrot or celery to the onions when making the sauce or throw in some peas when mixing the macaroni with the sauce.

©2010 Mary Ann Esposito, author of Ciao Italia Five-Ingredient Favorites: Quick and Delicious Recipes from an Italian Kitchen

Author Bio

Mary Ann Esposito, author of Ciao Italia Five-Ingredient Favorites: Quick and Delicious Recipes from an Italian Kitchen, is the creator and host of the long-running PBS series Ciao Italia, celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2010. She is the author of eleven successful cookbooks, including Ciao Italia Slow and Easy and Ciao Italia Pronto! She lives in Durham, New Hampshire.

For more information, please visit http://www.ciaoitalia.com/.

Book Excerpt: Angel Time by Anne Rice

I have been a total fail over the last few days in regards to anything blog related. But, today, I'm back with a bang. I'm very stoked to offer up an excerpt from Anne Rice's new book, Angel Time. This marks her return to fiction and I know I, for one, gladly welcome her back! The book was released in hardcover on October 27, 2009. There are also some video links at the bottom of this post. So, read on and enjoy!


Angel Time by Anne Rice

SHADES OF DESPAIR


There were omens from the beginning.

First off, I didn't want to do a job at the Mission Inn. Anywhere in the country, I would have been willing, but not the Mission Inn. And in the bridal suite, that very room, my room. Bad luck and beyond, I thought to myself.

Of course my boss, The Right Man, had no way of knowing when he gave me this assignment that the Mission Inn was where I went when I didn't want to be Lucky the Fox, when I didn't want to be his assassin.

The Mission Inn was part of that very small world in which I wore no disguise. I was simply me when I went there, six foot four, short blond hair, gray eyes—a person who looked like so many other people that he didn't look like any special person at all. I didn't even bother to wear braces to disguise my voice when I went there. I didn't even bother with the de rigueur sunglasses that shielded my identity in every other place, except the apartment and neighborhood where I lived.

I was just who I am when I went there, though who I am was nobody except the man who wore all those elaborate disguises when he did what he was told to do by The Right Man.

So the Mission Inn was mine, cipher that I was, and so was the bridal suite, called the Amistad Suite, under the dome. And now I was being told to systematically pollute it. Not for anyone else but myself, of course. I would never have done anything to harm the Mission Inn.

A giant confection and confabulation of a building in Riverside, California, it was where I often took refuge, an extravagant and engulfing place sprawling over two city blocks, and where I could pretend, for a day or two or three, that I wasn't wanted by the FBI, Interpol, or The Right Man, a place where I could lose myself and my conscience. Europe had long ago become unsafe for me, due to the increased security at every checkpoint, and the fact that the law enforcement agencies that dreamed of trapping me had decided I was behind every single unsolved murder they had on the books.

If I wanted the atmosphere I'd loved so much in Siena or Assisi, or Vienna or Prague and all the other places I could no longer visit, I sought out the Mission Inn. It couldn't be all those places, no. Yet it gave me a unique haven and sent me back out into my sterile world a renewed spirit.

It wasn't the only place where I wasn't anybody at all, but it was the best place, and the place to which I went the most.

The Mission Inn was not far from where I "lived," if one could call it that. And I went there on impulse generally, and at any time that they could give me my suite. I liked the other rooms all right, especially the Inn keeper's Suite, but I was patient in waiting for the Amistad. And sometimes they called me on one of the many special cell phones I carried, to let me know the suite could be mine.

Sometimes I stayed as long as a week in the Mission Inn. I'd bring my lute with me, and maybe play it a little. And I always had a stack of books to read, almost always history, books on medieval times or the Dark Ages, or the Renaissance, or Ancient Rome. I'd read for hours in the Amistad, feeling uncommonly safe and secure.

There were special places I went from the Inn.

Often, undisguised, I drove over to nearby Costa Mesa to hear the Pacific Symphony. I liked it, the contrast, moving from the stucco arches and rusted bells of the Inn to the immense Plexiglas miracle of the Segerstrom Concert Hall, with the pretty Cafe Rouge on the first floor.

Behind those high clear undulating windows, the restaurant appeared to float in space. I felt, when I dined in it, that I was indeed floating in space, and in time, detached from all things ugly and evil, and sweetly alone.

I had just recently heard Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in that concert hall. Loved it. Loved the pounding madness of it. It had brought back a memory of the very first time I'd ever heard it, ten years before—on the night when I'd met The Right Man. It had made me think of my own life, and all that had happened since then, as I'd drifted through the world waiting for those cell phone calls that always meant somebody was marked, and I had to get him.

I never killed women, but that's not to say that I hadn't before I became The Right Man's vassal or serf, or knight, depending on how one chose to view it. He called me his knight. I thought of it in far more sinister terms, and nothing during these ten years had ever accustomed me to my function.

Often I even drove from the Mission Inn to the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, south and closer to the coast, another secret place, where I felt unknown and sometimes even happy.

Now the Mission of San Juan Capistrano is a real mission. The Mission Inn is not. The Mission Inn is a tribute to the architecture and heritage of the Missions. But San Juan Capistrano is the real thing.

At Capistrano, I roamed the immense square garden, the open cloisters, and visited the narrow dim Serra Chapel—the oldest consecrated Catholic chapel in the state of California.

I loved the chapel. I loved that it was the only known sanctuary on the whole coast in which Blessed Junípero Serra, the great Franciscan, had actually said Mass. He might have said Mass in many another Mission chapel. In fact surely he had. But this was the only one about which everyone was certain.

There had been times in the past when I'd driven north to visit the Mission at Carmel, and look into the little cell there that they'd re-created and ascribed to Junípero Serra, and meditated on the simplicity of it: the chair, the narrow bed, the cross on the wall. All a saint needed.

And then there was San Juan Bautista, too, with its refectory and museum—and all the other Missions that had been so painstakingly restored.

I'd wanted to be a priest for a while when I was a boy, a Dominican, in fact, and the Dominicans and the Franciscans of the California missions were mixed in my mind because they were both mendicant orders. I respected them equally, and there was a part of me that belonged to that old dream.

I still read history books about the Franciscans and the Dominicans. I had an old biography of Thomas Aquinas saved from my school days, full of old notes. Reading history always soothed me. Reading history let me sink into ages safely gone by. Same with the Missions. They were islands not of our time.

It was the Serra Chapel in San Juan Capistrano that I visited most often.

I went there not to remember the devotion I'd known as a boy. That was gone forever. Fact was, I simply wanted the blueprint of the paths that I'd traveled in those early years. Maybe I just wanted to walk the sacred ground, walk through places of pilgrimage and sanctity because I couldn't actually think about them too much.

I liked the beamed ceiling of the Serra Chapel, and its darkly painted walls. I felt calm in the quality of gloom inside it, the glimmer of the gold retablo at the far end of it—the golden framework that was behind the altar and fitted with statues and saints.

I loved the red sanctuary light burning to the left of the tabernacle. Sometimes I knelt right up there before the altar on one of the prie-dieux obviously intended for a bride and a groom.

Of course the golden retablo, or reredos, as it's often called, hadn't been there in the days of the early Franciscans. It had come later, during the restoration, but the chapel itself seemed to me to be very real. The Blessed Sacrament was in it. And the
Blessed Sacrament, no matter what I believed, meant "real."

How can I explain this?

I always knelt in the semidarkness for a very long time, and I'd always light a candle before I left, though for whom or what I couldn't have said. Maybe I whispered, "This is in memory of you, Jacob, and you, Emily." But it wasn't a prayer. I didn't believe in prayer any more than I believed in actual memory. I craved rituals and monuments, and maps of meaning. I craved history in book and building and paint—and I believed in danger, and I believed in killing people whenever and wherever I was instructed to do it by my boss, whom in my heart of hearts I called simply The Right Man.

Last time I'd been to the Mission—scarcely a month ago— I'd spent an unusually long time walking about the enormous garden.

Never have I seen so many kinds of flowers in one place. There were modern roses, exquisitely shaped, and older ones, open like camellias, there were trumpet flower vines, and morning glory, lantana, and the biggest bushes of blue plum - bago that I'd ever seen in my life. There were sunflowers and orange trees, and daisies, and you could walk right through the heart of this on any of the many broad and comfortable newly paved paths.

I'd taken my time in the enclosing cloisters, loving the ancient and uneven stone floors. I'd enjoyed looking out at the world from under the arches. Round arches had always filled me with a sense of peace. Round arches defined the Mission, and round arches defined the Mission Inn.

It gave me special pleasure at Capistrano that the layout of the Mission was an ancient monastic design to be found in monasteries all over the world, and that Thomas Aquinas, my saintly hero when I was a boy, had probably spent many an hour roaming just such a square with its arches and its neatly laid out paths, and its inevitable flowers.

Throughout history monks had laid out this plan again and again as if the very bricks and mortar could somehow stave off an evil world, and keep them and the books they wrote safe forever.

I stood for a long time in the hulking shell of the great ruined church of Capistrano.

An earthquake in 1812 had destroyed it, and what remained was a high gaping and roofless sanctuary of empty niches and daunting size. I'd stared at the random chunks of brick and cement wall scattered here and there, as if they had some meaning for me, some meaning, like the music of The Rite of Spring, something to do with my own wretched wreck of a life.

I was a man shaken by an earthquake, a man paralyzed by dissonance. I knew that much. I thought about that all the time, though I tried to detach it from any continuity. I tried to accept what seemed my fate. But if you don't believe in fate, well, that is not easy.

On my most recent visit, I'd been talking to God in the Serra Chapel, and telling Him how much I hated Him that He didn't exist.
I'd told Him how vicious it was, the illusion that He existed, how unfair it was to do that to mortal men, and especially to children, and how I detested Him for it.

I know, I know, this doesn't make sense. I did a lot of things that didn't make sense. Being an assassin and nothing else didn't make sense. And that was probably why I was circling these same places more and more often, free of my many disguises.

I knew I read history books all the time as though I believed a God had acted in history more than once to save us from ourselves, but I didn't believe this at all, and my mind was full of random facts about many an age and many a famous personage. Why would a killer do that?

One can't be a killer every moment of one's life. Some humanity is going to show itself now and then, some hunger for normality, no matter what you do. And so I had my history books, and the visits to these few places that took me to the times of which I read with such numb enthusiasm, filling my mind with narrative so that it wouldn't be empty and turn in on itself.

And I had to shake my fist at God for the meaninglessness of it all. And to me, it felt good. He didn't really exist, but I could have Him that way, in anger, and I'd liked those moments of conversation with the illusions that had once meant so much, and now only inspired rage.

Maybe when you're brought up Catholic, you hold to rituals all your life. You live in a theater of the mind because you can't get out of it. You're gripped all your life by a span of two thousand years because you grew up being conscious of belonging to that span.

Most Americans think the world was created the day they were born, but Catholics take it back to Bethlehem and beyond, and so do Jews, even the most secular of them, remembering the Exodus, and the promises to Abraham before that. Never ever did I look at the nighttime stars or the sands of a beach without thinking of God's promises to Abraham about his progeny, and no matter what else I did or didn't believe, Abraham was the father of the tribe to which I still belonged through no fault or virtue of my own.

I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.

So that's how we go on acting dramas in our theater of the mind even when we don't believe anymore in the audience or the director or the play.

I'd laughed thinking about that, as I'd meditated in the Serra Chapel, laughed out loud like a crazy man as I knelt there, murmuring in the sweet and delicious gloom and shaking my head.

What had maddened me on that last visit was that it was just past ten years to the day that I'd been working for The Right Man.

The Right Man had remembered the anniversary, talking about anniversaries for the first time ever and presenting me with a huge monetary gift that had already been wired to the bank account in Switzerland through which I most often received my money.

He'd said to me over the phone the evening before, "If I knew anything about you, Lucky, I'd give you something more than cold cash. All I know is you like to play the lute, and when you were a kid you played it all the time. They told me that, about your playing. If you hadn't loved the lute so much, maybe we never would have met. Realize how long it's been since I've seen you? And I always hope you're going to drop in, and bring your precious lute with you. When you do that, I'll get you to play for me, Lucky. Hell, Lucky, I don't even know where you really live."

Now that was something he brought up all the time, that he didn't know where I lived, because I think he feared, in his heart of hearts, that I didn't trust him, that my work had slowly eroded the love for him which I felt.

But I did trust him. And I did love him. I didn't love anyone in the world but him. I just didn't want anyone to know where I lived.

No place I lived was home, and I changed where I lived often. Nothing traveled with me from home to home, except my lute, and all my books. And of course my few clothes.

In this age of cell phones and the Internet, it was so easy to be untraceable. And so easy to be reached by an intimate voice in a perfect teletronic silence.

"Look, you can reach me anytime, day or night," I'd reminded him. "Doesn't matter where I live. Doesn't matter to me, so why should it matter to you? And someday, maybe I'll send you a recording of me playing the lute. You'll be surprised. I'm still good at it."

He'd chuckled. Okay with him, as long as I always answered the phone.

"Have I ever let you down?" I'd asked.

"No, and I'll never let you down either," he'd replied. "Just wish I could see you more often. Hell, you could be in Paris right now, or Amsterdam."

"I'm not," I'd answered. "You know that. The checkpoints are too hot. I'm in the States as I've been since Nine-Eleven. I'm closer than you think, and I'll come see you one of these days, just not right now, and maybe I'll take you to dinner. We'll sit in a restaurant like human beings. But these days, I'm not up to the meeting. I like being alone."

There had been no assignment on that anniversary, so I was able to stay in the Mission Inn, and I'd driven over to San Juan Capistrano the following morning.

Excerpted from Angel Time by Anne Rice Copyright © 2009 by Anne Rice. Excerpted by permission of Knopf Canada. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

REQUIRED RECIPROCAL LINK: http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780676978087&ref=externallink_gen_AngelTime

VIDEO CONTENT
Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLgXleRkw8A
Author video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnYw5Ntaxao

Also, visit http://annerice.ning.com/ for the official online community.

Book Excerpt: Trust Me by Peter Leonard

Trust Me

Chapter One

by Peter Leonard,

Author of Trust Me

Lou Starr was in bed reading, covered to the waist by a sheet. He'd set the air at sixty-eight and heard the compressor kick on outside. He pushed up the glasses that were falling off the end of his nose and stared at the signature hole of a new Robert Trent Jones PGA golf course called Whispering Palms.

He fondled the medallion that was hanging from a gold chain around his neck, resting on a sweater of chest hair. Lou said, "Want to see the best-looking new hole in golf?" He tilted the magazine toward Karen on the other side of the king-size bed, two feet of mattress between them.

Karen didn't say anything. She was propped up on pillows, the bedsheet angling across her chest revealing the pale white skin of her shoulder and the round curve of a breast. She was watching a sitcom on a Sony flat screen that hung on the wall a few feet away.

"It's a six-hundred-yard par five," Lou said. "Longest one in golf." He grinned now, imagining himself on the tee looking down the fairway. He took a couple practice swings with his Fusion FT-3 driver and blasted the ball 325 yards straight down the pike. Hey, Tiger, beat that.

Lou hit his second shot over a bunker and a water hazard -- on in two. He lined up the putt and sent the ball forty feet over a swale -- left to right -- for an eagle. He grinned big and closed the magazine and placed it on the table next to the bed. He took off his reading glasses, put them on top of the magazine and turned off the light.

Lou slid over next to Karen, touched her shoulder with his index finger, tracing a line down her arm to her elbow. He was horny. She'd been putting him off for a couple of weeks. First it was her period. What could he say about that? Then her allergies kicked in. What allergies? She'd never mentioned them before. And the past few nights she'd been too tired. From what, Lou wanted to know? All she did was go to the mall while he worked his ass off. He was wondering what he'd gotten himself into. They'd been living together for eight months and he was sure there were monks who got laid more than he did. Well he was going to get some to night. He'd demand it.

Lou moved his hand under the covers, stroked Karen's thigh, her hip, the smooth round point of her pelvis under the nightie.

Karen pushed his hand away. "Come on, Lou. Not now."

"Not now," Lou said, "when?"She was watching Pardon My French, this stupid fucking sitcom.

Karen said, "Chuck's getting married."

She sounded like she knew him. "Well, we're engaged," Lou said, "in case you forgot. How about my right to a piece of ass every couple months whether I need it or not?" He slid away from her, rolled over on his side.

A few minutes later it was over. He could hear the announcer's voice say: "Pardon My French has been brought to you by Levitra. The more you know about ED, the more you'll want to know about Levitra."

Lou got a kick out of that, Levitra for all the losers who couldn't get it up. He was fifty-six and still had a hard-on like a steel post. He glanced at Karen -- hoping she'd slip her nightie off and attack him -- this good-looking woman who was more interested in TV than sex. What was wrong with this picture?

He watched her yawn and close her eyes. The switcher slipped out of her hand and fell on the bed. Her eyes flickered open. She yawned again, picked up the remote and turned off the TV. It was dark, the room was quiet except for the ticking of his clock.

He'd been asleep for some time -- he was sure of it -- when he heard the noise. It was loud too, like something breaking, a window maybe, he couldn't tell. He looked at the clock. It was 2:48. He turned toward Karen. She heard it too, her eyes were big, a nervous look on her face.

"What was that?" Karen said.

She sat up and opened the drawer of her bedside table, took out her Airweight .357 and turned toward him. He was bringing the .45 out of his drawer, racking it. They got up with their guns and moved around the bed and went through the doorway into the living room.

Bobby saw them come in the dark room, holding guns, barrels pointed up like TV cops. They didn't go together, Bobby was thinking. The guy was short and hairy like a little gorilla. The girl was something though -- lean and pale with skinny arms and nice jugs he could see hanging under the thin fabric of her nightie. He knew their names, Lou and Karen.

Bobby made his move coming in behind them, pointing the .32, telling them, if they moved, he'd blow their fucking heads off. Delivering the line like he meant it, surprised by the sound of his voice in the quiet room.

They bent down and placed their guns on the carpet, and now Lloyd entered from the other side of the room."Folks, step back here, have a seat, will you?" Bobby said it friendly and polite, no reason to be rude now that he had their attention. He waved the gun motioning them toward the couch.

Lou said, "What the hell do you want?"

"Have a seat over here, we'll let you know," Bobby said.

Lloyd picked up the .357 and the .45. Bobby was wondering why these suburbanites were armed in the first place, not to mention with large caliber handguns. Lou grabbed an afghan off the couch wrapped it around the Karen's shoulders and they both sat down.

"Come with me," Bobby said to Karen. She didn't hesitate, got up and headed toward the bedroom.

Lou said, "Hey . . . where you taking her?"

Lloyd sat in a chair across from the guy, pointing the .45 at him.

Lloyd said, "We catch you and the little lady getting after it?"

"What the hell business is it of yours?" He was mad letting Lloyd know it.

"I'm making it my business," Lloyd said. "I got the gun. You didn't wimp out maybe you'd be holding on me. But you froze like an amateur." He glanced around the room, checking things out. It was dark, but his eyes had adjusted and he could focus now. The furniture looked like it should be on a porch, not in somebody's living room, but he liked it. Real comfortable too, bent wood frames with khaki cushions.

Neither of them said anything for a while, sitting in silence like strangers on a bus until Lloyd said, "Nice place you got here. Is that a real one," pointing to the zebra skin rug on the floor.

"What do you think?"

Lloyd said, "Where'd you get it at?"

"I shot it," Lou Starr said.

Lloyd said, "You mean like on safari?"

"No, in the backyard."

"I hunt too," Lloyd said, "with a bow and arrow."

Lou Starr said, "Congratulations."

"What kind of gun you use?" Lloyd said.

"You don't give up, do you?"

"I was just wondering," Lloyd said, "that's all."

" A 30.06, okay? You happy?"

Lloyd wondered if the guy was always this grouchy. He was making a real effort to be friendly and it wasn't working.

In the dressing room, Bobby fixed his gaze on Karen. She was a knockout, red hair and pale creamy skin. He'd always had a weakness for girls like her.

"Do you think I'm going to overpower you?" she said.

"Huh?" He wasn't paying attention, his eyes staring where the afghan didn't cover her.

"The gun," Karen said. "You don't have to point it at me. I'm not going to try anything."

He was surprised she was so relaxed, like people broke in her house in the middle of the night on a regular basis.

"Do you mind if I put something on? This thing itches," Karen said. She didn't wait for permission; let the afghan slide off her shoulder onto the floor. She grabbed a robe off a hanger and slipped it on, tying the sash around her waist.

There was a framed sign hanging on the wall that read: "Everybody's a Star at Lou Starr's World Famous Parthenon." There was a photograph of a storefront and the word "Parthenon" in neon surrounded by a silver border of stars. He said, "What's that?"

"It's from Lou's restaurants," Karen said. "You get one when you eat there. Lou thinks it makes people feel special."

"He make you feel special?" Judging by the angry look on her face he would've guessed, no. "What the hell're those for?" He was staring at the wig stands, three of them on a shelf -- two had salt-and-pepper hairpieces on them.

"They're Lou's."

"No kidding. I thought they were yours." He glanced at her and felt himself grin. He lifted one of the hairpieces off the stand and studied it. It looked like a furry little creature in his hands. He was going to try it on but didn't want to mess up his own hair. "Is it real?"

"Yeah," Karen said. "It's hair from a fourteen-year-old Chinese girl."

"Does he put it on, and get a yen for chop suey?" Bobby grinned big. He couldn't help it. He surprised himself sometimes.

"He has them custom-made in London," Karen said. "The same place Burt Reynolds gets his."

Bobby said, "Burt Reynolds wears a rug, come on?"

"Are you kidding," Karen said, "his hair looks like it was made by Karastan."

"What's a custom rug cost these days?" Bobby said.

"They start at $700 and go up from there."

"That's a lot of money to look like an idiot. Why's he have three?"

"They're all different lengths so it looks like his hair's growing," Karen said.

"Where's the third one?" Bobby said, eyeing the blank wig stand.

"On his head," Karen said."Duh," Bobby said.

How'd he miss that?

Lloyd was staring at a framed picture on the end table next to him. The guy across from him was in a safari outfit and there was a dead animal at his feet. Lloyd turned the frame toward him so he could see it. "Look at you. What is that, a lion?" Lloyd put it back on the end table. "What's a lion weigh?"

"Three fifty, four hundred," Lou Starr said. "This one went four twenty-five."

He finally got the grouch's attention. "Four twenty-five, whoa hoss, that's a big cat, ain't it?" Lloyd grinned at him. "You were in Africa, right?"

"Botswana."

"That's been a dream of mine," Lloyd said. "Get some sahibs to carry all the shit, go out every day and hunt. Smoke any of that homegrown they got over there?"

He stared at Lloyd. Maybe he didn't know what homegrown was. Lloyd was just trying to be nice to the guy, making conversation, trying to pass the time and he was being a real dickhead. "Ever hunt whitetail?"

Lou Starr said, "Uh- huh."

He wasn't giving him much. "You prefer a tree stand or a blind?"

"Who the fuck cares?"

"Ever got yourself a trophy buck?" Lloyd said. "One that made book? I'm not talking about seeing it while you're up on a limb. I'm talking about nailing it, bringing it home."

Lou Starr looked across the living room to the bedroom, glanced at his watch. "That's it," he said, standing now.

Lloyd aimed the .45 at him. "Don't be a dumbass. Sit down."

He dropped back on the couch, covered his face in his hands. He had a huge diamond ring set in gold on his little finger. Lloyd hadn't noticed it before, too busy looking at other stuff. "I like your ring," Lloyd said. "Always wanted one of those."

"I got an idea," Lou Starr said grinning. "When you get out of prison, get yourself a job and start saving up."

Bobby stared at a hanger-rack-ful of Lou's guayabera shirts: white and blue and yellow, reminding him of the shirts barbers wore, same style with the open collar and little vents on the tails. But these had a decorative quality to them and he imagined a roomful of short compact Latin men in the same kind of shirts, dancing and drinking wine.

Bobby turned and looked at her. "What nationality is he?"

"Take a guess," Karen said.

"Something Mediterranean," he said. "Italian or Sardinian."

"I'll give you a hint," Karen said. "Lou's real name is Starvos Loutra."

She was sitting in a chair now, chiseled legs visible, sticking out of the bottom of the robe.

"He doesn't have a brother named Spartacus, does he?" He smiled thinking he was funny and she smiled back telling him she did too. "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts," Bobby said, "and don't bend over and pick up the soap. That exhausts my knowledge of Greek heritage."

"I'm impressed," Karen said. "I can see you're a real scholar."

Bobby said, "Where's the money at?"

"What're you talking about?" Karen said.

"The $9,600 Lou won at the casino."

Karen said, "It's locked in the safe at one of his restaurants."

"I'm not walking out of here empty-handed," Bobby said.

"Do you want to make some real money?" Karen said. "Two hundred fifty thousand, maybe more."

"What do you think I just fell off the back of a turnip truck? Do I look that dumb?" She stared at him and he wondered what she was thinking. "Where's it at?"

"In a house in West Bloomfield," Karen said.

"Whose house?"

"We can get into all that," Karen said. "Does this sound like something you might be interested in?"

A quarter mill and a shot at her, hell yes he was interested. But he didn't trust her. How could he? You didn't break into someone's house in the middle of the night and expect to get propositioned. He fixed his gaze on her and said, "Are you scamming me?"

"No," Karen said. "I've been waiting for you."

The above is an excerpt from the book Trust Me by Peter Leonard. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Leonard, author of Trust Me

Author Bio:

Peter Leonard, author of Trust Me, lives in Birmingham, Michigan. His first novel, Quiver, received wide-spread critical acclaim.

For more information please visit http://www.peterleonardbooks.com/

Book Excerpts

Angel Time by Anne Rice

Demons of the Past by Erin Durante

The Divorce Party by Laura Dave

Trust Me by Peter Leonard

Book Excerpt - Demons of the Past by Erin Durante

Demons of the Past: Book One of the Damewood Trilogy by Erin Durante

From the back cover:

MODERN CIVILIZATION HAS DISINTEGRATED

The technological advances of mankind have flourished beyond expectations and escaped the controlling hands of the human race. Cloned humans and genetically engineered creatures prowl the lands, pushing the earth over the edge to a third World War.

Four centuries later, the world has regressed to a feudalistic state, unaware of its advanced past. Now, the kingdoms live in fear of mutated "demons", of shadowy forests, and of frosts destroying their spring crops. It is a land where only the secret of society's past is known by a select few - and those few seem to have their own agenda on the upcoming successions of thrones.

Nadia, the eldest princess of Damewood, flees for her life after her castle is attacked by an underground cult bent on bringing society back to its "roots". Disguising herself as a knight, she joins a hunting party along with her best friend - a demon horse named Vestro with his own dark past - to put an end to the massacres and retrieve a stolen key that will unlock the cult's mysteries and the history of her people.

Book Excerpt - The Divorce Party

Here is an excerpt from The Divorce Party by Laura Dave. I have a copy on its way to me and will post my review once I've read it. So far, the premise sounds pretty good. What do you think?

Montauk, New York, 1938
by Laura Dave,
Author of The Divorce Party: A Novel

It is bizarre, of course, that this was the summer that everyone was trying to fly somewhere. Howard Hughes around the world in ninety-one hours, the luxurious Yankee Clipper boat off the water and into the air, Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan from New York to Los Angeles -- he wound up in Ireland. It was also the summer after Superman first appeared in Action Comics and instant coffee got popular, and the last full summer before the worst war. But they'd talk about the flights first. They'd say, how odd, for everyone to have spent so much time staring up at the sky, and to still not see it coming: a hurricane so punishing that it would destroy America's eastern seaboard, biting off the farthest tip of eastern Long Island, biting off a town called Montauk, and leaving it detached from the world, an island, alone, in the middle of the ocean.

It was September, only the last vestiges of summer remaining, when the hurricane hit. No one on Long Island knew that a storm was coming that afternoon. That the army would have to come in to resurrect the land that had once connected Montauk to the rest of Long Island. That it would take two weeks before the waters receded low enough at Napeague to let through emergency traffic. That Montauk residents would lose almost everything.

In the end, there were only a few exceptions. Near Montauk Point, there were seven houses tucked so tightly to the bluffs that the wind and the rain and the water couldn't pull them down. Seven sister houses built by the same architecture firm in 1879, lived in each summer since by the same seven Manhattan families. Their steely gates and strong foundations completely intact.

Their fireplaces and oak doors and stained-glass windows marking them, homes like trophies, on top of the end of the world.

The one at the farthest eastern tip was called Huntington Hall -- Hunt Hall by anyone who'd actually visited. It was the only house of the seven still occupied that late in September. And occupying it was Champ Nathaniel Huntington. Champ was thirty-three years old, and far too handsome, and a little too tall, and the only son of Bradley Huntington, the most successful publishing mogul in North America. When the hurricane hit, Champ Huntington was having sex.

Lights on. Curtains drawn. Angry, late-afternoon sex. Anna was bent over the side of the bed, Champ behind her, his hand cupping her throat.

They had been out here all summer having sex like this. They were trying to save their marriage. And they were trying to destroy it.

Outside was all water and raging dark and storm. But in his faded consciousness, Champ didn't notice. He knew it was raining. He heard it striking against the roof. He heard the wind. But this was Montauk. It was September. These sounds didn't indicate that something brutal was happening.

Other things were brutal. This first year of marriage. It was wrong. Anna's dark hair in the sink. The meetings he didn't really have. He bent down farther, took her ear in his mouth.

"Don't," she said. She was focused, close. "Stop."

When they were done, they lay, splayed, Anna on the bed, Champ on the floor beneath her. Her foot was on his shoulder. This was the only place they were touching. He almost reached out, held her toes. But he knew it just made her mad when he did anything tender. It made her think he'd change, or want to try for her.

Then and only then did Champ sit up and look outside. And maybe it was that his head was still closed off, but what he saw out there looked like a train crashing into the window. It was the visual that made him hear the noise. The terrible whistling, high pitched and out of control. Hearing it, he'd later say, was the moment his life changed.

He headed to the bedroom window, naked, and had to reach out, grip the long edge of the window frame to hold himself up. He couldn't see the beach, or the ocean. He couldn't see anything at first.

Anna came up behind him, wrapped in the bedsheet, and they stood there watching the train-wind through the window. They watched so hard that they didn't talk. Not about the speed of the wind or the trees breaking apart or what must have been happening in the town center. If they had been thinking, they might have moved away from the window. They might have been scared that it would splinter. But they stood there until the storm stopped, and started, and stopped for good. And the greenish yellow sky turned purple and then black and the sun (or was it the moon?) rose up, terrifying. It was the sun. They had watched through the night.

"What time is it?" she asked.

He didn't answer her.

"What do we do now?" she said.

Champ was already in motion. He was putting on clothes and lacing up his work boots and walking out the front door. He made his way, by foot, across his land, down the slippery bluffs and tree-wrecked cliffs onto the flooded Napeague stretch and down farther to Main Street. Three and a half miles. Into the center of the ruined village.

There were fishing boats and cars piled on small houses. Fallen phone lines pulling down torn roofs. Poles and flooded cabinets and bed frames lining the street. Water was flowing from everywhere, making it hard to even walk down the streets -- where did it start? If they figured out where it started maybe they could stop it!

Champ pulled up his pant legs and made his way to the Manor, where people were setting up shelter, where they were trying to provide relief for themselves. And Champ set to work with the other men moving cars and carrying wet wood and boarding windows and drying blankets and cleaning up slabs of broken glass.

How could he explain it even to himself? He didn't recognize the feeling, had never known it before. But something broke free in Champ -- something like devotion or commitment -- to his home, to his suffering town, to everything around him. Maybe this is why, when he finished working, he didn't head home, but down to the docks, where he sat on canisters with all the fishermen, who now had nothing, and listened to them talk about how they had nothing, and stared at his own cut hands, and watched the moon rise, white and fierce, remarkably sure of itself.

Then he followed the star-line north and east, trying to locate it. First Montauk Point, then the cliff and the bluffs, then the house itself. His house. Huntington Hall. Standing tall, oblivious.

It was hard to find his way back there in the dark. So he followed the defeated shoreline, and eventually made his way up the wooden staircase, into the bluffs, toward his home, where everything was still mostly together. Where Anna was waiting with lit candles and tomato sandwiches, dark blankets spread out on the living room floor.

When he walked in, she was by the front door. She was wearing a long, purple sweater. She had her hair in a bun. She reached for him, and he buried into her neck, smelled her.

"How was town?" she asked, her hand still on his chest. "I tried to pick up news on the radio, but there was no reception. Is there a town left?"

He didn't answer her, but he was looking at her strangely. And he knew that she knew he was looking at her strangely. It was as simple as this: he could see her. For the first time in a year, there was nowhere else he was trying to be.

Which brought him to his own questions: Why did it take fear to move him? Why does it take chaos to make us understand exactly what we need to do?

He wanted to ask her his questions, but he wasn't sure she would have good answers, and then he would change his mind, and he didn't want to change his mind. He wanted to stay this sure.

Later, only thirty hours since he had last been lying there, they were lying on the floor together, facing each other. And in that strange way that we make decisions, the important decisions that ultimately make us, Champ decided that they were going to stay in Montauk full time. No more New York City.
This had become their home.

He turned and looked outside at the slowly recovering world. At the backlit colors in the sky, on his lawn. And he knew the truth. The main truth, at least. This house had saved them. This big, beautiful cottage, which stayed big and beautiful despite the destruction all around. Its stern banisters and wood ceilings and determined rafters. The house had saved him, and he wasn't

going to forget it.

He was going to build his life here, right here, in the name of love and honor and what ever else he was feeling, even if he couldn't name it for what it was: exhaustion.

He was, finally, exhausted.

He looked Anna right in the eye. "Things are going to be different," he said.

She nodded.

"I'm staying," he said, because they'd talked about the opposite, earlier, before -- his leaving her, and here.

"Why?" she said.

"I want to," he said.

She got quiet. "You're going to disappoint me," she said.

"Probably." He was trying to make a joke, but it didn't come out that way. He tried again. "I think it's going to turn out okay," he said.

"Starting when?" she asked. "Ending when?"

Then, as if it were an answer, he pulled her in close to him, without reluctance, without anything like fear. "This house," he said, "will see love. This house will see everything."

Copyright © Laura Dave, 2008 All rights reserved

Author Bio
Laura Dave is the author of the acclaimed novels The Divorce Party and London Is the Best City in America. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, Self, Redbook, ESPN the Magazine, and The New York Observer. Dave graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. In August, Cosmopolitan magazine named her as one of the eight "Fun and Fearless Phenoms" of 2008. She lives in California.
For more information, please visit lauradave.com