by Jason Starr
COLD CALLER
If Jim Thompson had gotten an MBA, he might have written Cold Caller, a ravingly readable story of a downwardly mobile yuppie who’ll just kill to get ahead. Once a rising VP at a topflight ad agency, Bill Moss now works as a ‘cold caller’ at a telemarketing firm in the Times Square area. He’s got a bad case of the urban blues, and when a pink slip rather than promotion comes through, Bill snaps... Now he’s got a dead supervisor on his hands and problems no career counsellor can help him with.
Jason Starr
Jason Starr is the international bestselling author of many crime novels and thrillers and his books have been published in over a dozen languages. He has co-written several novels with Ken Bruen for Hard Case Crime and his work which appears in comics for Marvel, D.C, Vertigo, and Boom! Studios has featured Wolverine, The Punisher, Batman, Doc Savage, The Avenger, Ant Man and The Sandman. Many of his books are in development for film and TV. Starr’s bestselling crime novels include Cold Caller, Nothing Personal, Fake ID, Hard Feelings, Tough Luck, which won the 2004 Barry Award, and Twisted City, which won the 2005 Anthony Award. He was born in Brooklyn and lives in Manhattan. For more from Jason Starr visit jasonstarr.com
Praise for Jason Starr
Cold Caller
‘Well crafted and very scary’ – Times
‘Cool, deadpan, a rollercoaster ride to hell’ – Guardian
‘Tough, composed and about as noir as you can go. Starr is a worthy successor to Charles Willeford’ – Literary Review
‘Tough, dark, elegant, pure 90s noir’ – Edward Bunker
‘At the cutting edge of the revival of classic American noir fiction’ – Daily Telegraph
Nothing Personal
‘Original modern noir tale reminiscent of Jim Thompson or David Goodis’ – Irish Times
‘Diabolically well-plotted noir thriller...Gentle readers should take heed’ – Literary Review
‘Wholly satisfying. Nothing Personal is a fast, well-paced and well-plotted domestic crime thriller’ – Barcelona Review
‘The King of Noir is back. It doesn’t get any darker or funnier than this...The best novel of the year’ – Bookends
Fake ID
‘Bang up-to-date, but reminiscent of David Goodis and Jim Thompson, Fake ID is a powerful novel of the American Dream turning into the American Nightmare that marks Starr out as a writer to follow’ – Time Out
Hard Feelings
‘a tale that reads like James M Cain modernised by Bret Easton Ellis. It will make you squirm’– Guardian Unlimited
‘Starr has plumbed the shallows of his brittle characters and their selfish lives, depicting them in a hard-edged style that is clean, cold and extremely chilling’ – New York Times
‘Jason Starr is the first writer of his generation to convincingly update the modern crime novel by giving it provocative new spins and Hard Feelings is his most accomplished thriller yet. It might be new-school noir but like the classics of the genre it has a brutal escalation of tension, pungent dialogue, a hardboiled simplicity and grace, and a whopper of an ending. It’s also darkly funny and a pure pleasure to read. As you race through it you realize that Jim Thompson has just moved to Manhattan’ – Bret Easton Ellis
‘Convincing and entertaining… Hard Feelings dances a mesmerizing tango between reality and its menacing shadow’ – Time Out New York
‘a gripping novel of paranoia and obsession that’s damn near impossible to put down’ – Time Out
‘a powerfully written, thoroughly involving novel of paranoia, obsession and revenge’ – Crime Time
‘one of the best things about a Jason Starr novel is the ending: it never quite goes the way you think, and this novel is no exception’ – Barcelona Review
Tough Luck
‘a hard-knuckled writer’ – New York Times Book Review
‘From the first page of this noir thriller, you know things are only going to get worse, but you can’t stop reading’ – Newsweek
‘Tough Luck, an enthralling character study, is perfect car-crash literature; spiritual sustenance for the “inner rubber-neck” in all of us’ – New Mystery Reader Magazine
‘Starr delivers a wild ride through a mob-saturated Italian-American community in 1980s New York, keeping the surprises coming up to the last sentence’ – Publishers Weekly
‘a noir world that is not only bleak, but painfully funny’ – Mystery Ink
Twisted City
‘Jason Starr is terrific and Twisted City is one of his best. Starr knows what James M. Cain knew: that a whole world of evil lies right on the edge of the everyday world and you can cross the border in a city minute. His stuff is tough and real and brilliant’ – Andrew Klavan
‘Jason Starr is one of the new voices of noir fiction, a writer capable of taking noir from what it has always been toward whatever it can become. He’s got his own slant, his own slashing style, and the moral honesty true noir requires. I could go on, but just look at the proof, Twisted City’ – Daniel Woodrell
‘Demonic, demented and truly ferocious and a flat out joy to read. In other words, a total feast. Like it? ... I plain worshipped it’ – Ken Bruen
‘Streamlined as a model’s hips, dark as the inside of a dog’s gut, Twisted City is a hip, white collar update on the James Cain, Jim Thompson style novel with a seasoning all its own. Jason Starr is a unique talent, and Twisted City is one unique book’ – Joe R. Lansdale
Also by Jason Starr
Cold Caller
Nothing Personal
Fake ID
Hard Feelings
Tough Luck
Twisted City
dedication
For Sandy and Chynna
1
On most days, I wouldn’t have said anything. Like the typical New Yorker, I’d have given her a couple of dirty looks, maybe grunted a little, and minded my own business. But that morning was different. Maybe things were already building up in my life, pushing me to the brink. Or maybe I was just having a bad day. I’d had a fight with my girlfriend the night before and she’d left for work that morning without saying goodbye.
“Excuse me,” I said irritably. “Excuse me.”
She didn’t answer. I thought she didn’t hear me so I said it again, a little louder, then I noticed she was wearing a Walkman. I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around as if I’d pinched her.
“There’s plenty of room over there,” I said, motioning toward the middle of the subway car.
“Get your hands off me!” she screamed. Because of the Walkman, her voice was especially loud.
“I was just asking you to –”
A thick, heavy hand arrived on my shoulder.
“Leave the lady alone, will ya?”
He was a young, muscular guy, wearing the plain gray uniform that plumbers and electricians wear.
“I was just asking her if she could move inside a little,” I said.
“You were grabbing her,” the guy said. “I saw you grabbing her.”
“I didn’t grab her,” I said. “I was just trying to get her attention.”
“You were grabbing her,” he insisted. “I saw you. You’ve been kicking and grabbing people ever since you got on this train. You stepped on my foot before and you didn’t even say excuse me.”
“Look, what’s your problem?”
I don’t remember what else he said to me, or what I said back to him, or who pushed who first. All I know is that within a few seconds I was wrestling with a man twice my size in the middle of a crowded subway car. He was so much bigger than me, I don’t know if you can even call it a fight. He got me in a headlock and punched me in the face a couple of times and then squeezed my head and neck. People on the train were screaming – some begging
for us to stop, others cheering us on. The doors opened and somehow our wrestling match moved onto the Seventy-seventh Street platform. That’s when the guy got his best shot in, connecting with a solid upper-cut above my left eye. Finally, a Transit cop came over and separated us. People had formed a circle, staring at me. I had a flashback to junior high school in Bainbridge Island, Washington, when Johnny McGuiness beat the hell out of me and a crowd of kids gathered around laughing. These people weren’t laughing but I felt just as embarrassed as I’d felt eighteen years ago.
The cop asked us who had started the fight. The man said I did, which was a lie, and I said so. But when the cop asked if I wanted to press charges I said no.
“I just want to get to work,” I said.
“It’s up to you,” the cop said. As I was walking away, he added, “I’ll get you to a hospital if you want me to. That cut looks pretty bad.”
I kept walking.
With some crumpled up old napkin I found stuffed inside my back pocket, I put pressure on the wound. I got on the next train to Grand Central.
*
I was working at a company called American Commun-ications Association. I made appointments for sales representatives to sell discount long-distance phone services to businesses. It was a part-time job, just four hours a day, but I worked full-time shifts three days a week. After I’d lost my real job as V.P. of Marketing at Smythe & O’Greeley, a big New York ad agency, I’d only intended to work at A.C.A. temporarily, to make some extra cash after my unemployment benefits ran out. But two years had gone by and I was still at A.C.A., no closer to finding another job in advertising. Of course I’d interviewed at plenty of agencies, but the story was always the same – I was either over-qualified, or they said I’d been out of work too long. I was beginning to think that I’d be a telemarketer for the rest of my life.
The A.C.A. office was on Forty-third Street, near Eighth Avenue. When I got off the elevator on the seventh floor, Eileen, the receptionist, was chewing gum and polishing her nails. She’d never said a word to me or to any of the other telemarketers before, but today she dropped the nail polish when she saw me.
“My God, what happened to you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said casually. “A little accident, that’s all.”
As I headed along the corridor, I realized the cut might be worse than I thought. I felt the napkin and discovered blood seeping through.
I went into the call center, where the telemarketers worked. The large square-shaped room had four rows of three-foot-wide cubicles. Surrounding the room were the managers’ offices with windows facing the telemarketing floor. Mike Peterson, the Floor Supervisor, came over to me while I was punching in at the time clock.
“Bill, there you are. I didn’t think you were going to make it in today.”
“Well, here I am,” I said.
“Why didn’t you call? Did you oversleep? I mean you know how it is here in the summer. We have a full staff and we need to –”
I turned around. Mike saw the cut on my face. He looked like he was going to vomit.
“Jesus Christ, you’re bleeding!”
“Really?” I said. “I was wondering what all that red stuff coming out of my head was.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I had a rough ride in on the subway.”
“The subway?”
“What difference does it make? I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“You should really get stitches for that or something.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I just have to wash it out.”
In the bathroom, I finally got the bleeding to stop. I put on a couple of Band-Aids I’d found in the cabinet under the sink, then went back out to my cubicle and prepared to work.
I hated my job, but I was good at it. I averaged two or three appointments a day, which was better than most people in the office. I earned sixteen dollars an hour, while most people were making ten or eleven. I was the second-oldest telemarketer, in seniority and age. Only Harry Pearlman, who was fifty-two years old, had been with the company longer than me. I think I was better on the phone than Harry though. I was very confident and relaxed and people always seemed to trust me. Even when people didn’t really need our service I could sweet talk them into an appointment. Like this one time, a guy hung up on me while I was in the middle of my pitch. I called him right back and said, “I’m sorry, sir, we must have been disconnected,” and I wound up getting him.
I got off to a hot start on the phone, making two appointments in the first fifteen minutes. During the eleven o’clock break, I went to the concession machines in the back and bought a can of Pepsi. Greg Brown was there talking to a girl who’d just started at the company. Later, I found out her name was Marie Stipaldi.
“Man, you know they’re ripping us off,” Greg was saying. “Just because the salesman makes the sale, you think he’s giving us credit for making an appointment? I know for a fact them motherfuckers ripped me off for three appointments. That’s fifteen dollars, man. That shit adds up after a while.”
“I don’t care about commissions,” Marie said. “I’m just working here for the ten dollars an hour.”
“Well, I care,” Greg said. “And if they keep fucking with my shit I’m gonna go in there and do something about it.”
“What are you gonna do?” I said. “Sue them?”
“Fuck the lawyers, man,” Greg said. “I’ll go into Ed’s office and tell him the way it is.”
“A lot of good that’ll do,” I said. “You know how easy they can replace one of us?”
“They can’t replace me, man. I’ve been making ten appointments a week. I’m the king of A.C.A. I’m the most important employee at this company.”
“Believe me, nobody’s important at this company,” I said. “I’ve been here a long time, too long, and I never saw one guy go into that office and get what he wanted.”
“He’s right,” Marie said to Greg. “You can’t treat this job like it’s serious. You have to expect to get ripped off.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Greg said. “A white man can go in and get anything he wants, but a black man’s gotta take what he can get. I bet one of you guys could go up to the biggest company in America, IBM or Texon or Exico or whatever the fuck it’s called, and you could get whatever job you wanted. But if I walked in there they’d give me a mop and tell me to start cleaning the toilets. And I know for a fact that if I was white, I’d be getting my commission money here.”
“I disagree,” I said. “Look at me. They owe me two hundred dollars in back commission.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Greg said. “The people who run this place are a bunch of racist motherfuckers. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be too upset if I showed up here for work one day and the whole place burned down – with all the people in it.”
“That’s terrible,” Marie said.
“I’m not talking about you,” Greg said. “Just them managers, you know. I know if they was sittin’ in a fire, beggin’ for me to help, I’d just let their asses burn.”
Greg started to laugh. I started laughing too, partly because I liked Greg and partly because I agreed it would be nice to watch Mike and Ed burn. As we were laughing, Mike poked his head into the room.
“Break’s over, guys. Let’s get back on those phones now.”
“I been meaning to ask you,” Greg said to me as we were walking back to our desks. “Who fucked you up like that?”
“Fucked me up?” I said like I was confused. “Oh, you mean that,” I said touching my forehead. “It was just an accident.”
“Yeah, right,” Greg said laughing. “You got your ass kicked. Who was it? Did you fuck him up bad?”
“I got a few whacks in,” I lied.
“But he looks like he got a few more whacks in,” Greg said laughing.
As I was about to sit down at my cubicle, Mike came over and said he wanted to talk to me in his office.
“I’ll tell you in private.”
I followed him, wondering what he could possibly want to talk to me about. Had he been listening near the concession machines and heard the things Greg had said? If so, I decided I’d stand up for Greg and deny everything.
Mike closed the door and told me to sit down. He went around to his desk and brought up a file on his computer screen. Mike was thin and wore a white shirt with a black tie and black suspenders every day. He always looked nervous and insecure and I often wondered if he was gay. Not that it would’ve bothered me if he was, but I think it bothered Mike that I wondered about it. He always treated me like I somehow disapproved of him.
“I really hate to do this,” he said, not making eye contact with me. “But I’m afraid I have no choice.”
“You’re firing me?”
“Of course not,” he said. “It’s nothing that drastic. I know you’re one of the best people here, which is what makes this so hard. It’s just that...well, you know we have certain rules around here. They’re not my rules, of course. They’re Ed’s rules and it’s just my job to enforce them. You know you were late this morning.”
“I thought we discussed that already.”
“I just didn’t want to say anything until I checked my records and made sure, but you realize this is the third time you’ve been late this month.”
“I know that,” I said. “But as you can see something happened this morning that was beyond my control.”
Mike was nodding his head.
“I’m sorry about that, I really am, but we have a rule, and that’s why we have the rule, so we don’t punish you for your first infraction. On July first you were eight minutes late to work, on the eleventh you were fifteen minutes late, and today you were late an hour and ten minutes.”
“I don’t believe this,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it,” Mike said. “After your first infraction, I gave you a verbal warning, then I gave you a written warning, and now I have to send you home without pay.”
