The Man Who Came Uptown

by George Pelecanos

  He paid for the book, an Overland Press trade edition, and found a seat on a bench. He opened the novel and read the first paragraph.

  People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

  Michael closed the book and rubbed his thumb across its cover.

  The clouds broke and drops began to fall. He was not near shelter, so he decided it was best to head home. Michael slid the book into his shirt, adjusted the watch cap that was on his head, and went south on foot. He was already thinking about the book, its marriage of story and voice. It had captured him immediately. It had taken him somewhere else.

  To anyone watching, he was one of many out on the street, going along, stepping quick against the weather. They couldn’t know his inner life, or his history, or that he was a Washingtonian, born and bred, with a steady job, family and friends. A lover of books. A man who knew who he was and who he hoped to be.

  Just another man who came uptown.

  Walking in the rain.

  Also by George Pelecanos

  The Martini Shot

  The Double

  The Cut

  What It Was

  The Way Home

  The Turnaround

  The Night Gardener

  Drama City

  Hard Revolution

  Soul Circus

  Hell to Pay

  Right as Rain

  Shame the Devil

  The Sweet Forever

  King Suckerman

  The Big Blowdown

  Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go

  Shoedog

  Nick’s Trip

  A Firing Offense

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Danielle Zoller, Dave Constantine, Linnea Hegarty, Margaret Goodbody, Frazier O’Leary, Joe Aronstamn, Jon Norris, Betsy Willeford, Gerard Young, Paul Ruppert, Rick Kain, Mark Billingham, and the many inmates of the D.C. Jail who have let me into their world over the years. I would also like to thank Reagan Arthur, Katharine Myers, Betsy Uhrig, and Sabrina Callahan of Little, Brown; Josh Kendall of Mulholland Books; Emad Akhtar of Orion in the UK; Robert Pépin of Calmann-Lévy in France; and Sloan Harris.

  The following organizations do good work and often change lives: the Free Minds Book Club, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Writers in Schools program, the D.C. Public Library Foundation, the Innocence Project, and Open City Advocates. Check them out online if you’d like to get involved.

  As always, a shout-out to the readers. I appreciate you.

  About the Author

  George Pelecanos is the bestselling author of twenty novels set in and around Washington, D.C. He is also an independent film producer, and a producer and Emmy-nominated writer on the HBO series The Wire, Treme, and The Deuce. He lives in Maryland.

  Mulholland Books

  You won’t be able to put down these Mulholland books.

  THE MAN WHO CAME UPTOWN by George Pelecanos

  WRECKED by Joe Ide

  THE SHADOWS WE HIDE by Allen Eskens

  FROM RUSSIA WITH BLOOD by Heidi Blake

  LAST NIGHT by Karen Ellis

  GOLDEN STATE by Ben Winters

  THE STRANGER INSIDE by Laura Benedict

  TRIGGER by David Swinson

  Visit mulhollandbooks.com for your daily suspense fix.