Love & Bullets: Chapter 1

The first chapter of the year’s most epic noir novel.

Bill awoke, as one sometimes does, dangling upside-down over a pit, ankles wrapped in heavy chains, sweat stinging his eyes, head throbbing like a dying tooth. He heard a dog bark in the night, and the muted roar of what he guessed was the Interstate, but the only light came from a bare yellow bulb bolted to a corrugated-metal shed far below.

Had he ever woken up in a more dangerous position? Bill racked his brain, recalling maybe five years ago when he’d opened his eyes to find both barrels of a 12-gauge shotgun staring back, the trembling weapon brandished by a cuckolded husband. (Only Bill’s incredible gift for gab had gotten him out of that situation with his guts lead-free.) Or the time he dozed off behind the wheel and his car plowed into a ditch, the crunch of metal waking him up long enough for the steering wheel to whack him unconscious. He still had the scar on his chin from that one.

Even so, his current situation was a gold-medal contender for Crappiest Ever. His arms, twisted hard behind his back and bound at the wrists, tingled from lack of blood. They had secured the chain around his ankles with a jumbo padlock, hard to pick even if he had the tools, or could bend upwards enough to reach it.