EXCERPT
Drop Dead Punk
(Coleridge Taylor Mystery Book 2)
(Coleridge Taylor Mystery Book 2)
by Rich
Zahradnik
Drop Dead Punk, the second book in Rich Zahradnik's Coleridge
Taylor Mystery series, is due for release on 15 August 2015, but is
currently available for pre-order. Also available: Last Words.
Drop Dead Punk is currently on tour with Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours. The tour stops here today for an excerpt. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
Coleridge Taylor is searching for his next scoop on the police beat. The Messenger-Telegram reporter has a lot to
choose from on the crime-ridden streets of New York City in 1975. One story
outside his beat is grabbing all the front page glory: New York teeters on the
brink of bankruptcy, and President Ford just told the city, as the Daily News so aptly puts it, "Drop
Dead." Taylor's situation is nearly as desperate. His home is a borrowed
dry-docked houseboat, his newspaper may also be on the way out, and his drunk
father keeps getting arrested.
A source sends Taylor down to Alphabet City, hang-out of the punks who
gravitate to the rock club CBGB. There he finds the bloody fallout from a
mugging. Two dead bodies: a punk named Johnny Mort and a cop named Robert Dodd.
Each looks too messed up to have killed the other. Taylor starts asking around.
The punk was a good kid, the peace-loving guardian angel of the neighborhood's
stray dogs. What led him to mug a woman at gunpoint? And why is Officer
Samantha Callahan being accused of leaving her partner to die, even though she
insists the police radio misled her? It's hard enough being a female in the
NYPD only five years after women were assigned to patrol. Now the department
wants to throw her to the wolves. That's not going to happen, not if Taylor can
help it. As he falls for Samantha - a beautiful, dedicated second-generation
cop - he realizes he's too close to his story. Officer Callahan is a target,
and Taylor's standing between her and some mighty big guns.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
The great headlines of other newspapers were always to be despised. Not
today.
The three ancient copy editors were on their feet, with Copydesk Chief
Milt Corman in the middle. Taylor stopped his walk through the newsroom to find
out why. If someone had made a mistake, it must be a colossal one to get those
fat asses out of their seats. He looked over Corman's shoulder. The copy chief
held the Daily News. It was that day's edition, Oct. 30, 1975. The
144-point front-page headline screamed up from the page.
FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD
Corman rattled the paper violently. "That's a
work of art. Tells the whole story in five words. He gave the city the finger
yesterday."
Jack Miller, one of the other old farts, moved back
to his seat. You could only expect him to stand for so long. He settled into
his chair for another day of slashing copy. "What do you expect from our unelected
president? Veepee to Nixon. Goddamned pardoned Robert E. Lee two months
ago."
"Didn't pardon him. Gave him back his
citizenship."
"Same thing. The barbarians are running the
country and now they're at our gates. We're the biggest, most important city on
the planet, and he's going to leave us hanging to get himself actually elected
to the job."
Corman flipped open the paper to the Ford speech
story across pages four and five. "Just listen to this bullshit. 'I am
prepared to veto any bill that has as its purpose a Federal bailout of New York
City to prevent a default.' He blathers on about using the uniform bankruptcy
laws. On and on and on. How do you police the streets and pick up garbage under
the uniform bankruptcy laws? A Federal judge trying to run the whole
damn city? Chaos."
"Ford's from Grand Rapids." Miller shook
his big round head. "He doesn't know from anything about this place. He's
talking to all the flatlanders — a nation that hates us."
"Will you listen to this at the end? 'If we go
on spending more than we have, providing more benefits and more services than
we can pay for, then a day of reckoning will come to Washington and the whole
country just as it has to New York City. When that day of reckoning comes, who
will bail out the United States of America?' He'll kill this city to keep his
job." Corman looked from the paper to Taylor. "You're the crime
reporter. Why don't you go after this? Write the story about the man who
murdered New York."
Taylor laughed. "You can't kill New
York."
"Rome fell."
"Rome wasn't New York. You know this is the
same political bullshit. Made up numbers and budget magic and threats from
Washington. New York will still be here long after. It's a great headline,
though. You guys should try writing 'em like that."
He left the horseshoe copy desk before they could
protest that wasn't the style of the New York Messenger-Telegram. He
knew all too well the three of them would kill to be headline writers at the Daily
News. That paper wasn't perpetually on the verge of failing like the MT.
Taylor gave New York's financial crisis about
thirty seconds more thought as he wound his way around the maze of the
newsroom. To him, the crisis was background noise. The city had become a dark
place since the Sixties decided to end early, round about 1968. Crime lurked in
the darkness, and he covered crime. He was too busy with New York's growth
industry to pay attention to the mayor's budget problems.
Heroin everywhere.
Corruption in the police department.
Buildings in the South Bronx torched by the block.
Those were the stories he went after, not failed
bond sales and blabbering politicos. Problem was the damn financial story had
pushed everything else off the MT's front page. Taylor hadn't had a
decent story out there in three weeks. He needed the quick hit of a page one
byline, needed it particularly bad this morning. The cops had called him at
home last night. Not about a story this time. They'd arrested his father,
reeling drunk in his underwear outside his apartment building. Taylor had been
up until three a.m. dealing with that mess. A good story — a good story that
actually got decent play — and a few beers after to celebrate. Now that would
pick him up. For a day or two at least.
Make the calls. Someone's got to have something.
Now that Ford's had his say, there must be room on page one.
He'd almost slipped past the city desk when Worth
called out his name. Taylor tried to pretend he hadn't heard and kept going,
but Worth raised his high-pitched voice and just about yelled. Taylor turned
and went back to the pristine maple-topped desk of City Editor Bradford J.
Worth, Jr.
"I've got an assignment for you."
That was always bad news. "Haven't made
my calls yet."
"Doesn't matter. Need you down at City
Hall."
Taylor brightened. Crime at City Hall. A murder?
That would be big.
"What's the story?" He sounded
enthusiastic. He shouldn't have.
"You're to go to the pressroom and wait for
announcements. Glockman called in sick."
"C'mon, Worth. Not babysitting. You've got
three other City Hall reporters."Who've owned the front page for weeks.
"They're all very busy pursuing the most
important story in this city's history. Your job is to sit at our desk in the
pressroom and wait for the mayor to issue a statement on Ford's speech. Or the
deputy mayor. Or a sanitation worker. Or a cleaning lady. Anybody says
anything, you phone it in. Rumor is they're working on using city pension
funds."
Worth's phone rang, and he picked up. "Yeah,
I'm sending Taylor down. No, he'll do for now." He set the receiver
lightly on its hook. "You've been down in the dumps since your friend
Laura left us. Was it her going or the fact she got a job at the New York
Times? Because you'll never get there, not with the way you dodge the
biggest stories."
"Hey, you and I are both still
here."
Worth frowned. Ambition rose off the man like an
odor as strong as the cologne he wore. He'd made city editor at thirty without
ever working as a reporter. Everyone knew he wanted more, and to him, more
meant the New York Times. He'd almost been as upset as Taylor when Laura
Wheeler announced she had the gig, and Worth wasn't the one in love with Laura.
He had been sure he was leaving next.
"Both here, but I'm the one doing his job. Now
get to City Hall."
"You have to be able to find someone
else." Exasperation through grit teeth. "Crime is big for this
paper."
"I decide what's big." He picked up the
phone, dialed an inside extension, and showed Taylor his back.
Sitting at City Hall waiting for a press release
was the perfect way to ruin Taylor's day, something the city editor liked doing
so much it had become a bad habit.
Taylor arrived at his own desk to find the other
police reporters gone, probably making their rounds.
The desk that had been Laura's reminded him of her
— of her dark brown eyes, her black hair, her beautiful face. She'd left an
aching emptiness inside him. They'd lasted a month after she'd moved to the New
York Times, and then she'd broken it off. She said she realized the only thing
they had in common was the MT. She hadn't been mean about it. And she
wasn't wrong. The paper had been their life during the day and their
conversation at night. He wondered if it also had to do with his age, 34, and
where he was — or wasn't — in life. He pushed his hand through his brown hair.
He'd even found himself considering his thin, angular face, something he'd
never done before. Was that it? Laura was beautiful. Taylor couldn't think of a
word for what he was.
He recently heard she'd started dating a guy on the
foreign staff, Derek something. He wondered how old Derek was. Late twenties
and optimistic, he guessed, unbowed by life. From a good family too, probably.
It was always going to end. So why did it hurt like this?
Truth was Taylor had been living with emptiness for
years before he met her. Over that time, he'd gotten used to it, let the job
fill his life. Only, having her and losing her made him understand how much he
disliked this lonely hole inside.
Really should leave right away.
The black phone in front of him was too much
temptation. Worth couldn't see Taylor from the city desk. He picked up the
receiver, pushed the clear plastic button for an outside line, and dialed the
number for Sidney Greene at 1 Police Plaza. Greene was perhaps the most
discontented, dyspeptic minor civil servant Taylor had ever encountered. He
leaked stories not to expose injustice or right a wrong, but to screw his
bosses. He simply loved watching them deal with the chaos he created by tipping
off Taylor.
"Anything up?"
"Oh, a real shit show. Officer down."
Taylor flipped open a notebook. Even in the midst
of this dark age of drugs, muggings, and homicides, a police officer murdered
was still a big story. A page one story. "Where and when?"
"Avenue B and East Eighth, just in from
Tompkins Square Park."
"What happened?"
"That's all I can do for you. They're doing
the headless chicken dance down here. You'll be ahead of the others if you get
to the scene quick. Not by much, though."
Taylor left the newsroom for the Lower Eastside.
He'd check for press releases at City Hall after visiting the scene of the
cop's murder. Worthless would have his head if he missed even one minor
announcement. Screw it. Taylor couldn't ignore a big story. A real story.
He hustled from the subway across the blocks to the
crime scene. The day offered near perfect New York fall weather, with the air
crisp and clear, tingling with energy. He unwrapped a stick of Teaberry gum and
stuck it in his mouth. The temperature had dropped from yesterday's high of 70
and would only make it into the mid-fifties today. Jacket weather — Taylor's
favorite. Not so hot he broke into a sweat on a good walk, and cool but not
cold — he wasn't fighting the brutal winds of winter that blasted down the
avenues. Easy weather put New Yorkers at ease. He could sense it as he walked.
More smiles. Sidewalk trees even showed off muted reds and gold. Taylor knew it
was nothing like the color upstate but it would do.
Taylor's press pass got him inside the cluster of
patrol cars guarding the ambulance. A couple of fire engines had also rolled to
the scene, which was a dilapidated brownstone with half its windows boarded and
a huge hole in the roof. The place was a true Lower Eastside wreck in a neighborhood
where hard luck meant you were doing pretty well for yourself.
Taylor climbed the cracked front steps. A
"Condemned Building" sign was nailed to the open door. The first
floor had few interior walls, only piles of rubble from when the roof had come
down, bringing chunks of the next three floors with it. The smell of must
mingled with the stink of garbage. Two uniformed and four plainclothes police
stood around a uniformed body sprawled across a pile of plaster chunks and wood
slats in the middle of what was once probably a living room. Off to the right
in the front corner was a second body, guarded by no one.
Seeing an opportunity, Taylor moved closer to the
body in the corner. The man, young and apparently startled by death, had taken
one shot to the chest and one in the leg. Blood soaked a black T-shirt printed
with big white letters Taylor couldn't read unless he adjusted the man's
leather jacket, which was also covered in blood. The man's heart must have
pumped his life's blood out in minutes. Faster maybe. His right hand was on his
stomach and clutched a green leather purse with a gold chain strap. Taylor knew
better than to touch anything. Instead, he leaned in and was met by the iron
and musk odor of blood. The top of the man's hand was tattooed with a spiral
pattern, an eye at its center. The fingers were inked with the bones of a
skeleton, like an X-ray of what lay beneath the dead man's skin.
The face was young — twenties, probably early
twenties — bony and pale, with a tattoo of a spider web that started below the
shirt line and crept up his neck to his chin and right ear. His hair was short
and spiky, in the punk style — as was his whole look. Many of them had recently
moved into this neighborhood to be near the punk rock club CBGB and the other
bars that were the heart of the punk rock scene. Many were squatters.
"Don't touch nothin'." A short chunky cop
with a gold badge in his belt walked over.
"I'd never do that, Detective." Taylor
rose from his crouch. "I'm very sorry about the loss of an officer."
"Yeah, thanks. And who the fuck are you?"
"Taylor with the Messenger-Telegram."
Taylor tapped the laminated pass.
"The Empty, huh? Read it sometimes. At
least you're not the fucking Times. I hate those pricks."
Five years since the New York Times interviewed
Serpico and broke the story of massive corruption in the NYPD, and the paper
was still on every cop's shit list. At the time, Taylor had gone crazy trying
to follow the Times' scoops. He'd admired what the Times had done
and hated being behind on such a big story. He didn't need to tell the
detective that, though. It was fine with him if the man liked the Messenger
Telegram. Taylor himself liked cops, the honest kind at least. When he'd
started at the paper, police reporters were almost cops themselves. Or
adjuncts, at least. They helped the police, publicizing successes, ignoring
failures, and drinking in the same places. Not anymore. Trust had been lost,
and it wasn't going to be won back anytime soon.
"What happened?"
"This jamoke holds up a woman for her purse
when she comes up from the subway at Astor Place. Officer Robert Dodd and his
partner give chase. The mugger runs across St. Mark's Place, through the park
and into this hole. They exchange shots. Both are killed. At least that's what we
can figure so far."
"Dodd's partner?"
"Couldn't keep up. Poor Dodd was stuck with a
meter maid. When little Samantha Callahan gets here, they're both dead. What's
the point of having broads patrolling if they can't back you up?" Lights
flashed across the detective's jowly face. He looked out the glassless window
at the car pulling up. "Assistant chief. I've got to make sense of this
for him."
Taylor jotted down the name on the detective's
plate, R. Trunk. He dug out a business card and handed it to the detective.
"Anything more comes up, call me. We take care of cops at the MT."
Laying it on thick never hurt. "Dodd's a hero. His story should be told
right."
"Yeah, we'll see. Your paper may not be awful.
Doesn't mean I trust you. Now get out of here. We got work to do."
Trunk turned as another plainclothesman walked up.
"Still haven't got the kid's gun."
"Well, find the fucking thing. Assistant
chief's going to be on us like stink on shit."
That was odd. If Dodd took out the mugger, the
man's gun would be right here somewhere. It couldn't have walked away on its
own. Taylor put that detail in his notebook. Anything odd always went in the
notebook. He walked a wide arc toward the door to get a quick view of the dead
officer. Dodd was a complete mess. He had to have been shot in the face. Taylor
couldn't make out the nose, the eyes, anything in the gore and blood. That
meant he had to have shot the mugger first.
Praise for the Book
"The New York City financial crisis of 1975 provides the dramatic
backdrop for Zahradnik's frenetic sequel to 2014's Last Words... Taylor, who lives for the big story, makes an
appealingly single-minded hero." ~ Publishers
Weekly
"Drop Dead Punk is quite
an engrossing book. Don’t start this book late at night as it will cost you
sleep as you try to finish it before you go to bed. I am looking forward to
more from Mr. Zahradnik and this wonderful series." ~ Victor Gentile
"A well-written, fast-paced suspense thriller set in the month in
1975 when New York City's financial concerns nearly teetered over the precipice
into bankruptcy ... " ~ Mallory Heart Reviews
"There were plenty of twists and turns and unexpected connections
(pay attention!) that are the cornerstones of a good crime mystery ... Add in
the author’s real-life experiences as a reporter for over 30 years that seep
through the pages, and you have a definite winner. I thoroughly enjoyed Drop Dead Punk and look forward to the
next book in this new series. Quill says: If you like a quick reading crime
mystery that will keep you guessing, check out Drop Dead Punk. You won’t be disappointed!" ~ Feathered Quill Book Reviews
"Drop
Dead Punk is a very well written, fast paced, entertaining mystery. Once I
picked this book up I didn’t want to put it down ... I carried it around with
me, and read every spare second I could find. This is one book you won't want
to miss if you are a mystery fan. Rich Zahradnik is an excellent story teller,
and I look forward to more from him in the future." ~ Tea and a Book
About the Author
Rich Zahradnik is the author of the Coleridge
Taylor Mystery series from Camel Press. Last Words is the first novel in the series and was published October 2014. Drop Dead Punk will come out August 15, 2015.
Zahradnik was a journalist for 30-plus years, working as a reporter and
editor in all major news media, including online, newspaper, broadcast,
magazine and wire services. He held editorial positions at CNN, Bloomberg News,
Fox Business Network, AOL and The
Hollywood Reporter, often writing news stories and analysis about the
journalism business, broadcasting, film production, publishing and the online
industry.
In January 2012, he was one of 20 writers selected for the inaugural
class of the Crime Fiction Academy, a first-of-its-kind program run by New
Yorks Center for Fiction.
He has been a media entrepreneur throughout his career. He was the
founding executive producer of CNNfn.com, a leading financial news website and
a Webby winner; managing editor of Netscape.com, and a partner in the
soccer-news website company Goal Networks. Zahradnik also co-founded the weekly
newspaper The Peekskill Herald at the
age of 25, leading it to seven state press association awards in its first
three years.
Zahradnik was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and received his B.A. in
journalism and political science from George Washington University. He lives
with his wife Sheri and son Patrick in Pelham, New York, where he writes
fiction and teaches elementary school kids how to publish the online and print
newspaper the Colonial Times.
Links
