Bad Signs Read online

  “A haunting thriller … an existential look at the nature of fate … gripping.” —KIRKUS

  R.J. ELLORY

  BAD SIGNS

  A THRILLER

  The powerful new novel by bestselling author R. J. Ellory is a story that asks whether it’s truly possible to be born under a bad sign.

  Orphaned by an act of senseless violence that took their mother from them, half-brothers Clarence Luckman and Elliott Danziger have been raised in state institutions, unaware of any world beyond its walls. But their lives take a sudden turn when they are seized as hostages by a convicted killer en route to death row.

  Earl Sheridan is a psychopath of the worst kind, and as he and his two hostages set off on a frenetic path through California down to Texas, Clarence and Elliot must come to terms with the ever-growing tide of violence in their wake. It’s a path that will force them to make a choice about their lives, and their relationship to each other—and it will change their lives forever.

  Set in the 1960s, Bad Signs is a tale of the darkness within all of us, the inherent hope for salvation, and the ultimate consequences of evil. Praised by Alan Furst as a “uniquely gifted, passionate, and powerful writer,” R.J. Ellory once again delivers a thriller as beautiful as it is riveting, returning to the haunting ground of his international bestseller A Quiet Belief in Angels.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Ghostheart

  A Quiet Vendetta

  A Quiet Belief in Angels

  A Simple Act of Violence

  The Anniversary Man

  City of Lies

  Saints of New York

  A Dark and Broken Heart

  Three Days in Chicagoland

  Candlemoth

  Copyright

  First published in hardcover in the United States in 2016 by

  The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

  141 Wooster Street

  New York, NY 10012

  www.overlookpress.com

  For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected],

  or write us at the address above.

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Orion, an Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2011 by Roger Jon Ellory

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  ISBN: 978-1-4683-1332-1

  Contents

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Day One

  Chapter Two

  Day Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Day Three

  Chapter Six

  Day Four

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Day Five

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Day Six

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day Seven

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Day Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Day Nine

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is the ninth book I have released, and—as is always the case—there are too many people to mention. Those that I acknowledge are forever telling me they did nothing deserving of thanks, which—as we all know—is entirely untrue. So I express my heartfelt gratitude to my editor, Jon, also Jade Chandler, Susan Lamb, Juliet Ewers, Sophie Mitchell, Angela McMahon, Anthony Keates, Krystyna Kujawinska, Hannah Whitaker and all the Orion crew; to my agent Euan, to Charlie at AM Heath, Dominic and his team at WF Howes, to Amanda Ross and Gareth Jones at Cactus, to Judy Bobalik, to Jon and Ruth Jordan, to Ali Karim, Mike Stotter, to all those at Bouchercon, Thrillerfest and Harrogate. You know who you are, and you know what you did.

  From the host of international publishers and festival organizers I have worked with, I must mention a few people specifically: Peter, Jack and Emer, Stephanie, and all the wonderful crew at Overlook; Francois, Leonore, Marie M., Arnaud, Xavier and Marie L. at Sonatine-Editions; Cécile, Sylvie and Carine at Livre de Poche, France; Sophie and Fabienne at SoFab; Fabrice Pointeau, Clément Baude, Christel Paris, Richard Contin, Catherine Dô-duc, Caroline Vallat, Marie-France Remond, Robert Boulerice, Linda Raymond and all the bookstore owners who made the French and Canadian tours so memorable. I must also thank Kevin and Brendan in Australia, Gemma in New Zealand, Anik Lapointe and Laura Santaflorentina in Barcelona, and Seba Pezzani in Piacenza for taking care of everything so incredibly well.

  To my wife and son, my appreciation for everything, and to Guy and Angela for all their help and encouragement.

  Most of all I thank you—dear reader—for your continued friendship and support.

  This is for you.

  Born under a bad sign,

  I been down since I began to crawl.

  If it wasn’t for bad luck,

  I wouldn’t have no luck at all.

  —“Born Under a Bad Sign”

  Booker T. Jones/William Bell

  CHAPTER ONE

  By the time she reached her mid-twenties Carole Kempner had seen enough of men to be nothing other than disappointed. She bore two sons from
two forlorn and wretched fathers, and it seemed that in all quarters and aspects those fathers were found sorely wanting. One was dumb and thoughtless, the other just downright crazy.

  Elliott, the older of her two children, was born on January 2, 1946. Elliott’s father, Kyle Danziger, was a transient oilfield worker, and he swept through Carole’s life like a bad squall. Kyle was gone before Carole made her first trimester, perhaps because he could not envision himself burdened beneath the responsibility of fatherhood, perhaps for other reasons. Carole, believing that such a gesture might precipitate Kyle’s eventual return, gave her son his father’s name. And so he was Elliott Danziger, though from the first moments of speech he referred to himself as “Digger.”

  How Clarence, the second and younger of her sons, came to be was a thing all its own. His conception—merely eight months after Carole’s delivery of Elliott—occurred in a moment of drunken awkwardness that was regretted immediately. That was indeed a low point, but things didn’t improve much from then on. Suffice to say that the boys’ childhood was grounded hard in violence and madness.

  Just to begin with, Clarence’s father—Jimmy Luckman—killed Carole stone-dead on a cool winter’s morning while both Clarence and Elliott looked on.

  Clarence was five by this time, Elliott a year and five months older. Jimmy was busy getting drunk. Carole, however, had set her mind to leaving once and for all. Perhaps she was simply exhausted with the disappointment. Or maybe she believed such an action would serve the boys well in the longer run of things. Either which way, Jimmy Luckman didn’t seem to agree with her plan.

  So Jimmy—enraged at Carole’s calumny and deceit, the way she seemed to have thought this thing through with no regard for his needs and wants—took a baseball bat and broke some crockery. He broke a window. He spiderwebbed the TV screen. Then he broke Carole’s darn fool neck.

  She went down like a stone. She was expressionless in the moment of impact, expressionless after the event. She could have been staring at a discount sign in a convenience store.

  Jimmy Luckman appeared uncertain for some time. Later Clarence figured him to be calculating the odds. If Jimmy buried Carole, or perhaps chopped her up and drove out to Searchlight or Cottonwood Cove to hurl her piece by piece into a bottomless ravine, perhaps if he sent her headfirst down a dry well, or took her out northwest a hundred miles and left her in the desert for the coyotes … If he did this and told the world she’d finally left him for her mother’s place in Anaheim and was likely never to return, then what were the odds? Would anyone ever discover the truth?

  Eventually Jimmy Luckman told Clarence to sit quiet. Wait here until she wakes up, he said. I’ll be back soon, kiddo.

  Jimmy did not speak to Elliott. Elliott was neither his son nor his responsibility, and Elliott—slightly slower than Clarence, heavier, almost denser in some way—had always seemed to Jimmy as a distraction and a deadweight.

  Jimmy—despite what he told Clarence—didn’t come back soon.

  He didn’t come back at all.

  Carole didn’t wake up neither.

  Three and a half hours later Jimmy Luckman, never a man to take after his name, was shot in the throat by an off-duty cop in a liquor store in North Las Vegas. He was trying to escape with nineteen dollars and sixty-two cents. Even today, allowing for inflation, it wasn’t a great deal worth dying for.

  Clarence waited patiently for the father that would never return. Elliott waited with him. They waited in the bedroom—one of four rooms in their first-floor apartment. The front door opened into the kitchen, the kitchen gave onto the sitting room, the bedroom with a narrow en-suite came last.

  Frightened to leave their mother in case she woke, Clarence and Elliott took turns to venture only so far as the bathroom for water. They ate nothing however.

  Their view to the street from the bedroom window was obscured by the walkway and heavy railings that circumvented the internal square of the apartment block. Above the railing and beneath the walkway above they could see a strip of sky. As it grew dark the stars appeared. Little Clarence talked to them. He asked them to relay a message to God. Make her wake up, he said.

  Elliott merely watched his younger brother.

  How Carole slept with her eyes wide-open Clarence did not understand. Whatever the reason, it did not matter. He just wanted her to wake up.

  It was the most part of two days before anyone visited.

  So it was that on the 5th of November Evelyn Westerbrook came by. She had always been Carole Kempner’s closest friend. She came to tell Jimmy and Carole that Eisenhower had won the election and they should celebrate. She carried with her a copy of a newspaper, the headline of which read, “Ike to The White House!” Jimmy had left the front door unlocked. Evelyn let herself in. She called out after them. “Carole? Carole?” And then—“Jimmy? Jimmy … are you guys in?”

  She came on through to the bedroom. She found both Elliott and Clarence asleep, Clarence’s head against his mother’s shoulder, Elliott resting against her tummy, his hand holding hers.

  Evelyn woke the boys up. She called the police. What happened after that Clarence didn’t really remember, except that he never saw his mother again.

  It was a long time before he understood that she never did wake up.

  Evelyn Westerbrook gave the police Jimmy Luckman’s name. It wasn’t long before they figured out who he was and where he’d died. Despite the fact that Carole had married neither Kyle Danziger nor Jimmy Luckman, the authorities afforded each boy their respective father’s names. Elliott would forever be Digger Danziger, and Clarence would be a Luckman. Maybe that was the start of his trouble, for Clarence Luckman was born under a bad star—that was the small and unavoidable truth—and people born under a bad star carry a bad sign their whole lives. Apparently this is so. And as far as people in general are concerned, there’s bad ones and real bad ones. The second lot are pretty much broke beyond mending. Might as well shoot them where they stand. And shoot them the first time you see them. Anything else is just going to be a heavy sack of heartache for all concerned. Clarence was possibly in the first category, Elliott too, but those who would later most influence their lives were definitely in the second.

  Clarence and Elliott, looking from the start like the longer they lived the worse it was going to get, were both shipped off to a boys’ school outside of Barstow, California. It was a vast complex of buildings surrounded by a wall high enough to leave much of the day in shadow. The rooms smelled of dirty clothes and death, like a hospice for the destitute. In such a place life could be nothing but lonely and awkward. The kids ranged from seven to nineteen. The moment they hit their nineteenth they were released or moved on up to the big house. These were kids who had come up hard and bitter. Spent their childhood eating from hot dog stands and sleeping in bus depot restrooms if they were lucky. The attitude engendered by such experience was one of tight-wound nervousness. There was no way else to survive. Everything you didn’t grab was grabbed by someone else. Sometimes people would kick and grab even when you’d got there first. Start out like that and it wasn’t long before you figured all of life was colored that way. It was here that Elliott shined his light. The denseness, the slowness, became a methodical and pragmatic ability to deal with things that perhaps might have overshadowed Clarence. Elliott was the older boy, the big brother, and he wore his hat with pride and diligence. He was not afraid of people it seemed, neither kids nor grown-ups, and he was always there behind Clarence, always ready to step in and defend his younger brother if springs got wound too tight and fists were set to fly. He seemed to know when he was wanted, and when he was not. He had a temper for sure, much like his father, the transient oil worker, yet other times Clarence would watch Digger as Digger seemed to drift off in his mind to someplace where there was no one else but himself. He wondered if he was looking for long-lost Kyle, just as Clarence often thought of his own father, the ironically named Jimmy Luckman, who—it seemed—had neither been really
lucky, nor really a man.

  “Digger?” Clarence would say. “Digger?” And it would require three or four urgent repetitions before Digger snapped out of it, smiled, and said, “What’s up, little man?”

  At Barstow they taught Elliott Danziger and Clarence Luckman to read and write. Clarence took to it quickly, Elliott a little more slowly. They were different boys in so many ways, though often mistaken one for the other. It was their eyes. They both had their mother’s eyes. As they grew older they became less physically similar, but their eyes stayed the same. See Clarence, see Elliott, you saw Carole. How that physical attribute would contribute to an endless chain of troubles was both unknown and unpredictable. Safe it was to say that had they taken after their respective fathers—at least in looks—then life would have been a great deal simpler.

  Life progressed in some vague fashion until Clarence was thirteen, and then he kicked one of the kitchen staff real hard in the pants. The man that Clarence kicked had been trying stuff that was about as wholesome as a roadkill sandwich. Elliott was there too, and he got down and gave that guy a wallop or two before the guards came to break it up. They took off, the pair of them, but the police caught up with Elliott and Clarence no more than three miles away. They beat them some, and then sent them to the juvenile hall in Hesperia. Here a different man tried the same sort of thing on Clarence, but had sense enough to tie the boy to a bed before he started. By the time Clarence got to tell Elliott what had happened, well, it was too late for Elliott to do anything about it.

  And so it went on, Elliott Danziger and Clarence Luckman weathering their lot like stoics, and all the while they had in their minds the thought that there had to be something better than this someways up the road. Where that road started, and where it ended up, they didn’t know. Such things were just details, and details came long after the main body of a plan. That’s what Clarence set his mind to working on—a plan—and whether he was sluicing out piss buckets or peeling potatoes or spit-shining shoes that wouldn’t stay clean for an hour, his mind was always working. Got close enough and you could hear the wheels turning, some kind of intricacy in there like a Frenchman’s clock. The cogs turned, the ideas evolved, and maybe everything would have come right had he kept his ideas to himself.