Items related to Still Shot
Entertainment critic and film noir author Carroll Quint gets a panicky call from his mother, former movie starlet Karen Kass. Vicky Vandamn, a roommate of Karen’s some thirty years ago when they worked at Talbot Studios, disappeared from Hollywood under mysterious circumstances. Now she’s been found dead on her houseboat in nearby Sausalito, a reported suicide victim. Quint’s mother is certain that Vicky, who was involved with a rough Hollywood crowd, was murdered. “Act like one of those private eyes in your book, dear. And find out who killed her.”
Quint tries to do just that, and soon finds himself tangled up with lazy cops, a paranoid PI, a billionaire former movie-studio head, and a peeping tom—who kept a very close eye on Vandamn. When all appears to be lost, Quint’s mother comes up with a revealing old still photo and a clue involving Fred Astaire’s hands that sets Quint on a collision course with the murderer.
This second in the series delivers another dynamic story and an entertaining coterie of characters.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Jerry Kennealy has worked as a fireman, policeman, and private investigator. He is the author of the Nick Polo mystery series. He has also written The Vatican Connection and Chasing the Devil under the pen name James Brant. He lives in San Bruno, California.
Chapter 1
She wants to see you, Carroll, ten o’clock this morning.”
The voice on the phone belonged to Darlene, the receptionist at my place of employment, the San Francisco Bulletin. “She” was Katherine “the Great” Parkham, the Bulletin’s editor in chief. Parkham had stormed in less than a year ago from the New York City–based conglomerate that owned the paper, with an advertised agenda of either selling or burying the Bulletin. So far, neither had happened, but we were all on the edge of our ergonomic swivel chairs, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Did the Great say what it was all about, Darlene?” I asked, glancing at the nightstand clock. It was 8:45 a.m.
“No. But she didn’t sound to be in the best of moods. I wouldn’t be late if I were you, Carroll.”
I said “Thanks,” rolled out of bed, and jumped into the shower. I work in the paper’s entertainment section and have the enviable task of reviewing movies and plays. A job to die for, really. Unfortunately, with the low salary I’m being paid, that’s a real possibility. Still, it is a job I love dearly and would hate to lose.
I shaved and dressed in record time and was in the Bulletin’s parking lot by 9:45. One of the few perks is a designated parking spot; however, this morning someone had angled their shiny black Jaguar sedan into two spots, leaving no room for even a tiny vehicle like my Mini Cooper. I had to park in the garage across the street, which charged twelve bucks for four hours.
I walked back to the Jaguar and took a business card from my wallet. I was thinking of writing something nasty, but for all I knew, the car belonged to one of Katherine Parkham’s friends, so I just printed a modified line of Bogart’s from Casablanca on the back of the card: “Of all the spots in all the towns in all the world, why did you have to take mine?”
I slipped the card under the Jag’s windshield wiper. When I finally made it to my cubicle, a FedEx deliveryman showed up. He was new to me: stick-thin, with bad posture and a worse attitude.
“I got a package for Carroll Quint,” he said in a hostile voice.
“Thanks,” I said, reaching out for a box the size of an unabridged dictionary.
He jerked it back. “No. Ms. Quint has to sign for it.”
“I’m Carroll Quint,” I told him, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. This was a situation that happened to me at least once a week, and all because my mother, whom I love dearly despite the fact that she decided to name her one and only child Carroll simply because it means “champion” in Gaelic. What it meant to me was a childhood filled with taunts and teases. Since I’d grown up in the rough-and-tumble Mission District of the city, it also meant a lot of fistfights with local toughs who thought that a skinny little guy who wore glasses and had a girl’s name was an easy target.
It hadn’t been quite as bad as the Johnny Cash classic song “A Boy Named Sue,” but it came close.
“Jeeez,” the FedEx guy said, handing me the box. “I read your reviews, and I always thought you were a broad.”
I scribbled my name on his electronic order pad and opened the package. It was a press release for a new animated movie about a penguin that somehow ends up in New York City on Christmas day. There was a DVD, a slick twenty-page brochure, three figurines of cute little penguins, a small box of Godiva chocolates, and an invitation to the press-only premiere, which included a premovie supper with champagne and caviar—clever little bribes to woo a favorable review. Since I bribed easily, I marked the date on my calendar with a big red X.
Max Maslin, the editor of the entertainment section, leaned into my cubicle and gave me a wide smile and a two-thumbs-up gesture. Max was a short, pudgy guy with a rubicund nose of the type they like to show on Santa Claus when he’s home relaxing after his once-a-year gig. Max favored tweed suits and checkered shirts, mostly to hide the small holes caused by the bits of red-hot tobacco that burst from his battered Dunhill pipe.
“Nice piece on the Denzel Washington flick,” Max said. His mouth turned down a bit and he coughed into his hand before adding, “The Great wants to see you.”
“I know. Is there a problem?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Good luck, Carroll.”
Parkham had been remote and even a bit hostile to the paper’s staff at first, but she was beginning to thaw, to the point where she had lunch with underlings such as Max and me every few weeks. Still, a summons to her office was something to be concerned about. Just last week, she’d fired two sportswriters and the Washington D.C.–based political reporter.
Her office was on the building’s top floor, with a view looking out over the bay. It looked much the same as it had when her genial but slipshod predecessor, Boyd Wilson, ran the paper: oak-paneled walls dotted with oil paintings of majestic sailing ships battling monstrous waves; old, but comfortable cracked-leather chairs, a dark black-and-maroon rug of the type you see in the lobbies of expensive hotels, a massive coffin-shaped walnut desk cluttered with phones, computers, a rosewood humidor, and a crystal ashtray in the shape of a horseshoe.
Her one personal addition was a black-on-white abstract painting, which to me looked like a skid mark on snow. I’d learned recently that it was an original by Franz Kline and was worth a small fortune—to someone with a large fortune.
“Come in,” Parkham hollered when I knocked on her door.
She was hunched over a telescope, looking out in the direction of Alcatraz Island.
“Help yourself to coffee,” she said without taking her eye from the telescope.
I heaved a silent sigh of relief. If Parkham was going to can me, there would be a poignant little speech along with the coffee: “Sorry, we’re letting you go. Good luck” was her blunt way of dismissal, according to those who had received the ax.
I poured myself a cup of coffee from the bullet-shaped thermos on her desk and risked spearing a Danish butter cookie from a small plate of pastries.
“I hear you’re a hotshot poker player, Quint,” she said, still focusing on the bay. “No one here at the paper will play with you anymore. Do you cheat?”
“No,” I replied honestly. To win a few dollars from the likes of Max Maslin and the poker regulars from the sports section, one didn’t have to cheat. One simply had to be reasonably sober and know the rules of the game.
Parkham straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and stretched her back. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with wedge-cut brown hair sprinkled with gray. Her face was angular, with high cheekbones; her eyes chocolate brown. No one would call her pretty or beautiful, but she was damn good-looking. Think Katharine Hepburn in her prime, six inches taller and with forty more pounds. She was wearing a dark brown pantsuit and a cantaloupe-colored blouse. The single-stone diamond ring on the finger of her right hand had to weigh in at four karats.
“You play poker in the local card houses and on the Web, I’m told,” she said.
I wondered who the teller was. “Yes, once in awhile. It’s not a problem.”
She walked over to her desk and sat down. “It’s only a problem when you lose, Quint. Where did you learn to play poker?”
“My uncle is a professional gambler,” I told her. Uncle Nick, my mother’s younger brother, is more than that. A nice way to describe him would be as my mother does, a “scoundrel.” My father is more blunt: “He’s a crook.” Dad calls Nick “Uncle Crime” because Crime doesn’t pay—not for food, lodging, or just about anything else.
When I was a kid, he would come and stay with us for weeks at a time, and I’d pester him to teach me his dazzling array of sleight-of-hand card tricks.
“Could you cheat if you had to?” Parkham asked.
“Why would I want to do that?”
Parkham waved me to a chair. “Sit. This is totally off the record. I’m looking for someone who could spot a cheater in a poker game. Are you up to that?”
I sipped coffee and got comfortable in the old leather chair. “What kind of game are we talking about? Are there professionals at the table? Because if that’s the case—”
“No pros, just some successful businesspeople.” She leaned back and steepled her fingers in front of her face. “Smart, educated, very successful. I’m one of them.”
“Who’s the cheat?” I asked.
Parkham pursed her lips and blew a stream of air at the ceiling as if it were smoke from one of her cigars. “I’m not positive he’s cheating, but he couldn’t be that lucky. No one could.”
“Are we talking about a lot of money?” I asked, stretching out a hand for another cookie.
“He’s walked away with somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dollars from each of the last three games.”
It was my turn to blow air through my lips. It came out as a loud whistle. “That’s fairly high stakes for an amateur game.”
“Every...
She wants to see you, Carroll, ten o’clock this morning.”
The voice on the phone belonged to Darlene, the receptionist at my place of employment, the San Francisco Bulletin. “She” was Katherine “the Great” Parkham, the Bulletin’s editor in chief. Parkham had stormed in less than a year ago from the New York City–based conglomerate that owned the paper, with an advertised agenda of either selling or burying the Bulletin. So far, neither had happened, but we were all on the edge of our ergonomic swivel chairs, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Did the Great say what it was all about, Darlene?” I asked, glancing at the nightstand clock. It was 8:45 a.m.
“No. But she didn’t sound to be in the best of moods. I wouldn’t be late if I were you, Carroll.”
I said “Thanks,” rolled out of bed, and jumped into the shower. I work in the paper’s entertainment section and have the enviable task of reviewing movies and plays. A job to die for, really. Unfortunately, with the low salary I’m being paid, that’s a real possibility. Still, it is a job I love dearly and would hate to lose.
I shaved and dressed in record time and was in the Bulletin’s parking lot by 9:45. One of the few perks is a designated parking spot; however, this morning someone had angled their shiny black Jaguar sedan into two spots, leaving no room for even a tiny vehicle like my Mini Cooper. I had to park in the garage across the street, which charged twelve bucks for four hours.
I walked back to the Jaguar and took a business card from my wallet. I was thinking of writing something nasty, but for all I knew, the car belonged to one of Katherine Parkham’s friends, so I just printed a modified line of Bogart’s from Casablanca on the back of the card: “Of all the spots in all the towns in all the world, why did you have to take mine?”
I slipped the card under the Jag’s windshield wiper. When I finally made it to my cubicle, a FedEx deliveryman showed up. He was new to me: stick-thin, with bad posture and a worse attitude.
“I got a package for Carroll Quint,” he said in a hostile voice.
“Thanks,” I said, reaching out for a box the size of an unabridged dictionary.
He jerked it back. “No. Ms. Quint has to sign for it.”
“I’m Carroll Quint,” I told him, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. This was a situation that happened to me at least once a week, and all because my mother, whom I love dearly despite the fact that she decided to name her one and only child Carroll simply because it means “champion” in Gaelic. What it meant to me was a childhood filled with taunts and teases. Since I’d grown up in the rough-and-tumble Mission District of the city, it also meant a lot of fistfights with local toughs who thought that a skinny little guy who wore glasses and had a girl’s name was an easy target.
It hadn’t been quite as bad as the Johnny Cash classic song “A Boy Named Sue,” but it came close.
“Jeeez,” the FedEx guy said, handing me the box. “I read your reviews, and I always thought you were a broad.”
I scribbled my name on his electronic order pad and opened the package. It was a press release for a new animated movie about a penguin that somehow ends up in New York City on Christmas day. There was a DVD, a slick twenty-page brochure, three figurines of cute little penguins, a small box of Godiva chocolates, and an invitation to the press-only premiere, which included a premovie supper with champagne and caviar—clever little bribes to woo a favorable review. Since I bribed easily, I marked the date on my calendar with a big red X.
Max Maslin, the editor of the entertainment section, leaned into my cubicle and gave me a wide smile and a two-thumbs-up gesture. Max was a short, pudgy guy with a rubicund nose of the type they like to show on Santa Claus when he’s home relaxing after his once-a-year gig. Max favored tweed suits and checkered shirts, mostly to hide the small holes caused by the bits of red-hot tobacco that burst from his battered Dunhill pipe.
“Nice piece on the Denzel Washington flick,” Max said. His mouth turned down a bit and he coughed into his hand before adding, “The Great wants to see you.”
“I know. Is there a problem?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Good luck, Carroll.”
Parkham had been remote and even a bit hostile to the paper’s staff at first, but she was beginning to thaw, to the point where she had lunch with underlings such as Max and me every few weeks. Still, a summons to her office was something to be concerned about. Just last week, she’d fired two sportswriters and the Washington D.C.–based political reporter.
Her office was on the building’s top floor, with a view looking out over the bay. It looked much the same as it had when her genial but slipshod predecessor, Boyd Wilson, ran the paper: oak-paneled walls dotted with oil paintings of majestic sailing ships battling monstrous waves; old, but comfortable cracked-leather chairs, a dark black-and-maroon rug of the type you see in the lobbies of expensive hotels, a massive coffin-shaped walnut desk cluttered with phones, computers, a rosewood humidor, and a crystal ashtray in the shape of a horseshoe.
Her one personal addition was a black-on-white abstract painting, which to me looked like a skid mark on snow. I’d learned recently that it was an original by Franz Kline and was worth a small fortune—to someone with a large fortune.
“Come in,” Parkham hollered when I knocked on her door.
She was hunched over a telescope, looking out in the direction of Alcatraz Island.
“Help yourself to coffee,” she said without taking her eye from the telescope.
I heaved a silent sigh of relief. If Parkham was going to can me, there would be a poignant little speech along with the coffee: “Sorry, we’re letting you go. Good luck” was her blunt way of dismissal, according to those who had received the ax.
I poured myself a cup of coffee from the bullet-shaped thermos on her desk and risked spearing a Danish butter cookie from a small plate of pastries.
“I hear you’re a hotshot poker player, Quint,” she said, still focusing on the bay. “No one here at the paper will play with you anymore. Do you cheat?”
“No,” I replied honestly. To win a few dollars from the likes of Max Maslin and the poker regulars from the sports section, one didn’t have to cheat. One simply had to be reasonably sober and know the rules of the game.
Parkham straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and stretched her back. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with wedge-cut brown hair sprinkled with gray. Her face was angular, with high cheekbones; her eyes chocolate brown. No one would call her pretty or beautiful, but she was damn good-looking. Think Katharine Hepburn in her prime, six inches taller and with forty more pounds. She was wearing a dark brown pantsuit and a cantaloupe-colored blouse. The single-stone diamond ring on the finger of her right hand had to weigh in at four karats.
“You play poker in the local card houses and on the Web, I’m told,” she said.
I wondered who the teller was. “Yes, once in awhile. It’s not a problem.”
She walked over to her desk and sat down. “It’s only a problem when you lose, Quint. Where did you learn to play poker?”
“My uncle is a professional gambler,” I told her. Uncle Nick, my mother’s younger brother, is more than that. A nice way to describe him would be as my mother does, a “scoundrel.” My father is more blunt: “He’s a crook.” Dad calls Nick “Uncle Crime” because Crime doesn’t pay—not for food, lodging, or just about anything else.
When I was a kid, he would come and stay with us for weeks at a time, and I’d pester him to teach me his dazzling array of sleight-of-hand card tricks.
“Could you cheat if you had to?” Parkham asked.
“Why would I want to do that?”
Parkham waved me to a chair. “Sit. This is totally off the record. I’m looking for someone who could spot a cheater in a poker game. Are you up to that?”
I sipped coffee and got comfortable in the old leather chair. “What kind of game are we talking about? Are there professionals at the table? Because if that’s the case—”
“No pros, just some successful businesspeople.” She leaned back and steepled her fingers in front of her face. “Smart, educated, very successful. I’m one of them.”
“Who’s the cheat?” I asked.
Parkham pursed her lips and blew a stream of air at the ceiling as if it were smoke from one of her cigars. “I’m not positive he’s cheating, but he couldn’t be that lucky. No one could.”
“Are we talking about a lot of money?” I asked, stretching out a hand for another cookie.
“He’s walked away with somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dollars from each of the last three games.”
It was my turn to blow air through my lips. It came out as a loud whistle. “That’s fairly high stakes for an amateur game.”
“Every...
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- PublisherMinotaur Books
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 0312370911
- ISBN 13 9780312370916
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages304
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Still Shot
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ISBN 13: 9780312370916
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. New York: St. Martins [2008]. First edition, first printing. Hardbound. NEW/NEW. A pristine unread copy, without defect. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page and dated by him in month of publication, April 2008. Comes with protective mylar dust jacket cover. Smoke-free shop. Shipped in well padded box. Purchased new and opened only for author to sign. [c4] 0.0. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 10-2011-18
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