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Now available for preorder:
The San Francisco Panorama.
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- - - - [The following excerpt comes from Issue No. 10: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales.] - - - - A M A N C A N O N L Y It wasn't my day. When I hit him in the mouth, I cut my hand and the blood dripped onto my new mauve Lauren tie. And blood doesn't come out. It made me mad so I kicked him a couple of times while he rolled on the ground in the alley, swearing in Spanish. Nobody saw us. The alleys of Beverly Hills are pretty deserted at eight in the morning. The stores don't open until ten. I got back in my new Mustang and tossed the digital camera on the passenger seat. I stuck a Kleenex on my knuckles and started the ignition. The guy was on his feet by then, shaking his fist at me as I drove away, but he had only himself to blame. He shouldn't have been stealing all those nice leather jackets from the store. The client wanted pictures and now I had them. A dozen digital hi-res snaps showing the guy taking stuff out of the truck in the early morning sun and putting it into his car. I figured I'd earned my money. Wrongful termination suits are expensive and I'd nipped this one in the bud. I called the client on my cell phone and left a message on his answering machine. By now it was time for breakfast. I would have gone around the corner to Nate 'n Al's except I had blood on my tie. So I went home. I had one of those small houses in the flats south of Pico. Beverlywood, they call it. It's a good neighborhood, real people with real jobs live there. I've had the same house for forty years, now. It was reasonable when my mother bought it in the sixties. Now it's north of half a million for eighteen hundred square feet, two baths, and a backyard the size of a walk-in closet. You've got to wonder. My mother lived in it with me until I came back from college. But she's been in a home for years now. I hardly ever see her. Sometimes I feel guilty, but not often. The client called back right as I pulled into the driveway. He was screaming. He said I'd got the wrong guy, and what the fuck was I doing beating up poor Fernando? I told him I had the pictures to prove it, but he wasn't listening. I could see my fee slipping away. The client never wants to hear that his lover is a thief. Not while he's in love, anyway. Afterward, of course, he wants to kill. But I could tell this guy was still in love. All his yelling at me was making me feel bad. Losing the fee was making me feel worse. I was already behind on my car payments. I pretended my connection was going bad, and hung up. Clearly, it wasn't my day. I stripped off my tie and went in the house. I noticed I had a couple of blood spots on my shirt, so I started unbuttoning it as I went into the bedroom. I felt like a drink, but it was a little too early. There was a suitcase lying open on the bed. Janis's clothes were folded in neat piles around the room. The closet door was open and some of her clothes were already gone. I looked in the bathroom but she wasn't there so I went into the kitchen. It was time for that drink after all.
YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE DIABOLICAL CONCLUSION, AVAILABLE ONLY IN McSWEENEY'S MAMMOTH TREASURY OF THRILLING TALES. - - - - Michael Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942. He lives in Los Angeles.
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