My new novel, The Lazaretto, will soon be available in print. In anticipation of this, I am posting an excerpt from the book. The book is a science fiction story set on a quarantine planet in an Earth colony solar system, set in an undefined future. This quarantine planet, a lazaretto, is the central hub of travel, where any person wishing to travel between planets must spend forty days in quarantine. The real hitch is the fact that if you are found to be infected with a disease, you may not leave the lazaretto, ever. It is a dark world where people shun physical contact and live in constant fear for their health.
Into this rather paranoid world comes Gregor Lepov, a private detective who has been hired to find a woman's missing son. A simple missing person's case turns into something far more disturbing as the police begin tracking a violent killer in the city.
The print version will soon be available at Amazon, though right now, advance copies can be found at the link to the left. The Kindle edition will be ready by the first of July. This is the first book of a trilogy. The second book (The Lady in the Lazaretto) will come out next year. I hope you give it a try. I've been working on this now for about three years, and I hope you enjoy it. Until you have the full book, enjoy the following excerpt.
The driver talked nonstop until Lepov paid
him and stepped in front of Ethan Layne’s building. There was nothing about it that made it stand
out from any other building on that street.
Only the worn black numbers on the battered door told him he was at the
right place. He climbed the steps of the
covered entrance testing his knee on each step.
He was pleasantly surprised to discover the pain had gone.
The
small foyer and first level hallway were dimly lit. There was enough light for him to see this
place looked worse than his dormitory.
One look at the elevator was enough to make him seek out the stairwell. Even if the old lift did work, he wasn’t
about to trust it with his life. It
looked rotten, as if a river had run down that elevator shaft over the years
and soaked all the wood until it was warped and soft to the touch.
Lepov
grabbed hold of the stairwell’s handrail and pulled himself up the first
step. He did not hurry. He rested two separate times before he
reached the eighth floor where Layne’s door stood opposite the stairwell.
Lepov
knocked in case someone was actually there.
He expected no one and grabbed the door knob. To his surprise, someone inside pulled the
door open a few inches.
“What
do you want?” A young woman stared at
him with steely eyes from within a shadow.
“I’m
looking for Ethan Layne. Do I have the
wrong door?”
“It’s
the right door. Ethan is not here. What do you want?”
“I’m
here on behalf of—a friend of Ethan’s.
May I come in?” Lepov caught the
smell of cigarette smoke and although there were days he couldn’t stand to
smell it anymore, this day it smelled good.
“Just
a moment,” the woman said, and quickly closed the door.
The
hallway had only one working light in it, and that was thirty feet down to his
right. Pale light from a window at one
end of the hall was the only other illumination. Lepov began to wonder if he’d been a fool to
allow the door to close on him. No one
should have been at Ethan’s apartment.
His mother had said nothing about a roommate.
More
than likely, he thought, the mother was unaware that her son was shacked up
with a woman. That might explain
everything. He was hoping that would be
the case. He wanted to get out of the
Lazaretto as soon as possible.
“Alright,”
the woman said as the door opened, “you may come in. I was just leaving.”
She
was maybe twenty years old with brown hair cut like a little boy’s. She was terribly thin. Her dark brown eyes were hidden behind a
worried brow. Her small mouth looked
even smaller as she chewed on her bottom lip.
She carried two packs, one slung over each shoulder. She tried not to make eye contact as she
attempted to get past Lepov.
“Hold
on a minute, Miss.” He stood his ground
and blocked her exit. He had a good idea
she was doing more than leaving. It
looked very much like she was fleeing.
“I
have to go! I haven’t time to talk.”
“You’d
better do some talking,” Lepov put a hand on one of the packs and firmly guided
her back into Layne’s apartment. He
decided not to waste time with this girl.
“In fact, you better do a lot of talking.”
“Who
are you?” she asked, jerking away from his touch. “Who are you to touch me? Huh?”
Lepov
stepped back as she angrily dropped onto a couch with hard black cushions. The packs slid down her arms and she pulled
one of them onto her lap. Still angry,
she rammed a hand into its main compartment and fished around in it. Lepov didn’t wait to see why. He swiped a big hand down and snatched the pack
away from her. She called out as if
she’d been stung by a wasp. It took
Lepov a moment to realize the hand she yanked from the pack was holding a small
caliber gun. She aimed it at him.
“Don’t.” His tone was enough to make her
hesitate. In one easy move he tossed the
pack back towards the still open door and snatched the gun from her hand. At the same time he moved forward and pinned
her to the couch with the other hand.
“Damn
you!” She squirmed with nowhere to go.
“Now
just hold on. I’m not the one pulling
guns on strangers.”
The
woman kicked him. It was a lucky
shot. She hit his knee. Pain washed over him in distinct waves. He staggered back two steps, biting back a
mouthful of curses. The woman recognized
what had happened and smiled, quite pleased with herself.
“We
better start over,” Lepov tensed as another wave of pain rolled through his
leg. “I’m simply looking for Ethan
Layne.”
“Does
he owe you money? Or was he screwing
your wife?” An impish smile came out
even as he could still see anger in her eyes.
“No
and no. I take it you wouldn’t approve
of that last item, huh?”
“I
didn’t care about the other women.” The
set of her jaw said otherwise. “He owed
me money. And he’s been gone a long time
now.”
“So
you thought you’d liquidate a few of his things?” Lepov looked around the apartment. It was a small two-room affair. There was a bedroom in the back. The main room was kitchen, living and storage
all wrapped up in one. As far as he
could tell, most of Layne’s things were gone.
The woman had been there before.
“I’m
taking what I can. Do you care? I paid for most of it over the last two
years. I can’t prove it, but what do you
care?”
Lepov
admitted he didn’t care in the least. He
just wanted Layne.
“So
where is he?” Lepov removed the bullets from her gun. When he had finished, he dropped them into
the front pocket of his pants.
“Why
do you want to know?” She brushed her
hair back in a nervous gesture. As short
as it was, it was still long enough to conceal a bruise high up on her
forehead.
“I
doubt that’s Ethan’s doing, unless you’ve seen him in the past couple of
days.” Lepov leaned forward and pushed
the hair back more to see the extent of the damage. “This is maybe 24 or 48 hours old.”
“You
know so much about bruises, huh? I’m not
surprised. You probably beat your woman.”
“I
don’t have a woman, but if I did, and she was anything like you, I’d sure as
hell beat her.”
The
woman looked at him, shocked at his frankness before she understood he was
putting her on. She smiled wickedly.
“I’m
Greta Becker. I’ve been living with
Ethan for two years.” She pulled out a
cigarette and lit it, blowing a cloud of smoke around her face. “Are you a cop?”
“No. My name is Lepov. Ethan’s mother was getting worried.” That cigarette didn’t just smell good to him,
it made him think about opening the pack in his coat pocket. He fought off the impulse though he could not
take his eyes off the cigarette.
“A
Private Detective?” She pronounced each
word with extra care then shrugged off the revelation with a laugh.
“Who
did that to you?” Lepov pointed at her
injury.
“What
do you care? I live in a rough
neighborhood.”
“That
why you carry the gun?”
“Not
that it helped. The gun is useless
against bastards like you.”
“Sometimes.” Lepov tossed her the gun. “Unless you know what to do with it, it only
causes more trouble. Someone’s going to
start asking uncomfortable questions about your gun. Like why are you carrying one and emptying
out a missing man’s apartment. That
looks bad.”
If
she understood the implication, she didn’t let on.
“I’m
trying to say that with the police asking questions about Ethan’s disappearance,
they’re bound to think it’s a little strange—you stealing all this and having a
gun in your possession.”
“They
haven’t.” She challenged Lepov with a
hard stare.
“Haven’t
what?”
“Been
asking questions. They haven’t been
asking questions.”
“I’d
been told Ethan had been missing for three weeks now.” Lepov tried to work the timing out in his
head. “When did you last see him?”
“I’ll
tell you, but it does you no good. I
hadn’t seen him in nearly two months.
I’d left him.”
“That
other woman you didn’t mind so much?”
Lepov’s question was colder than his tone.
“Yes,”
she nodded. Some of her hard exterior
began to soften. “I came back a week
ago. When I saw he wasn’t here, I
figured he got out of the Laz. Maybe he
had jumped into a closing quadrant without time to pack. As far as I knew, he was never coming back.”
It
wasn’t her conjectures about Ethan’s disappearance that grabbed his
attention. He was still focused on what
she’d said about the police.
“Greta,
you said the police aren’t asking questions?”
“No. I know a few of the neighbors here, and they
say no one has been around looking for him.
As far as I know, you’re the first.”
“He
did work for the Lazaretto Administrative Unit, didn’t he?” She nodded firmly. “Wouldn’t they wonder where he was?”
“It’s
why I thought he took off.”
“No,”
Lepov shook his head while trying to puzzle out what he was hearing. “I checked all of that out before I flew out
here. According to official records,
he’s still within the Lazaretto.”
It
took only a cursory glance around the room for Lepov to realize he had lost any
chance of finding information in the apartment.
The woman had taken too much. She
had nearly stripped the place bare.
“You
sure did a job on this place,” Lepov shook his head. “I don’t suppose you happened to notice
anything unusual before you began to dismantle everything?”
“I
don’t think so.” Her answer was both
guarded and petulant.
“Sorry
if the question offends you, but I have to say you haven’t exactly done me a
favor here. You said it looked like he
hadn’t packed, is that right?”
“Maybe
a little. Some clothes but nothing
else.”
“Forgive
the implication, but did it look as if someone else had been living with him?”
The
implication was apparently not going to be forgiven, or even acknowledged. Greta Becker stood up and snatched up the
pack on the couch. Keeping one eye on
Lepov, she moved to the door and retrieved the second pack, clutching both of
them as if she were hugging a lost child who’d just been found.
“You
can’t keep me here. And I don’t have to
answer your questions. For all I know
you did something to Ethan. I should
call the cops.”
“Right,”
Lepov allowed a mocking smile on his lips.
There wasn’t a chance in hell she’d call the cops. She didn’t realize he was now practically
forced to contact them. Once someone
official did begin to look for Layne, they would quickly discover the looting
of his rooms. And once they discovered
that, anyone associated with Layne would come under suspicion. And he was sure it would eventually become
known he was there for the sole purpose of tracking down Layne. The longer he kept in the shadows the more
suspicious he would look to the authorities.
“I
think it’s only fair to warn you that I’ll be calling them.” Lepov stood at the top of the stairs and
watched her descend. “I won’t call them
until tomorrow. That gives you a day to
decide what you’re gonna do, and how you’re gonna answer their questions.”
Her
sharp curse echoed up the cavernous stairwell.
For more information on The Lazaretto, got to Rocket Fire Books, where you can order a signed print copy. You may also purchase a print or eBook copy below:
And watch for book two of the Lazaretto Trilogy: Lady in the Lazaretto.
