Talk the Talk... with excerpt!

 

I've always enjoyed writing dialogue - this came home to me when I co-wrote and produced three plays with my daughter (in the pre-Covid, let's go see some live theatre days). As a writer, there's nothing quite like the buzz of sitting in the back row on opening night snd hearing actors say those lines, and then having the audience respond (hopefully).

I've been told by reviewers that I have an ear for dialogue - which is a very nice compliment. Although, people in fiction really don't talk like people in real life. If so, there'd be pages of "ums" and "ahs" and weird tangents that went nowhere... and we'd bore the shit out of even the most faithful readers.

Some of my favourite writers do great dialogue - looking at you Joe Lansdale, and the late great Elmore Leonard. And on the literary side, Don DeLillo captures the cadence and rhythm of conversations so well they become poetic, but at the same time deeply authentic.

Someone, maybe Vonnegut, said dialogue should do one of two things:
1. Move the story
2. Reveal character

And if it isn't doing either of those things... cut it.

I still use that as a barometer for my dialogue, and often it's the thing that gets cut the most in subsequent drafts.

My new novel, Manistique, opens with a long conversation between the main character, Luke Fischer and his detective friend, Franko (who also appeared in Surf City Acid Drop.) I felt while writing this that I was listening to these two friends swap stories about their cases, while sharing beer and shrimp chips (if you were wondering what that photo up top was.)

Some may argue that the convo goes on too long, but I dunno, for me it was a chance to really get to know these two on a deeper level - and of course, set up what as about to transpire, and send Luke far away from New Mexico. And by transpire, I mean guns and dead people.

Here is that first chapter of Manistique - hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for book news... proposed release date is June 15! Hey, that's soon!
Thanks for reading. 

Manistique - Chapter One 

I ran into Franko Toledo three weeks ago while searching for a delinquent husband in Santa Fe. Truth was, his last name wasn’t Toledo. That’s just where he came from: Toledo, Spain. I never got Franko’s real last name until I saw it on his hospital bracelet. 

We first met a year ago, when I‘d been chasing a pair of art thieves across the southwest and getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis. Now, Franko was an actual detective, for hire and everything, unlike me. I didn’t like the sound of “private eye,” since it made me think of Mannix, and I was a far shade from him. I did whatever work landed on my lap, mostly from Benno, my somewhat shady benefactor. Really, Benno was shady as hell, but he kept me out of the darker stuff and had me do errands, the odd knocking of heads.

When I first met Franko, I knew he was the kind of a guy I’d run into again. When I stumbled across the bar where Franko and I had shared a bowl of pozole, I decided to stop in. The soup was as good as I’d remembered, a healthy dose of heat and flavor through the roof. When I was on the road, I took whatever beer I could get—except for Bud. I’d drink anything, even water, before that lizard piss. And then I remembered the other thing about this place: they stocked Pacificos.

I was finishing my first bowl and my second beer when Franko strolled in, same bolo tie, a new set of caramel-colored shades. He’d switched his pale lemon shirt for a honeydew melon number. He stood out against the deep brown walls, like he’d planned his wardrobe to match the bar.

“Ah, we are creatures of habit. I thought our paths would cross again, my friend.” His eyes smiled at the recognition.

Franko ordered a couple of shots of bourbon. Like everything here, the whiskey was warm, lingering, and perfect. Over the next couple of hours we swapped stories and traded rounds.

I told him of my search for the hubby on the run.

“You have found him? Or learned what happened?” 

“Turns out he wasn’t missing to anyone but those who wanted his money.”

“How so?”

“His numbers finally hit, and he picked up a significant chunk of change. That’s when his relatives, including a few he didn’t know he had, came out of every nook and cranny. Each with a sad story and both hands out. He lit out in the middle of the night, didn’t even leave his wife a note.”

“It was the wife that asked you to find him?”

“They both had friends in Mexico, and she thought her husband might head to PV. Their friends knew my friends, including a guy named Benno who I work for—long story short, she asked for my help.”

“And you cannot turn down someone in need, especially a woman. I know this about you, my friend.” Franko smiled and tinked my beer bottle with his. “But I am thinking she isn’t beautiful.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The husband leaves in the middle of the night. If she was beautiful he would wake her, ask her to join him.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “She would have been a traffic-stopper back in the day. Even now she’d turn heads in the produce aisle, but there was something about her.” 

I took a long swallow. 

“She travelled all the miles to Puerto Vallarta to hire your services?”

“Yep. Bought me a nice dinner, too.”

“She must have been very sure about her husband,” Franko said.

“She’d been making trips to PV for years, but different times than her husband. They had one of those open marriages.”

“I don’t know that one,” Franko said.

“Open to screw around on each other—no questions, no problems.”

“In my experience there are always problems in that situation.”

“Well, she got a helluva lot closer to him when he won the lottery. Funny how a big bag of money rekindles a romance.”

“You didn’t like her.” Franko held up two fingers to the bartender.

“I took the job and her money. It didn’t feel right. But the work hasn’t exactly been flowing, and I needed to pay my bill at the Esperanza.”

Our beers came with a plate of shrimp chips salty as the Pacific. We crunched and sipped awhile. Someone plucked a twangy guitar in the corner. 

“And now you have discovered the husband is in New Mexico? Good luck with your search.” Franko tinked my bottle again.

“Appreciate it, Franko. But I already found him.”

“Ah, then it is congratulations. Or is it? By your face I see that it did not go well.”

“I found someone with the right information and followed the dots right out of Mexico. Finding him was easier than most. He was in a Santa Fe bar, not that different from this one, but on the edge of the city. I sat down and bought him a beer. He was a decent sort that had put up with way too much shit. We talked for an hour, then I picked up the check with his wife’s money. I wished him well.”

“You left him in the bar?”

“Couldn’t bring myself to throw him to the scavengers. They’d strip him cleaner than piranhas on a bloated cow.”

Franko nodded and munched on a handful of chips. “His wife must be upset with you.”

“Haven’t told her yet,” I said.

“Ahh. And I see by your eyes you are anxious to head back to your Pacific paradise. You look tired, my friend.”

“Thought I’d pop in here before I left.”

“And I am glad you did. I have told you before, I am not one to believe in coincidences. Our paths have overlapped again for a reason.”

“What would that be?” I asked.

“If you are not in any hurry to return, then perhaps we could have another drink. And then you might help me with a situation.”

“You in trouble, Franko?”

“Nothing like that. It is about a woman.”

“Missing?”

“Of course.”

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