ALSO BY JESSE KELLERMAN

The Executor

The Genius

Trouble

Sunstroke

JESSE KELLERMAN

POTBOILER

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Publishers Since 1838

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © 2012 by Jesse Kellerman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kellerman, Jesse.

Potboiler / Jesse Kellerman.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-399-15903-9

1. Writers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3561.E38648P68 2012 2012001823

813’.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Gavri

Praise for William de Vallée and the DICK STAPP novels

“There’s no one like William de Vallée. Every time I finish one of his books, I feel like washing the blood off my hands. And after Fatal Deadliness, I had to take a twenty-minute shower. Dick Stapp sends Mike Hammer to the slammer, and Jack Reacher looking for a preacher. No mystery here; this is a thriller reader’s thriller by a thrilling thriller writer.”

—Stephen King

“Of all the books I have read this year, this is one of them.”

—Lee Child (on Mortal Grave)

“If noir is your thing, you won’t find a blacker black than the blackness in William de Vallée’s postmodern darkness. Every word sent me reeling! Dick Stapp is harder than a body left in the sun, and twice as much fun.”

—Robert Crais (on Risk of Peril )

“No one does stomach-turning violence better.”

—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Writing that grabs you by the throat and wrings you like a chicken on the eve of Yom Kippur.”

—Woonsocket Potato Pancake

“Stand back, Maxwell Smart, there’s a new agent in town. . . . [Stapp] is a tough guy’s tough guy’s tough guy, the kind of hero who makes women swoon and men wish they had another testicle.”

—New Haven Calumniator

“Mr. de Vallée’s stock-in-trade are plots twistier than those little wire twisty ties that come with bakery bread but that always go missing, forcing you to spin the plastic bag and tuck its neck underneath in order to maintain freshness.”

—The New York Times Book Review

Contents

Cover

Also by Jesse Kellerman

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Praise for William de Vallée

ONE ART

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TWO COMMERCE

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THREE A NOVEL OF SUSPENSE

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FOUR (Welcome to West Zlabia!)

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FIVE (Welcome to East Zlabia!)

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SIX (Welcome [Back] to West Zlabia!)

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SEVEN DEUS EX MACHINA

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Acknowledgments

ONE ART

1.

After one hundred twenty-one days, the search was called off. The Coast Guard had stopped looking after three weeks, but the presumptive widow had paid for a private company to drag the entire Pacific Ocean, or as much of it as they could. With all hope lost, funeral arrangements were now under way. It was front-page news.