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Ringer: A Crime Novel, by Brian M Wiprud
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Charged with recovering a sacred relic for his La Paz diocese, Morty Martinez hunts down a gold ring that rests on the finger of New York City billionaire Robert Tyson Grant. The holy quest lands Morty squarely in murderous cross plots between the billionaire and his tabloid-prone stepdaughter, Purity. Grant’s conniving girlfriend, a decapitation-happy hit man, and an avaricious fortune teller have their own agendas that put Morty at the center of a sensational murder trial in Mexico. All as told by Morty the night before his execution.
- Sales Rank: #4036955 in Books
- Published on: 2011-07-19
- Released on: 2011-07-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.48" h x 1.24" w x 5.90" l, .94 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 352 pages
Review
"Told from Martinez's jail cell the night before he's to be executed, this relentlessly amusing novel is powered by a cast of decidedly quirky characters and its idiosyncratic narrator's frequent digressions (like his defense of breast implants). Fans of the comic crime fiction of Donald E. Westlake and Charles Willeford will find a lot to like." - Publishers Weekly
About the Author
BRIAN WIPRUD is the author of seven books.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER
ONE
FATHER GOMEZ ENTROPICA WAS AN aging brown fireplug topped by a bush of white hair. Judging from his rough visage, fate might have made him into a deadly gangster had God not made him a priest. He stood behind a desk that was as large and rough-hewn as an overturned native fishing boat. Save for a crucifix on the wall behind him, the stained plaster walls were bare. A tropical breeze scented the room with bougainvillea.
I had been summoned by Father Gomez to Nuestra Señora de Cortez, a castle-like church in downtown La Paz. This town is located in the Baja peninsula, a commanding finger of Mexico below California that points into the blue Pacific. La Paz is the ancient seaside village where I live. Or lived, so it would seem.
Why had I been summoned? I had every reason to believe that Father Gomez wanted to thank me. After all, I had given his orphanage a hundred thousand, cash. That is a lot of scratch, let me tell you. It had been at least six months since I had given it to Father Gomez, and to be brutally honest, it had started to bug me that I had not even received a thank-you note. Back in Brooklyn, people used to send such things even after a small bowling party or tar beach cookout. So it seemed to me that the priest could have at least sent an e-card or dropped by my hacienda to shake my hand.
I wore my white suit and Panama hat for the occasion. There’s no sense being rich and living in a sea-view villa if you do not have at least one white suit, and I think a fancy walking stick is also a nice touch. I was, after all, no longer a house cleaner. With a few million in the bank, I no longer cleaned houses. I was La Paz gentry.
I sat across from the priest in a heavy wooden chair that was cold as stone, my legs crossed, hat and walking stick in my lap, a jaunty beneficent smile on my tanned face. Part of me hoped the priest did not weep with gratitude and kiss my hand. Another part wished he would. Show me a man who does not like gratitude and I will show you a woman who does not like a compliment.
Instead of blubbering, the squinty brown fireplug in the cassock and collar slid what looked like a small gilded humidor across the desk.
“Open it,” he growled in Spanish.
This I had not expected. A gift! I thought to myself this was better than a weeping, grateful priest. I could put this humidor on my mantel and savor cigars of the holy gratitude I had earned.
“There is no need, Father. It is enough that I have helped those less fortunate.” I was speaking Spanish, too. In Brooklyn, I spoke very little, but in my new homeland, I had picked it up out of necessity. “My father was an orphan here, so I feel in some small way beholden to this beneficent institution.”
His pinched face became more pinched, and he growled once more, “Open it. It is very old.”
“If you insist, but this is too much.”
I lifted the lid of the box, and there was only one cigar. It did not look like a very good cigar, either. Still, as gentry, it is my obligation to always be gracious, so I forced a smile and said, “They do not make quality cigars like they used to, do they, Father?”
One of his tiny blue eyes popped out of his wrinkles like a bird on a cuckoo clock.
“It is a severed finger, señor. Not a cigar.”
It didn’t look like a very good finger, either, but on closer inspection I could see a fingernail at the tip and smell the faint musk of decay.
“Oo, very nice, Father.” I opened my eyes very wide to keep from looking like I might decorate his desk with vomit. “I do not have a finger. Except on my hand, of course. A finger in a box, it makes for an excellent conversation piece, does it not?”
Father Gomez covered his face with his hands. “This is not a gift, señor. This is a holy relic that has been desecrated.”
“It does look dried up, I agree.”
Father Gomez sank into his chair and took a deep breath. Then he took his hands away from his face. “The finger in the box is that of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra.”
“The conquistador?” I sat forward. “I am descended from him. I think.”
“Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra wore a gold ring bearing the cross of Caravaca. It is a double-crossbarred crucifix. It was cast from a golden Hapsburg medallion that encased a part of the true cross. Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra wore this ring, and he believed himself invincible as long as he wore it. That is, until the finger was cut from his hand while in battle defending a monastery in Peru. Only the finger was recovered and returned to his family in La Paz, and the brave conquistador’s fortune helped establish this orphanage. Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra was himself an orphan raised by the church. The finger was enshrined in the altar.”
“Where is my ancestor’s ring now? It is not on the finger.”
Father Gomez put his hands together as if in prayer. “Fifty-five years ago one of the boys entered the sanctuary at night and pulled the ring from Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra’s finger.”
“I hope you gave the boy a stern talking-to.”
Father Gomez’s lip twitched, and somewhere down the street a dog yelped. “Had I discovered who had perpetrated this abomination, I would have done more than talk, Señor Martinez.”
“So you never discovered who stole my ancestor’s ring?”
“We did not know. The ring was lost. Forever. Until this.”
Father Gomez reached into his cassock and slid a picture across the desk. It was part of an article from Forbes magazine about someone named Robert Tyson Grant, apparently the founder of a successful discount chain called Grab-A-Lot. His teeth were very white and his hair very silver, the black eyes sparkling with the guilty glee of the super-rich. Dressed in yachting togs, he was posed aboard a large catamaran. His right hand grasped part of the rigging close to the camera. On that hand was a buttery gold ring.
The ring bore the double cross of Caravaca.
I stood, my face warm.
“So this scoundrel has the sacred ring of my ancestor?”
Father Gomez looked down at the desk. “I regret I did not properly thank you for your kind donation to our charity, Señor Martinez. Under the circumstances from which it came, I thought it perhaps better that we did not meet. As you know, Mexico has many unsavory people. It is not unusual for the drug cartels to donate cash to churches to try to buy off their guilt. Our lawyers advise us against making any acknowledgment that we receive these gifts, and yet the money does go to a good cause, to God’s work, and so we accept it. In your case, well…”
“I understand, Father. Say no more. I gave the money out of respect for my father’s memory. And for a good cause, not for the gratitude of the church.”
“After your generosity, it makes it all the more difficult to ask a favor of you. I would like to ask you to go to Robert Tyson Grant in New York and ask him to return the ring.”
Yes, I had been a humble Brooklyn house cleaner, and then I had a windfall and retired to La Paz, my father’s ancestral home, to fulfill my destiny and birthright. All the same, since getting myself set up in my villa, and becoming white-suited gentry, I had felt like something was missing. I had begun reading to see what some of the world’s great thinkers like Abraham Lincoln had to say about what makes life complete. Well, a good woman, of course. I had started sorting out the local females, but it was hard to find one that was at once chaste and would also put out. This is a problem all men have, and in Mexico I had found the girls tend to be all one or the other. It may sound like what was missing was that I was not getting laid, which was factually correct. Yet there was a hollow feeling beyond my loins. What was missing from me was the Holy Spirit, a purpose as God’s minion. It would be as the instrument of God that I might earn contentment, and at the same time earn a gorgeous woman I could call my own.
My epiphany was such that I could hardly breathe. I croaked, “Why do you honor me with this task?”
“You are a wealthy American. He is a wealthy American. I do not speak English well enough. Also, your ‘letter’ to me”—yes, the white-haired brown fireplug actually made air quotes with his fingers before continuing—“about that money you generously donated to the orphanage gave me the impression that you are blessed with resourceful ways.”
“I should have Robert Tyson Grant arrested for the theft is what I should do.”
Father Gomez waved his hands in the air. “No, Señor. If you appeal to Robert Tyson Grant’s conscience and tell him the story of the ring, God will touch his heart and he will do the right thing. Have faith in God to guide him. We have no idea how Robert Tyson Grant came upon this ring. He likely bought it, or it was given to him, legitimately.”
“I see.” My chest swelled. “I am to be the instrument of God, the hand of the Holy See. I am to brandish the sword of the Almighty to return this holy relic to La Paz and restore the honor of my birthright.”
“Eh, something like that. Señor Martinez, I just ask that you go to Robert Tyson Grant and ask for the ring. As a favor to the orphanage, and as a favor to Nuestra Señora de Cortez.”
I cinched my Panama on my head and pointed my walking stick at the priest. “Father Gomez, I am all over this, like butter on a bagel.”
“Take the finger with you.” His palm held the gold humidor. “It will help authenticate your story.”
I exited through the vaulted chapel of Nuestra Señora de Cortez, the finger of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra under my arm, into a blue June day. My boots clacked across the sunlit cobbled plaza, my heart full of purpose and without doubt of my success in recovering the Caravaca-Martinez ring.
God was on my side.
Unfortunately, Satan himself was on the other.
Copyright © 2011 by Brian M. Wiprud
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Great start, "meh" finish
By JMC
First, read the other reviews, then step back and take a breather. Yes, this book starts and continues for a while in the same funny and slightly twisted way of Wiprud's other books, but after a whlle I found myself slogging through the interminable blather by the main character about how to charm women, being La Paz gentry, the ring, etc, etc, etc. Enough already! And the ending--well, I don't want to be a spoiler, so I won't divulge it--all I can say is, "meh". Just sort of wound down and petered out. I was just glad to finish the book, all the time hoping that Wiprud would end with a zinger, or at least a little twist. I kept thinking my copy was missing the final chapter. Maybe the author should have brought in a "ringer" to ghost write the ending! A disappointing product by an otherwise clever and engaging author---so, just "meh" for this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Ringer
By Gloria Feit
"Ringer" is a sly tale revolving around an encounter between a 65-year-old billionaire and a Mexican man of less than savory background. A caper novel with a plot arising out of a stew comprised of an ancient ring which may or may not be blessed and/or cursed, a spoiled and willful 19-year-old girl, a Greenwich Village palmist and her assorted relatives, and a smattering of several truisms purportedly from the mouth of Abraham Lincoln, among many other things, make up this consistently delightful concoction.
The protagonist is Morty Martinez, introduced to readers in the author's "Feelers," Brooklyn native and former house cleaner, who now considers himself as La Paz gentry now that is living in Mexico again and he has a few million in the bank. The aforementioned teenager is [ironically] named Purity Grant, who has a mutually hateful relationship with her stepfather, the billionaire. Their toxic dynamic fuels thoughts of murder as the easiest way out of matters financial and emotional, by both parties, and somehow Morty becomes the designated hit man of each. The mantra invoked from time to time, by each of the major players, is Earn Destiny, and they all go about trying to achieve that end in a manner which seems most logical to those involved, as opposed, perhaps, to anyone in the `normal' world, such as, e.g., the reader.
Purity's speech is regularly peppered with acronyms, as though her mind is permanently in text-speak. [Being in the minority that is not thoroughly conversant with that particular mind-set, I have to admit to being unable to decipher them all. Typing this, it only just dawned on me, e.g., that "ITWYT" means "if that's what you think." "NHNF" and "YGAGA m9" still elude me, as does in general the concept of people actually using these in everyday, that is to say verbal, speech. Hopefully there is nothing profane in any of that.] But that only contributes to the enjoyment of this zany tale, which had me smiling or laughing aloud throughout. I have to admit I have not yet read "Feelers," but will try to correct that without much further ado. Recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Mysterious Book Report - John Dwaine McKenna
By John McKenna
In a small attempt to start things back toward normalcy, maybe even give a few of you a smile for a moment or two, the MBR for this week is a book titled Ringer. In it, protagonist Morty Martinez, a “gentleman of means and leisure” living in La Paz, Mexico, is given a quest to recover an ancient golden ring containing a sliver of the true cross that’s been stolen from a holy relic belonging to the parish church: the mummified finger of a conquistador named Hermando Martinez de Salvaterra. The ring has turned up in a photograph, in a national magazine, on the hand of a tycoon named Robert Tyson Grant in New York City. The plot gets complicated when Morty, an Inspector Clouseau type, is mistaken for a Mexican assassin hired by Grant in order to do away with his troublesome step-daughter. Throw in a scheming girlfriend, a hit man obsessed with death, a calculating newspaper reporter, AND a thieving fortune teller . . . and this one gets zanier with every chapter. And oh, I almost forgot, the point-of-view is Morty’s, written as a screenplay by him while he’s awaiting his execution the next day by firing squad. The last few chapters will have you on the edge of your seat . . . but the conclusion will leave you laughing. I swear.
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