Low And Slow

by Richard Helms

About the Author: Richard Helms is the author of twenty published novels, including BRITTLE KARMA, coming this October from Black Arch Books. He has been nominated eight times for SMFS Derringer Award, with two wins; six times for the PWA Shamus Award; twice for the ITW Thriller Award, with a win in 2011; and once for the Macavity Award. His novel PAID IN SPADES was nominated this year for the Shamus and Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Awards, winning the Silver Falchion.

Excerpt

Alvy Funchess rose before sunrise, splashed water in his face, dressed, and went outside to prepare the smoker. The weather report had promised a fine, hot summer day without a shred of a chance of rain in Prosperity, North Carolina. Alvy had learned there were four seasons in the mid-south just like everywhere else, except here they were called Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas.

He loaded the side-mounted firebox of the thirty-gallon drum with hickory lump charcoal and water-soaked chunks of apple and pecan and pear wood and stuffed some wadded paper underneath it all to get the fire going.

As the smoker built heat, he went into the kitchen and retrieved the pork shoulder he’d prepared the night before, slathered in mustard and dry rub until it looked like red pitted rocks on a hellish alien riparian shore. He’d left it out to get to room temperature. Putting cold meat into a smoker added hours to the cooking time and wasted charcoal. Alvy didn’t worry about the possibility of spoilage or decay or contagion. Any living thing that could burrow through the roux of mustard and rub and get to the meat was probably ornery enough to survive the Apocalypse, and therefore was untroubled by the hygienic practices of mere humans. Alvy loved pulled pork, and he loved the smoky aroma that enveloped his patio whenever he tossed a ten-pounder onto the grate.

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