Tumour

The novel starts with the main character, Frank, in hospital for a check-up, finding out that his lung cancer is inoperable, and terminal. After breaking the news to his distraught wife, new concerns raised about how his family of three children are going to fare without an income. With the issue still at the centre of his mind the next day, Frank goes out again, renewing his ambitions to find a well-paid legimate job in Dallas, but running up against the problem of lack of experience- the only job he possessed back in New York was as a hired gun, before being moved down South as part of an informant protection scheme. Then, a perfect assignment falls out of the sky- while looking for a bouncer vacancy in a bar, the complex is raked by gunfire from a car out in the street before it speeds past. Inflamed by the attempt on his life, the white-supremacist barlord vows to pay a huge sum to see the black gang leader responsible dead. Frank takes the $100K commission from Cole Federman, looking for information to lead him to his target, while covering up his return to career hitman with the family by telling them he has a new job as a barman, working under Federman's employ. Meanwhile, the family begin to settle down in Dallas after the move from NY, Liz's sister Petal childminding the three kids regularly. Frank, in the meantime, resumes his double-life, delving into the criminal underworld of the city to try and identify his assigned target. After getting involved in a shootout, between the petty gang Federman is a member of and the larger, black gang asking for protection money, Frank single-handedly rescues Federman's posse from the brink of defeat, rewarded with a down-payment of $10K. Only when he gets back home does he find out the truth- Petal's second son, his own nephew in law, was one of the gang members he shot dead. Consumed by guilt at the knowledge, Frank goes to the funeral, but still continues with the job. Sneaking into the hospital where one of the injured members is recovering, he manages to 'persuade' the location of the gang's base of operations out of him. That night, he goes to the hive, shooting the guards and any other challengers. The inner circle make their last stand in a sealed off room upstairs- however, Frank uses the shadows cast against the next building out of the only window to shoot the last guards through the ply-board walls, leaving only the leader alive. Frank breaks down the door, gun-to-gun with his ticket to the security of his family- only to find that the protection racket leader, the one who he has to kill, is actually his brother in law, Petal's husband, Ryan; the man who paid for his family's relocation to Dallas in the first place. The true identity of his son's killer, the full betrayal revealed, Ryan tries to kill Frank. Wounded in the ensuing fight, Frank has no choice but to kill Ryan to stay alive; although ripped apart by the choice between his one and a half years and Ryan's thirty, Frank kills Ryan because of the prospect of his children finding out the truth. All sense of emotion dulled by the ordeal, Frank returns to Federman to collect the money- only to find out, through a slip of the tongue, that Cole knew about the two being related by marriage from the start. Consumed by rage, Frank attacks Federman, beating him into unconsciousness before killing him, laying waste to the bar and leaving with all the money in the safe, some $300K in cash. Arriving home, he finally breaks the news to his children that he has a terminal, inoperable cancer. The money cast to the floor as irrelevant, the novel ends with the family consoling each other, supporting each other together when they need it most.