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To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1) QUOTES

To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1) QUOTES

1 " Coaching was hard. Being a detective is murder. "

― Kendric Neal , To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1)

2 " Learning to interpret the constant string of lies and excuses fed to you from kids terrified of failure but careening towards it anyway was boot camp for behavioral interpretation. My guys didn't know who the hell they were but they were angry, addled and belligerent, so half the time I was screaming at them and the rest of the time I was holding their trembling little hands. It was a great job and I was a great coach, but that's the past and dinner with the Dyars was the present—and sussing out the current crowd was no worse than taming a team on the bus home so amped on testosterone they often tried to kill their best friends. "

― Kendric Neal , To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1)

3 " I get a little obsessive, it was my hallmark as a coach. I'm more effective when it gets personal and I tend to stick with a thing until it gets personal. I haven't been doing this that long but so far, knock on wood, I've never had to give up. There's something rewarding about it—when you grab that first slender thread that unravels the whole web. I just can't stand seeing anyone get away with something, and I'm dreading the first time I have to walk away from a case knowing who did it and why, but that there's nothing I can do about it. Amy's right to worry, I'm the world's worst loser, as several generations of junior high teams could tell you. I still mourn games I lost 10 years ago. I swear, I wake up sweating and angry over a pass-action I should have known not to call, I'm not kidding. It's not healthy. "

― Kendric Neal , To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1)

4 " My style isn't subtle, I know that. I'm sure in fact it violates all kinds of rules about interrogation and all that, I never studied the field. I'm not sure it would have helped anyway—some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time had unconventional styles, I think that's the way the world ought to work. You don't take a guy who's finding success and make him unlearn his style and do it the traditional way, it's encouraging mediocrity. Nobody ever knew when Randall Cunningham was going to get happy feet or when Favre was going to shovel pass a TD out of a sack. You train that stuff out of them and you take away that surprise. So I ask questions, I look for soft, spongy areas and push on them to see if the person cries out. It doesn't endear me to a lot of people, but I've got enough friends and I'm not looking for more. "

― Kendric Neal , To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1)

5 " We played a couple games of pool and shared a basket of fried shrimp and onion rings. He was a good player, but on long shots I noticed his hands shook. I hadn't noticed it before but his motor control was clearly damaged; sometimes he'd go through several positions to arrive at the one he wanted, as though he had to sneak up on it. “I used to be a better player,” he said quietly, and I thought about what it must feel like at his age to say something like that. We hugged each other goodbye and I don't think it was just the tequila. I think he'd finally started to trust me and let me in past the front door.
That was the last time I saw him. "

― Kendric Neal , To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1)

6 " He paused just long enough for me to know I was starting to bug him. I bug a lot of people, they usually do just what Sully did, make a show of putting down the important thing they were doing to go and do the unimportant thing I just asked, solely in the interest of getting rid of me. Sometimes I think the bulk of my societal interaction is annoying people. I wonder what that's doing to my psyche. "

― Kendric Neal , To the Metal (A Paris of the South Mystery, #1)