SHOEDOG by George Pelecanos

Finished Su 9/17/23

This is a novel that I got as an eBook from the library because I loved 'KING SUCKERMAN' by Pelecanos. 

It was a short novel and I liked it even more than 'KING SUCKERMAN'.

From the book's page at KIRKUS REVIEWS:

"Constantine, a drifter who's been too many places to care about anything that won't fit into his backpack, hitches a ride into trouble when Polk, the old man who picks him up outside DC, stops off, and gets turned down, for the $20,000 in dirty money his Korean War buddy Grimes owes him. Instead, Grimes enlists Polk and Constantine for another score: a pair of liquor-store heists that'll bring in enough for all three of them and the five other guys on the job. Within the hour, Constantine has casually seduced Grimes's classy girlfriend, Delia, and you probably don't need to finish this sentence. Don't skip a page of the book, though, or you'll miss a canny portrait of the shoe salesman (a stripped-clown echo of Nick Stefanos in A Firing Offense, 1992, and Nick's Trip, 1993) who teaches Constantine about Life, or a late-blooming noir retrospect that's so dead-eyed that the sentiment takes on a comic edge. More fun than a Late Show marathon—starting with The Asphalt Jungle."

The title refers to a character in the book, Randolph, who is a shoe salesman and one of the men on the robbery crew. There is a story about a dog who is scared to walk across a bridge. The way he makes it is to concentrate on the ground directly in front of his nose until he makes it to the end. This is the way that the shoe salesman relates to his job. "Head down, and concentrate".