The First Quarry (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback)) Read online

  Acclaim For the Work of MAX ALLAN COLLINS!

  “Max Allan Collins is the closest thing we have to a 21st century Mickey Spillane and...will please any fan of old-school, hardboiled crime fiction.”

  —This Week

  “No one can twist you through a maze with as much intensity and suspense as Max Allan Collins.”

  —Clive Cussler

  “Collins never misses a beat...All the stand-up pleasures of dime-store pulp with a beguiling level of complexity.”

  —Booklist

  “Collins has an outwardly artless style that conceals a great deal of art.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “A suspenseful, wild night’s ride [from] one of the finest writers of crime fiction that the U.S. has produced.”

  —Book Reporter

  “This book is about as perfect a page turner as you’ll find.”

  —Library Journal

  “Bristling with suspense and sexuality, this book is a welcome addition to the Hard Crime Case library.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A total delight...fast, surprising, and well-told.”

  —Deadly Pleasures

  “Strong and compelling reading.”

  —Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  “Max Allan Collins [is] like no other writer.”

  —Andrew Vachss

  “Collins breaks out a really good one, knocking over the hard-boiled competition (Parker and Leonard for sure, maybe even Puzo) with a one-two punch: a feisty storyline told bittersweet and wry...nice and taut...the book is unputdownable. Never done better.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Rippling with brutal violence and surprisingly sexuality...I savored every turn.”

  —Bookgasm

  “Masterful.”

  —Jeffrey Deaver

  “Collins has a gift for creating low-life believable characters...a sharply focused action story that keeps the reader guessing till the slam-bang ending. A consummate thriller from one of the new masters of the genre.”

  —Atlanta Journal Constitution

  “For fans of the hardboiled crime novel...this is powerful and highly enjoyable reading, fast moving and very, very tough.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Entertaining...full of colorful characters...a stirring conclusion.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Collins makes it sound as though it really happened.”

  —New York Daily News

  “An exceptional storyteller.”

  —San Diego Union Tribune

  “A gift for intricate plotting and cinematically effective action scenes.”

  —Jon L. Breen, Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers

  “Nobody does it better than Max Allan Collins.”

  —John Lutz

  She turned around and the nine millimeter was huge in her orange-nailed hand. Her expression was a little crazy.

  She said, “You know I could just kill the son of a bitch.”

  “Not a good idea. Give me that.”

  “Or maybe you could. Would you kill him for me?” She seemed a little drunk. Maybe that hadn’t been her first beer.

  “No. That’s not a toy.”

  She handed it to me, with a babyish pout. I took the weapon and held it in both hands; I’d never felt the metal so cold.

  She plopped down next to me again. “One of us should kill that miserable prick.”

  “Yeah, well, not tonight.”

  Then she got up, suddenly, and ran to the bathroom. When she came back, she positioned herself in front of me.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  I told her.

  “I was in junior high when you were born,” she said.

  She took off her sweater, yanked it over her head with magnificent casualness. She stared down at me; so did the bullet bra.

  Her hands went behind her to undo the bra. I looked away, the gun still in my hands. This was wrong. I could get in ten kinds of trouble. A hundred. She was a beautiful, sad, troubled woman and she was taking her bra off and I was about to get fucked several ways, not all of them good...

  SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

  LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block

  ROBBIE’S WIFE by Russell Hill

  THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer

  THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

  BLACKMAILER by George Axelrod

  SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

  FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

  KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

  SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

  DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

  DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

  A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

  MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust

  ZERO COOL by John Lange

  SHOOTING STAR/SPIDERWEB by Robert Bloch

  THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin

  SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald E. Westlake

  NO HOUSE LIMIT by Steve Fisher

  BABY MOLL by John Farris

  THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

  The First QUARRY

  by Max Allan Collins

  A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

  (HCC-048)

  First Hard Case Crime edition: October 2008

  Published by

  Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street

  London

  SE1 0UP

  in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Copyright © 2008 by Max Allan Collins

  Cover painting copyright © 2008 by Ken Laager

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-364-9

  E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-642-8

  Cover design by Cooley Design Lab

  Design direction by Max Phillips

  www.maxphillips.net

  Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

  The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

  To Quarry’s old pal, Gary Meyers

  “Fear—jealousy—money—revenge—and protecting someone you love.”

  PLAYWRIGHT FREDERICK KNOTT, LISTING MURDER MOTIVES

  Dial “M” for Murder

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  DECEMBER 1970

 
; ONE

  The night after Christmas and all through the house, it was colder than fuck.

  The home was new, brand-new, with the various smells of paint, plastic and disinfectant you might expect. Even the carpet I was sitting on, next to a window onto the quiet street, had a chemical odor. No Christmas decorations lingered here, because the split-level four-bedroom affair was as empty as the boxes littering curbsides across America.

  And this was America, all right—Iowa City, Iowa, the heartland, the street out front not really a street at all, but a former county road recently renamed Country Vista, which was ironic because the builders who’d invaded this stretch of farmland-bordered real estate had nothing so much in mind as blotting out a country vista.

  Two houses sat on corners on either side of a brand-new lane that made a T with Country Vista, and I sat in one of those houses, the beige split-level on the left as you faced the renamed county road. This new lane had no name yet, just as its dozen split-levels (so far) had no inhabitants; the waiting dwellings squatted on sloping future lawns—snow-pocked dirt right now—with room for an entire development to develop beyond.

  This must have pissed off the people across the way no end. The houses opposite had plenty of breathing room, big yards for little cottages, no two alike—from log to stone to brick—with only three visible from my window, even if I craned my neck either direction. Country Vista had once been quiet, even secluded, with trees and bushes and privacy. Right now it still was, though any non-evergreen trees and bushes were skeletal with clumps of white from last week’s snowfall.

  On the other hand, the people in those varied cottages might not have minded as much as you’d think. I knew the cobblestone cottage almost directly across from my split-level was owned by the university and provided as a perk to a visiting professor, and my best guess was the not-too-nearby neighbors were similarly academics making a temporary home of Iowa City. Or anyway five miles from Iowa City, which is what Country Vista was. So the residents of these cottages were just passing through, and people just passing through can only get so indignant.

  The house, my split-level, was indeed cold, but I wasn’t, particularly. I’d known that though the electricity was on, the heat wasn’t, and that I dared not turn it on or the lights either, nor was hauling in furniture a good idea. In fact, I wasn’t even sleeping here—I was making use of a Holiday Inn just four miles away. But I had brought in a space heater and that was keeping things nice and toasty. I had thermal underwear from JC Penney and a thermos of hot chocolate filled at a 7-Eleven (coffee is for grown-ups) where I’d also purchased some plastic-wrapped sandwiches, turkey and cheese, ham and cheese.

  Not a bad set-up.

  I wondered what cops did, when they had to do surveillance this time of year. Maybe in a big city it wouldn’t be a big deal, sitting in a car with the engine going; but in a college town like Iowa City, and particularly on a quiet country lane like Country Vista, you would stick out like some asshole sitting in his car doing surveillance.

  As far as Iowa City itself went, I didn’t stick out at all. I certainly didn’t look like a guy who’d come to town to take out a college professor. And by “take out,” I don’t mean invite to dinner—I was here to put a bullet in the brain (or heart, my option) of a supposedly fairly well-known writer called K.J. Byron. This was a contract kill, and I was the contract killer, even if I looked like just another college kid.

  My hair wasn’t as long as most of the guys in this town, but it was longer than it had been, not so long ago. You see while the kids in Iowa City were going to college, I had gone to Vietnam, where I had unwittingly learned a trade. I’d been a sniper, but this job would require close-up work, which was fine. Dead is dead.

  Funny thing, the only kids wearing Army khaki or camouflage were hippies, sometimes painting peace symbols on their back or whatever. Any returning vets going to school on Uncle Sugar wouldn’t be caught dead in military gear, although plenty had been caught wounded in it. Certainly my hair wasn’t long enough to pass as one of the Make Love Not War crowd, so I probably looked more preppie or frat boy in my sweaters and blue jeans and corduroy jacket. Only the heavy boots might have given me away, but in Iowa this time of year, not really.

  No one, including you, would have made me for any kind of killer, not even one recently back from Nam. The brown hair, long enough to touch my ears, the baby face, the one-hundred-fifty-five pounds on a five ten frame, were nothing threatening, and mine was a face in the crowd.

  Of course there wasn’t much of a crowd in a college town during Christmas break. Only local kids right now, and foreign students, and the handful who for whatever reason hadn’t gone home for mistletoe and holly, by gosh by golly. Older students with apartments might spend a handful of holiday days with Mom and Dad, and would be home soon. But a downtown hopping with bars and boutiques and record stores and head shops that was usually crawling with college kids wasn’t.

  I’m not what you’d call a people person, so that didn’t bother me, other than wishing I had additional nonentities around to blend in with. I could have used more hair on my face—these hirsute hippies at least had an excuse in this cold—but if I stopped in for a beer and a burger somewhere, I fit in fine. A university is big enough that nobody, not even a bartender, wonders why they haven’t seen you before.

  I had arrived this morning, having flown into Cedar Rapids where I rented a car, a little dark blue Ford Maverick. Iowa City was a half hour drive. I’d checked into the Holiday Inn and had purchased a few things, including the space heater, at a nearby Kmart. I already knew I’d be squatting in that split-level; I even had a key to the place.

  Parking in the driveway or pulling into the garage might have aroused suspicion, right across from the target’s residence. The Broker—more about him later —had provided me with a second set of keys that had allowed me to park in the garage of the empty finished home behind mine. I’d been told I could risk camping out in either house, if I didn’t mind the cold. Well, I minded the cold; even a Holiday Inn is preferable to cold.

  But I did find it interesting that the Broker had all these keys. He knew things, all sorts of things, and my surveillance was only designed for the most basic fact-finding—specifically, what pattern did Professor Byron maintain over the Christmas break.

  Establishing the pattern of a target is key, particularly if collateral damage is undesirable, and let me be frank: collateral damage is where I draw the line. I was willing to protect myself with the death of an innocent bystander, if my survival was at stake; but going around killing people willy-nilly was for psychopaths, not professionals.

  Collateral Damage, oddly enough, was the name of a book Professor Byron had written, a so-called non-fiction novel about death by friendly fire in Vietnam. I hadn’t read the book or heard of it, either, but the Broker said it was a bestseller and a pretty big deal. Supposedly the professor had written several critically acclaimed novels that had stiffed but was now making a new name for himself with this non-fiction novel dodge, and I say dodge because I never went to college but I know novels aren’t non-fiction.

  Before I had taken this job—not the job of taking out the prof, but the job itself, of killing people for money—I had done a certain amount of soul searching. I had learned to kill in the jungle of Vietnam and figured I could kill in the zoo of America just as easily. When you take somebody out with a sniper scope, though, or you return fire in a rice paddy fire fight, that’s self-defense, even if a sniper represents a preemptive kind of self-defense.

  A professional killer taking out a target isn’t self-defense, obviously; but I didn’t figure killing somebody who was already dead was anything I couldn’t live with. Because anybody that somebody else had decided needed to be killed was already dead, at least when that somebody else was powerful enough and determined enough to go the extra yard and hire a killer.

  And yet I wouldn’t be the killer, not really. I’d just be the mechanism. The killer had hir
ed the job. And if it wasn’t me, it would be somebody else getting paid. And fuck somebody else, anyway.

  Now the Broker had provided the target’s pattern. Somebody had been in before me to do surveillance, and had taken it all down, and I’d been provided with the data. But it was pretty worthless—the Broker knew that—and I’d been told I’d have to basically start from scratch. The hope was that the prof’s life during the uncharted territory of his Christmas break would be leisurely. Maybe he’d burrow in and write a book or something.

  No such luck.

  I had taken a chance and got started at dusk, parking the Maverick in the garage of the split-level behind my surveillance post (as per instruction), and I had barely settled in at the window, my thermos nearby, a little portable radio quietly playing an FM station that mixed hits with album cuts, when the first female showed up at the cobblestone cottage.

  She was driving a little red Fiat and was small and fair and pretty in a Breck Girl kind of way. I took her for a blonde but truth be told she had on a rabbit-fur hat that looked like a beehive hairdo gone wacky (wackier) and I couldn’t see any hair except for dark eyebrows. Her coat was light green corduroy with a rabbit collar like the hat and she had similarly fur-trimmed tan suede boots with heels. Her legs were black, or that is, her leggings were.

  I shut off the radio and cranked the window open enough to let in the cold and some outside sound.

  The way she slammed the car door, you just knew she was pissed off. Then she tromped up the graduated cement sidewalk with similar irritated determination; up on the little stoop, she opened the storm door and then her tan-gloved right fist hammered the dark wood of the front door like she was driving a nail. There was a brass knocker, but she apparently preferred hammering.

  She paused, waited for ten seconds, then hammered some more.

  Nothing.

  I knew the prof was in there—I’d seen him moving around through the front room windows, whose curtains were open.