Quarry's Choice Read online

“Hey, I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck.”

  A smile twitched below the mustache. “So, they have turnip trucks in Ohio, do they?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been on a farm in my life. Strictly a townie.” I leaned in. “Listen, Broker, I appreciate the free meal. . .keeping in mind nothing is free, like you said. . .but if you have no objection, I’m going to head home now.”

  He gestured like a Price Is Right model to a curtain opening onto a grand prize. “You’re welcome to stay another night, my young friend. Several nights, if you like. You’ve earned a rest and a. . .bonus, perhaps? Possibly by way of a working girl? Something young and clean? Check out the redhead and the brunette, there at the end of the bar.. . .”

  “No thanks, Broker.” He seemed unusually generous tonight. “I just want to head back.”

  “But it’s eight o’clock, and so many miles before you sleep.”

  I shrugged. “I like to drive at night. Why, is there something else you want to go over?”

  It had felt throughout the meal that something more was hanging in the air than the question of Boyd as my official passive partner.

  He lowered his head while raising his eyes to me. There was something careful, even cautious about it. Very quietly, though no one was seated anywhere near us, he asked, “How do you feel about a contract involving. . .a woman?”

  With a shrug, I said, “I don’t care who hires me. Hell, I don’t even know who hires me, thanks to you.”

  “Not what I mean, Quarry.”

  I grinned at him. “Yeah, I knew that. Just rattling your chain, Broker.”

  He sighed, weight-of-the-world. “You know, I really should resent your insolence. Your impertinence. Your insubordination.”

  “Is that all? Can’t you think of anything else that starts with an ‘I’?”

  That made him smile. Maybe a little sense of humor at that. “Such a rascal.”

  “Not to mention scamp.”

  Now he raised his head and lowered his eyes to me. Still very quiet, as if hunting wabbits. “I mean, if the. . .person you were dispatched to dislodge were of the female persuasion. Would that trouble you?”

  That was arch even for the Broker.

  I said, “I don’t think it’s possible to persuade anybody to be a female. Maybe you should check with Boyd on that one.”

  “Quarry. . .a straight answer please.”

  “You won’t get one of those out of Boyd.”

  He frowned, very disapproving now.

  I pawed the air. “Okay, okay. No clowning. No, I have no problem with ‘dislodging’ the fairer sex. It’s been my experience that women are human beings, and human beings are miserable creatures, so what the heck. Sure.”

  He nodded like a priest who’d just heard a confessor agree to a dozen Hail Marys. “Good to know. Good to know. Now, Quarry, there may be upon occasion jobs in the offing. . .so to speak. . .that might require a willingness to perform as you’ve indicated.”

  Jesus. I couldn’t navigate that sentence with a fucking sextant. So I just nodded.

  “May I say that I admire your technique. I don’t wish to embarrass you, Quarry, but you have a certain almost surgical skill. . .”

  That’s what they said about Jack the Ripper.

  “. . .minimizing discomfort for our. . .subjects.”

  “Stop,” I said. “I’ll blush.”

  He leaned back in the booth. “Not everyone came back from their terrible overseas ordeal as well-adjusted as you, Quarry. Some of my boys have real problems.”

  “Imagine that. I’d like some dessert, if that’s okay.”

  I’d spotted a waiter with a dessert tray.

  The Broker gave a little bow and did that Arab hand roll thing like he was approaching a pasha. Jesus, this guy. “It would be my pleasure, Quarry. There is a quite delicious little hot-fudge sundae we make here, with local ice cream. Courtesy of the Lagomarcino family.”

  “Didn’t I do one of them in Chicago last September?”

  “Uh, no. Different family. Similar name.”

  “Rose by any other.”

  Knowing I planned to book it after the meal, I had already stowed my little suitcase in the back seat of my Green Opel GT out in the parking lot.

  So in fifteen minutes more or less, the Broker—after signing for the meal—walked me out into a cool spring night, the full moon casting a nice ivory glow on the nearby Mississippi, its surface of gentle ripples making the kind of interesting texture you find on an alligator.

  The Concort Inn was a ten-story slab of glass and steel, angled to provide a better river view for the lucky guests on that side. The hotel resided on about half a city block’s worth of cement, surrounded by parking. The lights of cars on the nearby government bridge, an ancient structure dating back to when nobody skimped on steel, were not enough to fend off the gloom of the nearby seedy warehouse area that made a less than scenic vista for the unlucky guests on the hotel’s far side. The hotel’s sign didn’t do much to help matters, either, just a rooftop billboard with some underlighting. Four lanes of traffic cutting under the bridge separated the parking lot from the riverfront, but on a Tuesday night at a quarter till nine, “traffic” was an overstatement.

  We paused outside the double doors we’d just exited. No doorman was on duty. Which was to say, no doorman was ever on duty: this was Iowa. The Broker was lighting up a cheroot, and for the first time I realized what he most reminded me of: an old riverboat gambler. It took standing here on the Mississippi riverfront to finally get that across to me. All he needed one of those Rhett Butler hats and Bret Maverick string ties. And he should probably lose the yellow pants.

  “Broker,” I said, “you knew Boyd was gay.”

  “Did I?” He smiled a little, his eyebrows rising just a touch, his face turned a flickery orange by the kitchen match he was applying to the tip of the slender cigar.

  “Of course you did,” I said. “You research all of us down to how many fillings we have, what our fathers did for a living, and what church we stopped going to.”

  He waved the match out. “Why would I pretend not to have known that Boyd is a practicing homosexual? Perhaps it’s just something I missed.”

  “Christ, Broker, he lives in Albany with a hairdresser. And I doubt at this point he needs any practice.”

  He gave me a grandiloquent shrug. “Perhaps I thought you might have been offended had I mentioned the fact.”

  “I told you. He can sleep with sheep if he wants. Boy sheep, girl sheep, I don’t give a fuck. But why hold that back?”

  He let out some cheroot smoke. He seemed vaguely embarrassed. “One of my boys strongly objected to Boyd. But somehow my instincts told me that you would not. That you would be—”

  “Broad-minded.”

  “I was going to say forward-thinking.” He folded his arms and gave me a professorly look. “It’s important we not be judgmental individuals, Quarry. That we be open-minded, unprejudiced, so that our professionalism will hold sway.”

  “Right the fuck on,” I said.

  He frowned at that, crudity never pleasing him, and the big two-tone green Fleetwood swung into the lot from the four-lane with the suddenness and speed of a boat that had gone terribly off course. The Caddy slowed as it cut across our path, the window on the rider’s side down. The face looking out at us was almost demonic but that was because its Brillo-haired owner was grimacing as he leaned the big automatic against the rolled-down window and aimed it at us, like a turret gun on a ship’s deck. A .45, I’d bet.

  But I had taken the Broker down to the pavement, even before the thunder of it shook the night and my nine millimeter was out from under my left arm and I was shooting back at the bastard just as a second shot rocketed past me, eating some metal and glass, close enough for me to feel the wind of it but not touching me, and I put two holes in that grimace, both in the forehead, above either eye, and blood was welling down over his eyes like scarlet tears as the big vehicle tore ou
t.

  The last thing I saw was his expression, the expression of a screaming man, but he wasn’t screaming, because he was dead. And dead men not only don’t tell tales, they don’t make any fucking sound, including screams.

  I didn’t chase them. Killing the shooter was enough. Maybe too much.

  The Broker, looking alarmed, said something goddamned goofy to me, as I was hauling him up. “You wore a gun to dinner with me? Are you insane, man? This is neutral territory.”

  “Tell those assholes,” I said, “and by the way—you’re welcome.”

  He was unsteady on his feet.

  The desk manager came rushing out and the Broker glanced back and shouted, “Nothing to see here! Children with cherry bombs. Franklin, keep everybody inside.”

  Franklin, an efficient little guy in a vest and bow tie (more riverboat shit), rounded up the curious, handing out drink chits.

  There was a stone bench near the double doors and I sat Broker down on it and plopped beside him.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He looked blister pale. “My dignity is bruised.”

  “Well, it doesn’t show in those pants. I killed the shooter.”

  “Good. That should send a message.”

  “Yeah, but who to? And if you correct me with ‘to whom,’ I’ll shoot you myself.”

  He frowned at me, more confusion than displeasure. “Did you get the license?”

  “Not the number. Mississippi plates, though.”

  That seemed to pale him further. “Oh dear.”

  Oh dear, huh? Must be bad.

  “Somebody may call the cops,” I said. “Not everybody who heard that, and maybe saw it, is in having free drinks right now.”

  He nodded. “You need to leave. Now.”

  “No argument.” I had already put the gun away. They weren’t coming back, not with a guy shot twice in the face they weren’t. Anyway, by now “they” was one guy, driving a big buggy into a night that was just getting darker.

  I patted him on the shoulder. That was about as friendly as we’d ever got. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll handle this. Go.”

  I went, and the night I was driving into was getting darker, too. But I had the nine millimeter on the rider’s seat to keep me company. That and my “Who’s Next” eight-track.

  TWO

  Early spring in my neck of the woods is a pleasure. “My neck of the woods” isn’t just a saying, it’s literal: I owned an A-frame cottage on Paradise Lake, a shimmering blue jewel nestled in a luxuriantly green setting. In a few weeks, Spring Break would fuck that up, sending college students swarming into nearby Lake Geneva. It’s a harbinger of summer to come, only with a nasty frantic edge that wouldn’t kick in again till late August. Girls in their late teens and early twenties in bikinis are fine by me, but not when they smell of beer puke.

  This is not to say that I wouldn’t be taking advantage of the impending (how shall I delicately put it?) influx of sweet young pussy. I still looked like a college student myself, and had learned enough from books and TV to pass for one. So if I could connect with some cupcake looking to make a memory, why not help her out? Assuming, of course, I could manage that before she got shit-faced. Hey, I’m just that kind of guy.

  But really the kind of guy I am is one who prefers hardly any people around. My circle of friends was limited to a few employees and regulars of Wilma’s Welcome Inn, a cheerfully ramshackle lodge with a tavern and convenience store, within walking distance; a handful of Lake Geneva residents—businessmen in my monthly poker game; regulars at the health club I frequented; and assorted waitresses from the Playboy Club.

  Mine was a monastic existence, really, except for the balling Bunnies and college girls part; mostly I lived a solitary life in my A-frame, sitting on the deck out back, watching the lovely rippling lake, where I swam when the weather warmed. I even had a little motorboat and sometimes fished. During the fall and winter, I curled up by the fire reading paperback westerns or watching television—I had splurged on a very tall antenna that could pull in the Chicago stations.

  With the generous advance I’d received before starting contract work, I’d been able to outright buy the cottage and my Opel GT—my two extravagances. No mortgage. No car payment. Who had a better life than mine? Particularly in the spring, when ski season was over and summer was just a threat. Superman had his Fortress of Solitude, and I had my A-frame on Paradise Lake.

  So when the Broker showed up on my doorstep, it seemed like a violation. Worlds colliding. I hadn’t even known he knew where exactly I lived. The routine so far was that I called once a week from a pay phone for instructions, which were usually just “call back next week.” Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

  Only now, here he stood, tall and morose, in a peach-colored sport shirt, lighter peach slacks, white shoes. . .and no jacket! Imagine that. More casual than I’d ever seen him, but also rumpled, with sweat stains under his arms like a regular human. It was like he walked off the golf course in the middle of a round that was going for shit.

  “Sorry to drop by unannounced like this,” he said. Barely audible, his manner distracted.

  I was in a t-shirt and cut-off jeans and probably looked like a beachcomber to him. I hadn’t even carried a gun to the door with me. Never again.

  A silver Lincoln with a vinyl top sat in my gravel drive behind my Opel GT, like an opulent tank about to fire away on the indigent. Behind the wheel of the Lincoln was a shrimpy guy named Roger who I’d met a couple of times. He was ex-military, too, but not one of the contract workers. More a bodyguard/valet.

  The Broker saw me looking. “Roger will stay put, I assure you. I know you dislike him.”

  “I don’t anything him. But you’re right I don’t want him in my house. Come in. Come in.”

  He stepped inside and I shut the door behind him. He just stood there, looking a little dazed. It had been just under a week since the parking lot incident outside the Concort Inn. I had checked in once but got no answer. That happened sometimes, so I hadn’t been overly concerned.

  Still, the shooting had been hanging over things, a gray cloud threatening rain if not getting around to it.

  Well, here was some rain. A whole Broker downpour. I stepped around him and curled a finger for him to follow and walked him down the hall past bedrooms and bathroom into the big open living room with its steel fireplace in the middle and kitchenette at left. The interior decoration was Early Dorm Room.

  “Nice,” he said, forcing a smile.

  “It’s nothing, but it’s mine. Broker, what are you doing here?”

  “. . .I need a word.”

  When did a conversation ever go well that started that way?

  I gestured toward the fridge. “Can I get you a beer or a Coke or something?”

  “Beer would be fine.”

  I pointed to the sliding glass doors onto the lake. “You go sit out on the deck. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “Fine. Uh, Quarry.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Of course I know where you live. Why would you doubt that?”

  Just like he’d known Boyd was gay.

  “It’s not that so much,” I said. “It’s just seeing you in. . .real life. . .that threw me.”

  He glanced around the space under the open-beamed Aceiling. It was a landscape of throw pillows on the floor and one of the chairs was a bean bag. “Is that what this is? Real life?”

  “Well, we don’t generally socialize, you and me. Not on my turf. But I’ll adjust.” I gestured to the glass doors again. “Go on out. I’ll get our drinks.”

  I got myself a Coke and a Coors for the Broker. He was sitting in one of the wooden deck chairs, looking out at the afternoon sun sparkling on the lake like a goddamn postcard.

  “Really lovely,” he said, as I settled in on a matching chair next to him. A little slatted wooden table between us took the drinks.

  “I like it,” I said with a shrug, slip
ping on sunglasses that had been on the table.

  He turned the spooky gray eyes on me, enough glare off the pretty lake to make him squint at me like Clint Eastwood, if Clint Eastwood were much older. “We’re not socializing, actually. Not that that would be unpleasant, but. . .this is business.”

  “Business like a contract.”

  His head angled to one side. “A contract, exactly. But not under the normal circumstances.” He shook a professorly finger at me. “And I want it understood you have my blessing. . .or let’s call it my ‘okay’. . .to pass on this, this. . . opportunity.”

  “Opportunity, huh? How so?”

  “It will pay fifty thousand dollars and all expenses.”

  That was an opportunity, all right.

  I shrugged, as if unimpressed. “Well, you said it wasn’t normal. So how else isn’t it normal?”

  An eyebrow raised. “You’ll know who the client is.”

  That got a blink out of me. “We’re breaking what-do-you-call-it, protocol, aren’t we?”

  “Indeed we are.”

  The Broker was one of the few people I ever knew who used that word in human speech. Not that there’s any other kind.

  I had a sip of Coke. “So who is this client?”

  He looked out at the lake. “Who do you think I’m talking about, young man? Me.”

  * * *

  That did make sense.

  Somebody had tried to gun him down last week, and the Broker had been understandably shaken, and still was. I didn’t know enough about the inter-workings of his business—hell, the workings period—to know whether being on the firing line himself was something that the Broker expected to occur, from time to time. As part of the price of doing business.

  But I would have to say such an occurrence must have been rare, because six days later, the Broker appeared still to be reeling and, more than that, was right here smack in the middle of my world. The devil looking out at Paradise Lake.

  “Obviously,” I said, “this relates to last week’s fun and games.”

  Slow single nod. “Obviously.”

  “And in the days since, you’ve determined who was behind that attempt.”

  Two nods, not so slow. “I have indeed. And I have your keen eyes to thank.”