Quarry's Climax Read online

  The Broker, for all his pomp, knew how to take advantage of my circumstance. He understood that I resented having been paid and even honored by my country for killing a bunch of yellow people for no fucking reason in particular and then getting vili-fucking-fied for murdering a single goddamn white son of a bitch who had it coming. I guess I hadn’t figured out the life-isn’t-fair part.

  This was my home turf—my premises, right?—so I did not make any effort to make myself presentable to the Broker. He was due to arrive late afternoon and he would have to accept me in the Wisconsin sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers I’d been wearing all day. I lived alone—my little blue heeler, Pooch, had died last year, something I’m not really over to this day—and I was not about to suck up to the guy. Not that I ever had.

  On the other hand, the A-frame was as neat as a Marine’s footlocker. I don’t like to live in a mess. There’s a big central room with a fireplace and some sectional couches, a loft overlooking it where the 25” TV and a Barcalounger live, and a kitchenette with a long counter and new appliances. Several bedrooms are down the hall and there’s one bathroom.

  The knock at the front door came at four P.M. He was on my doorstep looking like a bank president who had lost his way to his country club’s golf course. He was tall, six-two, with broad shoulders on a trim frame, his tan making the icy blue eyes stand out, as did the white eyebrows and mustache that went with his prematurely white hair, worn longish like all the old farts were doing.

  But was he an old fart? I never could get a fix on his age. He might be forty and he might be sixty. His long, narrow face had few wrinkles, as if he hadn’t used it much for anything but eating and maybe breathing. As for why he might have been on his way to the links, he was wearing a dark brown suede sport coat, bronze turtleneck, gray-and-black-and-brown plaid flares, and brown hush puppies, a matching bronze handkerchief in his breast pocket.

  All he lacked was a five-iron to lean on.

  “Quarry,” he said, voice radio-announcer resonant, and held his hand out for me to shake.

  I did. It was a firm clasp, no moisture, a little cool, like greeting a statue.

  Looking past him at my little blacktop driveway, I noted that his latest Cadillac—the same arctic blue as his eyes, a custom color I’d wager—did not have a driver.

  “You’re alone?” I asked.

  “Yes. Quite alone.”

  Is there a difference between “alone” and “quite alone”? You tell me.

  I ushered him in.

  “Lovely drive up here.” He’d come from the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities most likely, since his home base was his hotel. “Simply alive with color.”

  Well, all those leaves were dying, but I understood what he meant.

  He was taking the lead down the short hall and I was following, frowning at his back. He almost never went anywhere without one of his…one of his what? Bodyguards? Protégés? These were young men, Vietnam vets like me mostly, who seemed to be in training for something—possibly the kind of work I did.

  Sometimes I suspected a sexual aspect, but I had heard from Boyd that the Broker had a beautiful young wife and also that he was known to fool around with other (to use a Broker-ish phrase) “willing wenches.”

  “We could sit on the deck,” I said, gesturing to the sliding glass doors. “But it’ll start getting cold any time now.”

  “We’ll stay inside,” he said. He settled onto the sectional couch, facing the black metal fireplace.

  “Coors all right?”

  “Please.”

  I got myself one too and delivered his, and sat on the couch section angled to his left. I sipped the beer, then set it on a coaster on the low-slung glass-topped coffee table.

  I asked, “Problem with the job?”

  Vegas had been last week.

  He raised a hand like a kid in class. “No, no! All the feedback has been positive.”

  “A little soon for another contract, isn’t it?”

  He seemed distracted. He was staring at the fireplace as if the flames were making particularly interesting patterns and shapes. Only there wasn’t a fire going in it.

  “It’s…” Tiny sigh. “…I find myself facing a particularly unusual situation, Quarry.”

  He gave me the name “Quarry,” by the way. He said I reminded him of something carved out of rock. It was a kind of code name, but I also sometimes used it as an alias on the job. I had several driver’s licenses with Quarry as a last name. Anyway.…

  “The last job,” I said, “was unusual enough. You don’t usually pay me not to kill somebody.”

  He smiled a little, still distant, not looking at me. Staring at the nonexistent fire.

  “Quarry, perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve come to lean on you when the circumstances are…unusual…unique. When someone with the ability to do more than just bring violence to bear is called for.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  And I had noticed that. More than a few times, he’d sent me in undercover, having me gather up-close-and-personal intel, among other (as he said) unusual or unique assignments that went beyond simply hitting some fucker. Like the Vegas gig, for example.

  Now he looked at me, head swiveling on his neck but the rest of him still facing forward. His gaze was hard and unblinking, yet somehow it revealed a human being back behind there. Not an exemplary human being perhaps, possibly a sociopath and certainly a twisted and self-interested one. But human.

  “You have exceptional instincts, Quarry. You knew at once that my coming unaccompanied bore significance.”

  Now he was just blowing smoke up my skirt. Anybody with half a brain—Boyd, say—would have read the Broker’s solo appearance as a red flag.

  “Fuckin’ A,” I said. “I’m special. Like the kids on the short bus. What’s this about, anyway?”

  He sipped beer. Placed the can on a coaster. Studied the non-fire. Swung the ice blues my way; they tightened, like screws turning.

  “I recently declined a contract,” he said.

  I thought about that for a second or two, then shrugged. “I’d imagine you do that fairly often.”

  “Yes, but this time the reason why I declined the job required obfuscation on my part.”

  Every time I talked to this pompous motherfucker, he laid a word on me I’d never heard in conversation before.

  “Okay,” I said. “I think that means you lied to whoever offered the job about why you took a pass.”

  He nodded. “Precisely. Because the real reason would not have gone over well.”

  Jesus! Did I have to drag each thought out of him?

  “Why was that, Broker?”

  He swallowed. The eyes relaxed, or maybe surrendered. “Because this was a contract on someone I do not wish to see killed.”

  Again, I thought for a few moments—maybe more than a few—then said, “I might know where this is going…”

  He raised a hand. Collected his thoughts. I’d never seen him like this.

  “Quarry, as you might well imagine, I have many dealings and investments that are, let us say, outside the realm of the business in which you and I are engaged. Some are what are colloquially termed ‘money laundries,’ while others are simply profitable concerns. Money-makers.”

  “Okay.”

  He sighed. “Before I continue with this line of talk, I must ask you to take a deep breath and contemplate. You see, this is outside the agreement we made some years ago in a sleazy apartment in the Skid Row of Los Angeles. This requires you to enter with me into a dangerous domain that carries with it potentially dire consequences.”

  “How does it pay?”

  That made him smile, just a little, the mustache going along for the ride. “It will pay exceptionally well. Twenty-five thousand now, twenty-five after, and all expenses are mine. I will be able to pave your way along the path…a treacherous path, but one I have confidence that you can navigate.”

  I squinted at him, as if seeing him better would bring him into
focus. “But if you tell me what this is, I can’t turn it down, right? I have to sign on.”

  “Yes. Eyes wide open…but blind, so to speak.”

  I thought a while. Shrugged. “It’s good money. Risks don’t bother me, unless they’re stupid. Shoot. So to speak.”

  He took in a deep breath and let it out. Now his torso swiveled to me and his expression was faintly, very faintly, smiling. “Are you familiar with a particularly tasteless publication called Climax?”

  Of course I was. I read every monthly issue. It had very funny vulgar cartoons, an acid pox-on-all-your-houses political slant, and had broken barriers and taboos by publishing naked beauties with their legs spread and sharing a view of what had heretofore only been available to their gynecologists and maybe their lovers. Lately a bunch of court cases had put Climax in the headlines, the editor/publisher facing obscenity charges.

  “Vaguely,” I said with a shrug. “Raunchy skin mag, isn’t it?”

  The white eyebrows raised and lowered in the tan face. “To say the least! I certainly had no idea it would become a success in its field, let alone a cause célèbre.”

  I sat forward. “You say that like you had something to do with it.”

  He sighed. His expression was one I’d never seen from him before. What was it? Shit! Embarrassment! The Broker was embarrassed!

  “Just because I might invest in a hamburger chain,” he said somewhat stiffly, “does not necessarily mean such cuisine is to my taste.”

  “You’re an investor. You backed Climax.”

  One-shoulder shrug. “Several of us did. It began as a money laundry but turned unexpectedly profitable. This man in Memphis was poor white trash, as they say, but he displayed a genius for making bars and strip clubs pay. He became so successful at it that he began talking about expanding into the magazine field. The conditions were ideal for passing money through, as all of us felt the chances of his success in an already crowded arena were minimal.” The Broker rolled his eyes. “Then he came up with his grand idea of depicting women in all their hirsute glory, and the money began to stream in!”

  “Max Climer,” I said. “That’s his name, right?”

  I knew damn well it was his name. In just a year or so, he had become as famous as Playboy’s Hugh Hefner and Penthouse’s Bob Guccione.

  “That’s indeed his name.”

  I was frowning again. “You said you turned down a contract. So who did Climer want killed?”

  The Broker’s hands flew up like Butterfly McQueen in Gone With the Wind crying Lawsy-mercy. “No one! There are those who want him killed.”

  I gaped at him. “ Climer’s the contract you turned down?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  I sat back. “Who wants him dead?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I dealt him half a smirk. “Broker. Remember who you’re talking to.”

  “I have no idea, Quarry!” He heaved a weight-of-the-world sigh worthy of Atlas himself. “You must understand, son. The business I’m in…the business we’re in…is multi-layered, designed to protect all concerned. Including ourselves. Insulation every step of the way. You never know who hired you. Neither, in most cases, do I.”

  I was shaking my head. “Hard to buy, Broker.”

  “Perhaps.” The eyebrows flicked up and down. “And I… generally know the, shall we say, direction from which a contract is coming. Most often it’s from the nationwide crime syndicate—various factions thereof, that is. And remember that the straight citizens who seek our help most often do so through someone they’ve encountered along their mostly lawful way who operate in the left-handed endeavor of organized crime. Many respectable businessman—captains of industry included—have turned to such sources for financing at times. And, networking through those sources, they turn to us for the removal of inconvenient associates, or troublesome personal ties.”

  What he meant was business partners or rivals, and wives or mistresses or the lovers thereof. Thereof! Now he had me doing it.

  The Broker flipped a hand. “Those who might like to see Max Climer depart from the ranks of the living are numerous and varied. A veritable legion.”

  That seemed a silly exaggeration, even for this pretentious prick.

  I said, “Come on, Broker—surely you can work backward through your contacts, discreetly, and come up with the client you rejected.”

  “Possibly,” he admitted. “But I must not do anything that might lead back to me. The ramifications would be unfortunate and severe. The entire network of professionals like yourself and Boyd would be endangered. No, I can’t go through the back door—you must find a window.”

  I sipped Coors. “Well, if you’re looking for ideas…Boyd and I could go to Memphis…Climer still operates out of there, right, his clubs and his magazine?”

  The Broker nodded.

  I went on: “Boyd and I could stake out this Climer joker and see if somebody else is doing the same. We might be able to take out the hitters. Should be able to. But that doesn’t take care of the bigger problem—whoever wants Climer dead will just try again. Hire someone else.”

  His lips twitched and his mustache bristled. “Your analysis is inarguable.”

  That meant he agreed, I guessed.

  The arctic eyes froze mine. “Your job will be to stop the impending assassination of this pornographer and to determine who put it in motion.”

  “By stop it, you mean kill the team sent to do the job?”

  He gave one small nod.

  “And,” I said, “by determining who put it in motion, you mean kill the son of a bitch who hired it?”

  Another small nod.

  “I’m not sure I know how to do that,” I said. “Boyd and I can track another team—that’s tricky but doable. But how can I be expected to find out who hired it when somebody as connected as you can’t?”

  “Won’t,” he corrected me. “As I explained, I don’t dare. It would risk—”

  “Yeah, I got that. But it gets back to the insulation concept. Assuming the hitters are pros, they probably work like Boyd and me, like all your guys—meaning they have no contact with whoever hired them.”

  He was nodding, slowly. “I believe—call it an educated guess—that someone close to the pornographer will be the client. I have already provided Boyd with a list of names with photos and rundowns of those I suspect. He’ll obviously share that intelligence with you.”

  I frowned. “Wait, you’ve already talked to Boyd? You went to him first?” Somehow that seemed insulting. My feelings were a little hurt. I was the number one guy on the two-man team—right? Right?

  He sensed my reaction. “Quarry, Boyd is considerably more malleable than you. I knew you would be sharper, shrewder, and would require a more detailed, sophisticated sell.”

  More smoke up my skirt. But it felt kind of good.

  “I also knew,” he went on, “that if Boyd was on board, your loyalty to your partner would be a factor in my favor. You would not want to subject him to some stranger as a partner—not in facing so delicate and dangerous a task. Nor would you want to deny your associate the chance for so handsome a payday. You have too great a sense of honor.”

  Okay, now that was a little too much smoke.

  “How is having rundowns on the suspects helpful,” I said, “when Boyd and I are sitting stakeout?”

  “No need for both of you to take the passive end, not at all times. You’ll take active, as usual. But I’ve arranged to get you inside the Climax organization. You see, I’ve been able to suggest to Mr. Climer that he may have a quisling in his woodpile.”

  “I know what’s usually in a Southern white guy’s woodpile, but what the fuck is a quisling?”

  His eyes narrowed. “A betrayer. A traitor. I’ve seen to it that you have been recommended by an associate of mine to Mr. Climer as a minder.”

  “A what?”

  “A guardian. A defender. A bodyguard, if you will.”

  Like the guy in Vegas w
ho I duct-taped into submission. Only with a gun.

  “So I work from the inside again,” I said.

  “You are the only one of my boys I would trust with such an assignment. Such a responsibility.”

  “Right, ’cause I’m unique and shit.”

  He smiled small and shrugged big.

  I sighed. Narrowed my eyes at him. “Fifty for stopping the hit from going down,” I said, “and another fifty for the guy behind it.”

  He took a moment to consider that, and another nod, more definite, followed.

  “You can tell Boyd it’s a go,” I said.

  The Broker stood, smoothed his suede jacket. “You can tell him yourself, Quarry. He’s already in Memphis…would you like to join me at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club for supper? I’m a key holder.”

  So was I, but he didn’t need to know how sophisticated I really was. I got into more respectable attire and let him buy me a meal. When we were served by a Bunny who I’d dated and banged, I kept it to myself.

  He didn’t have a corner on all the secrets.

  THREE

  I flew out of Mitchell in Milwaukee again, a ninety-minute flight to Memphis International. As was my habit, I took a cab to the nearest sketchy-looking used car dealership, where I could pay cash and get title to match my phony ID (John R. Quarry) no questions asked. The sunny if humid weather encouraged me to go a little flashy, so I paid two grand of the Broker’s money for a pale green ’69 Mustang convertible.

  The ride to downtown Memphis, mid-afternoon, took only twenty minutes. I’d been here before, on one of my first jobs for the Broker, but that was almost five years ago. The area was still mostly a desolate, boarded-up place whose hard times had gotten harder after the murder of Martin Luther King; but it was starting to work its way back. I parked on South 2nd and, in my gray t-shirt, jeans and tennies, strolled to the Rendezvous and the best ribs in town, after which I walked it off on the riverfront.