Quarry in the Middle Read online

  He thought about that. He was trying to go pale under the tan, and it was damn near working.

  “Dickie, how subtle do I have to be about this?”

  He blinked at me. The fucker could blink, after all. “Subtle?”

  “Yeah. If I shoot this prick, will we have the law to answer to? If we have a dead body on our hands, one with a bullet or two in him, can you have him removed?”

  He twitched a frown. “If a deputy shows up, we could handle it. Could be expensive. I mean, it would be right out in the open. You saying, if he was behind the wheel of his car, and you shot him, and we had a car with a bullet hole in the windshield and—”

  “A driver with a bullet in his head, could you deal with it?”

  He flinched. “Is there another way?”

  “Might be. Might be.”

  We both just sat there a while.

  “You’re asking a lot,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “You come in with this wild story. It’s credible, in its way, and yet it’s fantastic.”

  “I know.”

  “Is there someone I could call?”

  “You mean do I have references?”

  “I guess that was a stupid question.”

  “Well…funny thing is, I did a job like this for the guy who used to own this place. I was never here before—I met him at a much smaller operation, in Des Moines. Frank Tree. Did you buy this place from him?”

  “No. I heard of him—he’s the guy who opened the Paddlewheel, turned it from a warehouse into a goldmine. It came to me through my Chicago friends. Gave me and my wife a chance to buy in. They’re silent partners.”

  “Yeah. Silent until they get noisy.” I stood. “Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Just out to your parking lot.”

  He looked alarmed. “Why, is he out there?”

  “No! Hell, no. He’ll be anywhere but there.”

  Truth was, I didn’t know the details of Monahan’s approach. I couldn’t imagine he would use the Buick he’d bought in Des Moines for the job. How would he get back? Call a fucking cab?

  Actually, he probably could ditch the car at the scene and walk to somewhere and call a cab and then take the train or a bus home or anyway a bus to an airport where…

  Fuck it. Those details weren’t important. Stopping him was. And convincing Cornell to let me stop him. I was almost there with Dickie boy. Just needed to close the sale.

  In the elevator, I said, “What’s the story about that farmhouse across the way?”

  “That? Farmer sold out to one of those big corporate farms, maybe ten years ago, everything but the house itself and a small plot of land. He and his wife lived in that goddamn hovel, and then after his wife died, the farmer stayed on himself. He finally did the world the courtesy of dying, and about four months ago, I bought the property. We’ll build a hotel over there, as soon as all the right wheels have been greased. We’d need to buy some of that expensive farm land around there to…why in the world are you asking?”

  “That’s where the back-up guy has been staking you out, probably for a couple weeks.”

  “The hell!”

  “The hell,” I said with a nod.

  Soon I’d led him out into his own parking lot and over to my Sunbird. I got around behind and used the key to open the trunk and let him have a look at the fetus-curled blond kid. The blood on him was black and crusty now and he was very white; it made him look even blonder, too clean-cut for the Poison t-shirt. Lots of blood turned to crunchy-looking black had pooled and dried on the trunk floor.

  “What is it you guys call it,” I said. “The boot?”

  “Fuck me. Who’s this?”

  “The back-up guy. I took him out on spec.”

  “Christ.” He looked at me with a ghastly, meltingwax expression; his face had managed to go white despite the tan, finally. “What the hell’s this going to cost me?”

  “It’s like drugs—first one’s free. Ask your little girlfriend about it.” I shut the lid. “Well?”

  “Twenty K it is.”

  We went back inside to talk some more.

  Chapter Five

  A line of trees defined the far end of the Paddlewheel parking lot, the moonlight a memory now, the sky doing its darkest-before-the dawn routine. Around four-thirty a.m., I nosed the Sunbird into a slot next to the river in the last row of spaces, flush against those trees. The lot was still about half-full, the deputy parked four spaces down, where he’d backed in to better fulfill his security duties.

  A trick of surveillance is to sit in the back seat and—since the deputy was asleep—he didn’t notice me get out and make the shift to the rear.

  The lot had four light poles, two on either side, and was rather under-illuminated, which helped me blend into the darkness of the back seat. I got comfortable. I’d made a run back to the motel and was now in black—black t-shirt, black jeans, black socks, black running shoes, even my fucking underwear was black. All it would have taken for full commando was some black smeared under my eyes, but I didn’t go overboard. Also, I couldn’t risk black gloves, because that would stand out in this summer weather, whereas the black attire could otherwise be just a fashion choice.

  By four-forty-five, the lot had cleared out. Most of those heading for their cars were flat out staggering, and I was glad I wasn’t going to be out on the road with them where it was dangerous. Not that Deputy Fife paid the obvious drunks any heed. At least he’d woken up when a slamming car door had delivered him a wake-up call.

  By five-fifteen, the deputy was gone and the lot had cleared out but for a dozen cars toward my end—employee cars—and waitresses and satin-vested security guys and other workers came staggering out, too, presumably not drunk, just night-shift beat. As these cars were pulling out, Monahan in his green Buick Regal glided in, and backed into the deputy’s now vacant space.

  He didn’t glance my way—the employee cars were all down at this end, even Cornell’s (a navy-blue Corvette), so Monahan surely assumed the Sunbird was one of those. I was slouched in back, and I doubted he’d made me. He probably wouldn’t recognize the Sunbird, either—if he’d paid that much attention to me, he would either have bailed by now or dealt with me over at the Wheelhouse.

  No, I wasn’t on the prick’s radar. I’d bet my life on it. Not a figure of a speech.

  Pretty soon, if Richard Cornell was staying true to his pattern, he would be exiting the Paddlewheel and loping all the way across the lot to his Corvette, making long shadows as dawn presented itself. Monahan would hit the gas, work up some speed, and pretend to be heading for the exit down by the building, but would swerve and smack Cornell like a bug on a windshield. If this didn’t clearly kill Cornell, Monahan would back up and make sure a wheel crushed the mark’s head.

  Then Monahan would be gone, headed somewhere to dump the vehicle.

  But Cornell wouldn’t be coming out of that building, not any time soon, at least. And I knew that if I didn’t make my move soon—before it got suspicious that the Paddlewheel’s impresario wasn’t sticking to his pattern—then the Vehicular Homicide specialist would hightail.

  This wasn’t a science. I could only predict so much. But Monahan wouldn’t be here if he’d checked in with his blond back-up man, or I should say tried to check in with him. As far as Monahan likely knew, the blond kid was somewhere over near that farmhouse, watching his partner’s back. My sense was that I was on top of this thing.

  So I went into my act.

  I played at waking up in the back seat, yawning and blinking and rubbing my face, like a drunk who’d crawled back there to sober up and had just come around, now that rosy-fingered dawn had slapped him awake.

  I got out of the Sunbird’s back seat with all the subtlety of a street mime, making sure the nine millimeter Browning nudging my spine didn’t show. I came around as if to get in front, behind the wheel, then paused and looked right at Monahan, seated behind his own wheel, and squin
ted, and grinned, as if noticing an old, dear friend.

  Staggering some, I headed right for him, not quickly; his window was down and his bland insurance salesman’s face was turned my way, the expression blank but the eyes tight with irritation and perhaps, yes, suspicion.

  “My pool buddy!” I said, sloppily, holding out my arms and hands like Jolson singing “Mammy.” “Pal! You got a sec?”

  He said, “What?” Seldom in the history of mankind has that word been uttered with less enthusiasm.

  I leaned against his car like a drive-in waitress. “I tried to sleep it off, dude, but I am still drunker than shit. Can I hitch a ride to the motel? Pretty please?”

  This was delivered in an imitation drunk fashion, not as broad as Foster Brooks, but I was pushing it.

  He looked up at me coldly, then turned his face toward his windshield. He nodded toward the road. “I’m waiting for somebody. It’s not that far. You can—”

  He was probably going to say, “Walk it,” but we’ll never know, because I reached a hand in behind his head and slammed his forehead into his steering wheel. It didn’t knock him out, much less kill him, but stunned him enough to give me time to take the nine millimeter out of my back waistband, gripped by the barrel, and swing it around like a hammer.

  It was a good swing. The butt crushed bone like crisp fresh celery snapping and sank in deep enough to bring back blood and brains. He flopped onto the rider’s seat, which put him out of view except for me and maybe God, and was a good thing.

  I leaned in the window and wiped the gun off on his green polo shirt, gore and prints, then opened his rear door and tossed the weapon on the floor.

  Then I went back over to my Sunbird, got in and started it up, and backed it around so that the two cars made an L putting my tail as close as possible to his, which made for a quick transfer of the dead stiff (and the blond kid was very stiff now) from my trunk into his.

  I moved my Sunbird back to where it had been, then (in black leather driving gloves now) returned to the Buick Regal and shoved Monahan’s corpse over to make room behind the wheel. Except for the smell of shit—Monahan had evacuated on dying, and I don’t mean escaped from the car—it went fairly slick. Maybe two and a half minutes had passed between my asking for a ride and my climbing behind his wheel.

  After buckling up and getting all the windows down, to get some fucking air in and make the stench more tolerable, I pulled out and soon was on the old twolane highway along the river, which at this hour was deader than Monahan. The sun was still low when I pulled over where the curving road had just this little gravel apron where you could stop and get out and take in the beautiful Mississippi river view. I did this. The river was so orange with dawn, it was damn near red. I had a look at the drop-off into the trees that lined the riverbank—you couldn’t see the bottom. Must have been five, six hundred feet.

  I stood there waiting and listening but nothing human or mechanical touched my ears—just nature sounds, birds and the rush of water and maybe a distant dog bark. I got in the Buick and drove it to where the front tires were almost over. Then I got out again, reached in and shoved the gear shift into drive and ducked back before the vehicle took me with it.

  Then the Buick and Monahan and the blond kid in the trunk were flying faster than the motor was taking them. The first loud sounds were trees breaking up and leaves getting ripped apart but the explosion blotted that out, the balloon of orange and red and yellow jumping up above the trees, then immediately dissipating, which was good. I’d have hated to see all those trees go. There was another road down there, and with any luck some rural volunteer fire department would get there in time to help out Mother Nature. Monahan and the blond kid were past it.

  I walked down the bluff to the little picnic area where I’d been told to wait, and it felt longer, but only four minutes had passed before the sporty little red Subaru stopped to pick me up.

  I got in and looked over at the woman behind the wheel.

  “I heard it,” Angela Dell said, looking pale and older in the early morning light. “My God, it sounded horrible.”

  “It looked fine,” I said. “Take me to the motel. Want some breakfast?”

  She had coffee. We were in the same rear booth where Monahan and the kid had schemed, yesterday, though she didn’t know that. The irony was mine alone to savor, but I wasn’t bothering, being more interested in the scrambled egg skillet and pancakes.

  Back at the Paddlewheel, last night—or actually, this morning, but in the early pre-dawn hours—I’d asked Cornell if there was anyone he could trust.

  We were still in his bachelor-pad office.

  “I trust my wife,” he said.

  “I mean somebody reliable who wouldn’t mind getting their hands a little messy—second-hand, but messy. I want to get rid of this guy, who’s coming to run you down, in a way that won’t come back on you.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  I told him if I shot the fucker, we’d have a dead guy—actually two dead guys, counting the blond kid—in the Paddlewheel parking lot to either explain or get rid of. I said that if I could stop the guy but leave him and his buddy in the remains of what seemed to be an automobile accident, that would be less likely to come back to him. With all the after-hours drinking going on in Haydee’s, there had to be the occasional drunkdriving death around here.

  “Yes,” Cornell said, nodding, eyes narrow in thought, “and I know just the place to stage it. You’d have to drive forty miles, but it would put it in the next county, far enough away to provide a cushion.”

  “Yeah, a cushy-poo would be good,” I said.

  “Are you making sport of me?”

  “Think of it as good-natured fun, and not meanspirited ridicule. What I need is a ride back, and I’d rather not have it be you. I wouldn’t think your wife would want to be part of covering up killings. Anyway, your marriage is on the skids, isn’t it?”

  He waved that off. “Our marriage is over, but our business thrives. And we’re heading into a whole new era for the Paddlewheel and Haydee’s Port, and she will benefit right along with me.”

  “For now, skip the future-plans stuff. I met her, and she’s a nice woman. Don’t you have some flunky who—”

  “Can blackmail my ass till eternity and a weekend? No thank you. She’s no angel, my Angela. You know what her maiden name was?”

  “Something that shortens to ‘Dell.’ ”

  “It shortens there from Giardelli. Her father is Anthony Giardelli.”

  “No shit?”

  “None.”

  Which explained what Cornell’s Chicago connections were, and in part what role Angela had played in getting the Paddlewheel up and running. I had done jobs for the Giardellis. I’d also killed Anthony Giardelli’s brother Lou, once upon a time, but that was neither here nor there. No one knew that but me.

  “What will you tell her, Dickie?”

  “That you’re a troubleshooter who works outside the law. That I brought you in to take care of some assholes sent by the competition to eliminate me. She won’t want any details.”

  “Good. And she’d do this for you?”

  “For the business. Also…” He shrugged, and his smile was a white slash in his deeply tanned face. “…she still loves me.”

  I shrugged. “What’s not to love?”

  Now we were having breakfast, Angela and me, or anyway I was having breakfast and she was having coffee.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry about lying to you last night. About being a salesman and all.”

  She shook her head. She had a dazed, distant expression. “That was your cover story. I understand.” She shivered, and sipped coffee to stave off the cold; the air conditioning in the Wheelhouse was going pretty hard. Very quietly she said, “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “How many people were in that car?”

  “Two.”

  “Both were sent to…hurt Dickie?”

 
“Both sent to kill Dickie.”

  “He’d be dead if…”

  “If I hadn’t stopped it, yes. It wasn’t my idea to involve you. I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. She was very beautiful, but she did look well-past forty, and every year of it. Minus plastic surgery, a woman could not exist as a nightclub singer without the drinking and smoking and carousing, her own and of those around her, taking a toll.

  Still, I found her very attractive. I liked the mix of worldliness and vulnerability, and let’s face it, she had a rack to die for, even if it was lost in the sweatshirt half of a purple running suit. Her long reddish-blonde hair was back in a big ponytail, which revealed some of the miles on the nice face, and the grooves in her neck.

  “Listen,” she said, leaning in, “I said I’d help, when Dickie asked, and I did it with my eyes open. We’re in a tough business, Dickie and me. How much do you know about what’s going on right now in Haydee’s? And for that matter, Chicago?”

  The restaurant was fairly full—the crowd looked local, including farmers, as we were past the drinking-crowd breakfast of the earlier morning. But I was still concerned about being overhead, though we’d kept it nicely hushed.

  “This isn’t a come-on,” I said, “but if you want to talk, we could have some privacy in my room.”

  She shrugged. “Let me get another coffee to go.”

  She did, and I finished the breakfast.

  My motel room had a little area with a round table and two chairs, probably designed for businessmen to work, and I sat her and her coffee there. I invited her to watch the television while I showered, and she declined. She said she preferred to sit and think.

  I got out of the black clothing I’d done the killing in, showered and got the sweat and any stray blood or dried gore off me, shaved and generally became human again. I’d brought a fresh pair of black jeans and a light blue polo shirt in the bathroom with me, and I put them on, then padded out barefoot.