Quarry in the middle q-8 Read online

  Soon we were in his third-floor office-cum-apartment. The little blonde, Chrissy, was in sheer panties and an athletic-style t-shirt with her bottom on the brown leather couch and her bare feet on the coffee table. She was watching The $25,000 Pyramid, or anyway it was on-she was lacquering her fingernails, a joint making its musky fragrance known, smoldering in an ashtray, while on the big screen, Dick Clark loomed like an Easter Island statue.

  Cornell did not speak to the girl as he led me past the viewing area into the bedroom, where a big round bed was unmade; a mirror was on the ceiling-it would be. The river view from here would have been magnificent, but black curtains blotted it out. He ushered me to a big glass table with black metal legs and gestured to an elaborate architectural model.

  “ That’s the future, Mr. Quarry,” he said.

  And it was, the future of Haydee’s Port, anyway. The downtown buildings were intact, but remodeled into a quaint, family-friendly assembly of projected shops, an almost Disneyfied downtown out of the ’20s or ’30s with a drugstore, ice-cream emporium, movie house, antique shops, restaurants and more. The Lucky Devil and all the other fallen angels were out of business, in this particular future-only the Casey’s General Store survived.

  And the Paddlewheel, on its part of the mini-overview, now included a five-story hotel where the blond kid’s farmhouse currently stood, and a riverboat sat next to the Paddlewheel on the blue strip on the model representing the Mississippi.

  “We are very close to legal gambling in Illinois,” Cornell said, “a few years away at most. It will likely require that the gambling take place on a state-sanctioned riverboat. And my operation will be ready, with a top-flight resort where couples and families and respectable folks of all sorts can come enjoy the quaint little river town of Haydee’s Port.”

  “You really think you can turn hell into paradise?”

  “Haydee’s Port wasn’t always a den of sin. You know, it was named for fur trader Robert A. Haydee, who established a trading post on the land under us right now, back in 1827.”

  Somehow I didn’t imagine Robert A. had cohabited with a coke-snorting vixen, but then I’m not that up on my history.

  But Cornell went on with his sales pitch, letting me know that Haydee’s Port had once been a thriving city, home to five thousand God-fearing residents, a port serving the surrounding farming community. God, unimpressed, had sent a flood in 1912 that wiped the town out, and the businesses that were able relocated across the river. What had grown up in its place was the mini-Sin City we all knew and loved, a population of less than two hundred with a dozen bars and two casinos.

  I asked him, “You really think the Illinois state government is going to get in bed with the mob?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. That was pretty dumb.”

  He beamed down at his little play town. “My wife’s father will think I’m the New Improved Jesus if I can find a way to put the Giovannis out of business in Haydee’s Port.”

  “What will Tony’s brother Vincent think?”

  Cornell shrugged dismissively. “He’ll have to go along. The mob backs a winner.”

  “My understanding is that Tony and Vincent Giardelli are rivals-two godfathers, each looking for a way to topple the other.”

  “Yes, but they can’t go after each other frontally. They’re brothers — one family member, that high up in That Thing of Theirs, murder the other? No. They can pretend to peacefully co-exist, while trying to undermine each other, yes. But murdering your own blood…that just isn’t done.”

  “That must be those family values I keep hearing about.”

  He gestured to his toy town. “You have to understand, Mr. Quarry-Haydee’s Port is a microcosm of the situation in Chicago.”

  “What’s a microcosm?”

  “In this case, it’s a big struggle reduced to one small battlefield. If I triumph here, Tony’s stock rises in Chicago.”

  “Okay,” I said, not giving a shit. “What do you want done?”

  “Why don’t we start with me giving you ten grand to play in that poker game?”

  “What did you say the buy-in was?”

  “A thousand.”

  “I can probably get by on five.”

  “Good. I have that in my office safe downstairs. Go get the lay of the land, Mr. Quarry, and come back to me with a recommendation.”

  “You mean, whether to pop pop, or his kid, or both?”

  “You are a man of quiet eloquence, Mr. Quarry.”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  So now I was in the dreary Lucky Devil casino, where I lost twenty bucks playing craps but won fifty at blackjack, the dealer of which was a redheaded gal with short permed hair and a trowel of well-arranged makeup on her almost pretty face.

  “Is there any poker here?” I asked. I had her to myself at the moment.

  She wore a black vest over a white shirt with a black string tie. “There’s a private game. Strictly for high rollers.”

  I decided not to be a jerk and point out that there was no “rolling” in poker, high or low or otherwise, and said, “How much is the buy-in?”

  She confirmed it as a thousand and I said, “I can make that happen. How do you make the game happen?”

  “Doesn’t start till one. Goes all night.”

  “Define ‘all night.’ ”

  “Dawn or so. Usually breaks up around six.”

  “Just one table?”

  “Yeah. The boss himself deals.”

  “Just deals?”

  “No, he plays, too. He says the house always has an advantage, and his advantage is, he always deals.”

  “But does he always win?”

  “No. It’s a straight game. Would I lie to you?”

  I showed her a hundred. “Would you?”

  She took it. “No. What’s your name?”

  “Jack Gibson.”

  “In five minutes, I take a break. You’re lucky-Wednesday’s the only weeknight there’s a game. I’ll put your name in then, if there’s an opening. I’ll let you know.”

  I played an ancient slot till she came over and said, “You’re in,” giving me a white chip with a magic-marker checkmark on it. “Go in at quarter till.” She nodded toward a door next to one of the lifeguard-stand bouncers.

  This meant I had around two hours to kill, and I wanted to relax, so I wandered back through the Southern Rock dance club into the center bar and on through another set of double doors into the Lucky Devil’s strip club.

  It was pretty basic-the music here, courtesy of an idiot DJ in a booth who was also flashing disco lights over the stage, consisted of relatively current hits-“Talking in Your Sleep” by the Romantics was going right now, and the short busty brunette in a cowboy hat and fringed vest and g-string was into it, working one of two poles on the single long narrow stage around which all the chairs were taken. Males of every variety, except gay, were seated there-young, old, blue-collar, college-kid, bank president, janitor, middle-aged, geezer, you name it, each with dollar in hand, eager for a stripper to come over, rub her tits in his face, and let him deposit the buck in her g-string.

  I had no trouble finding a table toward the back. The room was lined in mirrors, which made it seem bigger and also put naked dancing female flesh everywhere, even though there was only one girl on stage at a time. Strippers in g-strings and pasties and feather boas and heels were trolling for guys to give table dances to, but not always succeeding, since that was five bucks not a single.

  The girls were all under thirty, most closer to twenty, and seemed a mix of locals (possibly more of that community college talent) and gals on the circuit. I can’t explain how I knew this, other than to say about half of the dancers were breast-enhanced, and the others weren’t. Obviously, the road girls had the fake tits and the locals what God have given them. Most of the customers hooted and hollered and even invested in table dances, when the girls had big enough fake tits.

  I had zero inte
rest in fake tits, but to each his own. The girl I did find of interest, which is to say who hard-ened my dick, was clearly local-she was very pretty, blue-eyed, pouty of mouth, with straight blonde, seemingly natural hair, modified by a Farrah Fawcett flip that was a decade or so out of date. She had a pert dimpled ass that defied gravity, and wonderful pale creamy flesh, but her boobs were too small for the room.

  They were just right for me. They perched on her rib cage with tip-tilting authority, perfect handfuls that these other cretins couldn’t appreciate. This cretin and his throbbing dick were most appreciative. I was on my third beer, by the way.

  And in fact, I had just gotten rid of it or anyway its predecessors and was heading back from the john for my table when I felt a hand on my arm, and turned to look right into the little stripper’s big blue eyes.

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  She was either actually asking for a favor, or damn good. No, I didn’t think she was in love with me…

  “See that guy over there-stuffing a dollar into Heather’s g-string? Be subtle.”

  I flicked a glance at a beefy, make that fat, biker with a leather cap and more facial hair than two Grateful Dead band members-kind of an awful hair color, too, a yellow that tried to be red but didn’t make it.

  “He’ll want a table dance,” she said. “I have to work the room or get fired, so I can’t, you know, turn him down or just disappear.”

  “You want me to buy a table dance, I’ll buy a table dance.”

  This was not nearly as hard as she was making it. Not that she wasn’t making it hard…

  “He’s been here before,” she said. “He’s persistent. He puts his hand down in my front. I don’t do that. I’m not that kind of dancer.”

  This was interesting to hear, since the Lucky Devil’s strip club was raunchy indeed-the girls took off their pasties and g-strings at the end of their first song. And they danced to three songs…

  “How can I help?”

  “We have a V.I.P. room. We can go in there and stay for a while, and maybe he’ll go away or settle for some-body else or something.”

  “I do want to help, but what’s the V.I.P. room cost?”

  “I’m not going to charge you anything! You’re helping me.”

  So I helped her.

  She took me into the back room, which was a bunch of easy chairs in open cubicles. No fucking was going on or anything overt; this was not about blow jobs or even hand jobs. This was good, clean, all-American fun, like the so-called dry humps healthy teens used to have under the bleachers at ball games. And I presume they still do, if they have a lick of sense.

  The girls kept their pasties on and their g-strings, in the V.I.P. room, but otherwise were naked, and danced for a guy for a song (ten bucks for one, I gathered, twenty-five for three), most of it grinding in his lap or shoving her fake titties in his face and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing some more.

  My little blonde did rub her cupcakes in my face a couple times, but mostly she just danced, or straddled my lap and didn’t really grind. We just talked. Here’s some of it, shouted over loud piped-in music:

  “What’s your name?”

  “Candy.”

  Bow Wow Wow was doing “I Want Candy.” I swear.

  “Stage name?”

  “Real. Candace.”

  “You go to school, Candace?”

  “I wish. I wanna go to beauty college, but it’s expensive.”

  “You local or on the road?”

  “Local. Can’t travel. I got a kid.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh huh. Little boy.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Sam. He’s five. He goes to kindergarten next year.”

  “His daddy looking after him?”

  “He doesn’t have one. A girl who works days, at the grain elevator? She sits with Sam till she goes to work.”

  “You don’t look old enough to have a five-year-old.”

  “I was fifteen.”

  “Makes you twenty?”

  “I’m twenty. You’re nice.”

  “You’re nice, too, Candace.”

  There was quite a bit more, but that’s as interesting as it got, and anyway you get the drift.

  She smelled good-most of the dancers were doused in what used to be called dimestore perfume, but she had on Giorgio, or a reasonable facsimile. She had the usual heavy makeup, clownish cheeks, blue eyeshadow, pink lip gloss, but that was par for the course these days even for non-stripper girls. Even though she didn’t grind, I had a raging hard-on. My shorts were in ruins.

  Another stripper, a skinny brunette with big but real breasts, came over and whispered in Candace’s ear, then went away.

  Candace beamed at me. “Lover boy’s picked somebody else out! He’s on his second table dance already. I think I’m in the clear. You’re very sweet, Jack.”

  I had told her my name was Jack.

  Then she gave me a kiss.

  Long and kind of real.

  After that, she gave me a more legit V.I.P. room treatment for the rest of the song (“Hit Me with Your Best Shot”), and then led me back into the strip club. I tried to give her a twenty but I swear (unbelievable, but it happened) she wouldn’t take it.

  I probably could have bought a legit table dance from her at that point, but I’d had all I could take. I went and sat in the rear of the smoky, mirrored room, focused on fake tits and disco lights until my erection went down, then wandered back into the middle bar. No more beer for me. I asked for and got a Diet Coke.

  It was almost one, and I had a game to play.

  Chapter Seven

  About the same square footage as the strip club’s V.I.P. lounge, the private poker room was tucked behind the Lucky Devil’s main bar, though with no access from there. And of course the way in from the casino was guarded by one of those ubiquitous bouncers on boxes.

  You’ve heard of wall-to-wall carpeting-well, this room had carpeting on the walls, plush, cream-color stuff, much thicker than the more normal-pile (but same color) carpet on the floor. Matching built-in couches ran along all the walls except the one adjacent the parking lot, which had an exit-only door and, more prominently, a big black padded Naugahyde wet bar with black shelving heavy with booze on one side and a stereo set-up on the other. A busty little platinum blonde in the standard Lucky Devil black spandex minidress was tending bar (and the stereo); right now she was filling bowls with chips and pretzels and such, her big brown eyes having no more expression than her raccoon mascara.

  The decor was less eccentric than practical-sound-proofing was the order of the day, or night anyway, and the low-slung ceiling tile was part of how this chamber could be so quiet in the thick of a club where each room was noisier than the last. The track lighting was subdued, but the big hexagonal table was the target of a Tiffany-style hanging lamp. Though the billiard felt was new, the table appeared old, its maple handrails showing wear, and the chip wells and drink-holders (despite fresh cork) had the look of a craftsman who’d operated long ago.

  I was the first player to arrive, other than my host, a tall, slender guy in a lightweight white suit over a gray shirt and skinny white tie, very hip and New Wave, only his well-oiled Frankie-Avalon-circa-1958 pompadour undercut it. His hands were free of rings, but that was because he’d removed them before starting to shuffle, putting them in his drink well-gold rings encrusted with just a few fewer precious gems than the Maltese Falcon.

  Jerry Giovanni, suspiciously tan for a Midwesterner-Florida trips, maybe, or tanning bed access-was almost handsome, a slightly horsier-looking John Travolta.

  Pausing in his shuffling, holding the deck in his left hand, he got to his feet, extended a palm and said, “Jerry Giovanni. My friends call me Jerry G.”

  I shook the hand. Firm. “Jack Gibson, Mr. Giovanni.”

  He sat, smiled wide, the whiteness of his teeth against the tanned flesh just as startling as the similar effect Richard Cornell achieved, and gestured to the
seat opposite him.

  “We only have five players tonight, Jack. And call me Jerry G.”

  “Okay, Jerry G.”

  “So I was pleased to hear you were joining us. I asked Mandy to have you come in a little early.”

  “Mandy?”

  “Little blackjack dealer. Redhead. She likes you, Jack. I could fix you up. Kid can suck the chrome off a ’71 Caddy.”

  “No, that’s okay. I can make friends on my own.”

  He laughed with a snort, liking that, or pretending to. His eyes were too large for his face and a little close together; guess I already said he had a horsey look. But his snorting laughter emphasized it.

  “No offense meant,” Jerry G said. “Good-looking fella like you, I’m sure you get more tail than Sinatra.”

  “Maybe Sinatra now.”

  He shuffled, did some show-off stuff doing the accordion bit with the deck. Not that smart a move from a guy doing all the dealing.

  “You know the house rules, don’t you?”

  “The house usually does.”

  He snort-laughed again. “No, no, Jack, I mean, the rules of the house. Of this room. It’s a thousand-dollar buy in. We don’t play table stakes-you can go to your pocket any time. Checks are fine, even items like watches or jewelry, if the players are agreed as to value. But no IOU’s.”

  “Cool.”

  “I’m the banker, and I’m the dealer. And I play.”

  “I heard about that. I can live with it. What do we play?”

  He grinned nice and wide, yards of white teeth and miles of tan skin-this must have been the last thing Custer saw. “Dealer’s choice.”

  I had to laugh. No snorting, though. “I wouldn’t mind having that defined a little better.”

  “Obviously, no wild cards. I’ll choose between draw, five-card stud, seven-card stud, and Texas Hold ’Em. I like to mix it up.”

  “Okay. I appreciate you taking the time to bring me up to speed like this.”

  The smile settled down and the eyes seemed shrewd suddenly. “No problem, Jack. But that’s not why I wanted a few minutes with you.”

  “All right. Why do you?”

  He shuffled, but his eyes watched mine, not the cards. “You’re a stranger in town.”