Max Collins - Quarry's ex

Without comment, he slipped into the bathroom. Leaving the door open, he stood at the sink and shook several pills out of a little medicine bottle and filled a water glass from the tap to take them.

“Percodan,” he said with a shudder, after swallowing them. “I hurt my back skiing fifteen years ago, and now it haunts me. When we’re young we think we can do anything.”

He went over and stretched out on the bed, without using a pillow. He lay there staring at the ceiling. I pulled a chair over from the round table and sat at the foot of his bed, feeling a little like a psychiatrist.

“Make your pitch, Mr. Reynolds,” he said, not looking at me. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

“Do you know anyone who might want you dead?”

Now he looked at me. Just a lift of his head. “Is this a joke?”

“No. Do you? I heard you mention Louis Licata. He’s tied to the remnants of the old Dragna outfit, right? Loansharking, I believe.”

“You’re a cop.”

“Not even close, Mr. Stockwell.”

“This isn’t going to take five minutes.” With some effort, he sat up and used the headboard of the bed for support. He pointed toward the door. “You need to leave.”

“If I told you that someone had been hired to kill you, would that seem incredible to you?”

When his leading-man face frowned, he looked petulant. “You need to leave now.”

“Would it seem unlikely? Impossible? Improbable? Or are your ties to organized crime such that you can easily wrap your brain around the concept?”

He reached for the bedstand phone.

I got out the nine millimeter. “Don’t.”

Now his face turned pale, or anyway as pale as possible under that deep a tan. He withdrew his hand, and tried to sit straighter. He was shaking a little. You can start shaking real fast when somebody points a gun at you.

“Is that…that why you’re here? To kill me?”

“No.”

He smiled but it was awful; the kind of smile that sometimes precedes tears. “Who sent you? Licata, right? He knows, right? Look, I have money, too…I can-”

I raised my free hand. I wanted to lower the nine millimeter but couldn’t just yet. “I said ‘no,’ Mr. Stockwell. You need to settle down.”

“Said the stranger with the gun.”

“Call me Jack-and I’ll call you Art, or do you prefer Artie?”

He wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at the nine millimeter-specifically into its barrel, the small darkness there that promised a much bigger one. “How…how can you be so cold about this?”

“I prefer to think of it as cool. You aren’t in any danger at this moment unless you do something stupid. Scream, for example, or throw that ashtray at me.”

He was breathing hard. “If you’re not here to…why are you here?”

“I’m here to offer you a service. It’s a genuine service-like I said before, not a shakedown, not a scam. It happens I am in a position to know that a pair of contract killers has been hired…has been sent…to kill you. I am also in a position to do something about it.”

His eyes were wild. Understandably. “This doesn’t make sense…it’s crazy…”

I lowered the nine millimeter until my hand was draped across my lap-the weapon still a presence, but I hoped not as much a distracting threat.

I said, “It doesn’t matter how I came upon the information. I don’t know who hired the killers. I just know they were sent here. One of them has been keeping you under surveillance for weeks. He’s a back-up man, strictly support. The other is planning to kill you, probably in the next several days, and to do so by staging your death as an accident. What kind of accident, I don’t know yet.”

He was shaking his head. The rest of him was motionless, as if he were otherwise paralyzed. “This is insane…You need to leave…you need help…”

“Is your movie financed by mob money?”

“…are you a cop?”

“I said before-no. If I were, that statement alone would make this entrapment, so please answer my question. Is your movie financed by mob money?”

“…Yes.”

“Licata?”

He nodded.

“Art, that mob involvement alone makes it credible that someone could target you for death. But I admit I can’t see why someone financing this film would want to have you killed. It frankly doesn’t make sense. You’re the director of the picture.”

He had a curdled kind of smile going. “You expect me to just discuss this?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to believe that someone wants to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“And that it would be easy for them to do that.”

I raised the gun, shrugged, then lowered it again.

He swallowed. “I…I see your point. You want to know if Louis Licata might have reason to be unhappy with me.”

“Right.”

“He does.”

“What is it?”

He frowned, cocked his head. “Is that what this is about? Are you Licata’s man? And you’re trying to trick me into admitting it?”

“Admitting what? I am not Licata’s man. Do I look fucking Italian? Sorry. Didn’t mean to raise my voice. Art-Artie?”

He was nodding, nodding, nodding. “Art is fine. You’re Jack. I get that. You do not look fucking Italian, I grant you. Do you know what the relationship between Mr. Licata and Miss Goodwin is?”

“Miss Goodwin-the female star of your film?”

“That’s right. This is her first starring role. And I agreed to do it for Mr. Licata, even though she isn’t much of an actress.”

“Does she have to be? I saw the Playboy layout.”

“Actually, she does. When she first read for me, she was wooden. Really lousy. But to get Louie’s backing, I had to agree to cast her. So I began working with her.”

“Oh. You’re fucking her.”

He blinked, surprised by how fast I’d caught up. Then he shrugged with his eyebrows. Nodded. “Yeah. Or I was. Fucking her, I mean. I broke it off before we started shooting. On the shoot, it would be unprofessional, plus… well, there are other concerns.”

“Such as?”

“I have my wife along. She’s an actress, too, and has a supporting role, and out of respect to her…and knowing that if Louie found out, I’d be in a jam…I broke it off with Tiff.”

“How did ‘Tiff’ take that?”

“Obviously she was pissed. But she’s behaving herself. And the important thing is, her acting has improved, gone from pure shit to barely competent, but improved.”

It was swell that he could grasp what was “the important thing.”

I asked, “Could Miss Goodwin be mad at you for dumping her? Mad enough to spill to her boyfriend that she had an affair with you?”

“I would hardly think so. Lou has a notorious temper, even for a mob guy. I can’t imagine she’d risk it.” He shrugged elaborately. “But…who knows with a crazy cunt like her?”

“Is that what she is? A crazy cunt?”

“Oh yeah. But what a bod…Listen, I could use a smoke.”

A pack of Marlboros and a lighter were on the nightstand and I nodded for him to go ahead.

As he got his cigarette going, I was thinking. Then I asked, “What about your wife? Is she a candidate for wanting you dead?”

“J.J.?” He actually laughed. “No, no, that’s crazy. She’s a grown-up. She knows I’ve fooled around from time to time, but that I always come home to her. She’s just about the most grounded, realistic woman you could ever hope to meet. She’s…like a man that way. I love the shit out of her.”

I wasted little time absorbing that romantic sentiment, and pressed on: “Whoever sent these two to kill your ass, Art, it’s not our immediate problem. We can address that, and should address that…but right now I need to stop the guy who’s planning an imminent fatal accident for you.”