Max Collins - Quarry's ex

I could have told her she meant Horatio Alger, but I didn’t want to be rude. Anyway, she had her hand on my leg.

“Are you a gay?” she asked.

“Definitely not.”

“Because I want you to be my friend, Jack. Don’t be ashamed or afraid to say you’re a gay. Gays like me. They dress up like me.”

“Maybe, but it’s not the same.”

“And you’re not gay.”

“No.”

“We’ll, let’s see.”

She rose, and stood before me, and tugged at the shoulders of her robe and let it slide off her; it opened as it fell, like curtains parting. How can I do her justice? Let’s start with: she looked fucking great.

Large full breasts sitting high on her ribcage, with halfinch erect nipples against pink crescents of aureole; a narrow waist, a supple stomach, flaring hips, full thighs, dimpled knees, flowing calves. And that nicely trimmed pubic heart was as advertised: just as starkly white as her lush head of carefully tousled hair.

She raised a foot as if about to test the temperature of a bath and instead explored my lap with red-nailed toes.

“ Not gay,” she said.

Then she got on her knees before me, and undid my pants, taking my shorts along for the ride, and tugged them down around my ankles.

“Nice,” she said, looking at me. A little droplet atop my dick winked at her.

She stroked me, watching the shaft, not its owner, saying, “Jack, you’re going to say wonderful things about me, aren’t you?”

“Wonderful.”

Those pillowy lips took the head in and she sucked a while and then her head began to bob, as she went slowly down, incrementally, but finally making it all the way down.

She paused to look up at me impishly. “You’ll say nice things, Jack?”

“Nice.”

Head bobbing.

Pause.

“Sweet things?”

“Sweet.”

Head bobbing.

Pause.

“Make them know, Jack. That I’m a serious artist.”

“Serious. Artist.”

Head bobbing.

Pause.

“Nothing…nothing bad, Jack…”

“Nothing…nothing…nothing…nothing…nothing bad!”

She stood up, with a mouthful of me, and gave me an impish smile before she trotted over and spit it out in the sink. There was a bottle of mouthwash handy and she used that.

I was just sitting there feeling like a platinum truck had run over me.

She came over and got her robe back on and sat beside me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “No offense, Jack.”

“Huh?”

“That I didn’t swallow. You don’t think I keep my figure not watching my calories, do you?”

When I came down out of Tiffany’s trailer around noon, I could see that the fight scene over at the diner’s gas pumps-maybe a hundred yards away-was still shooting. The lights, reflectors and camera had all moved considerably, but it was the same fight.

What had I learned this morning? Movie-making was fucking slow. That was one thing. Nick Varnos was not on set posing as an onlooker or infiltrating the crew or pretending to be a Teamster. That was another. Mobster Louis Licata definitely had a more than casual involvement with Tiffany Goodwin. And that was about it.

Still standing there at the bottom of the little Winnebago steps, I had just decided to head over to my car and not waste any more time here, when I realized I’d left out a group when I was considering where Nick Varnos wasn’t.

He wasn’t pretending to be an aging biker.

These guys weren’t pretending either, but their fierce expressions were so ridiculous they might as well have been. They were clinking over my way-the chains and other metal doodads on their black leathers and boots made a little gypsy dance noise-having been…well, somewhere. Walking the periphery performing their idea of security. Ginger was better at it.

They deposited themselves on either side of me, coming to a jingling stop. Both six footers easy, not towering over me, but good-size.

The one on my left, in your regulation black leather jacket, had a bandana over what I would bet was thinning reddish-blond hair; he had a scraggly reddish beard, a bulbous vein-shot nose, tiny dark blue eyes hiding in pouches, and a pale complexion, meaning he spent more time in bars playing at biker than actually riding in the sunshine. Other than a beer belly, he wasn’t fat, exactly, more like beefy.

The one at my left, bony in a black-leather vest, had long greasy salt-and-pepper hair ponytailed back and little black shark eyes that went just fine with a tobacco-stained wolfish grin. Skinny, even skeletal, with a Fu Manchu beard and dark-lensed granny glasses and a gold earring, he smelled like beer. No. He smelled like beer puke.

So the scarecrow was grinning at me, and the beefy bandana fucker was glowering at me. It was the worst rendition of the classic tragedy and comedy masks ever.

“Hi fellas,” I said, wondering which would turn out to be the leader. Traditionally it would be the guy on the right, but I didn’t see much going on in the bandana boy’s bleary blues. So I was betting on the one at my left.

And I was right, because it was the scarecrow who first spoke: “What the fuck you doin’, man?”

“Just standing here. Why?”

Bandana boy said, “What the fuck you doin’ in Miss Goodwin’s trailer, asshole?”

Scarecrow said, “You was in there forty-five minutes, man. That’s a loooong fuckin’ time, man.”

Making no sudden moves, I edged forward and turned, so that I was facing them. No, I was not preparing to execute a Billy Jack karate kick. I was just tired of swinging my head left and right to talk to these dipshits.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

Bandana boy was frowning stupidly. This conversation had taken a bizarre and unexpected turn, as he saw it. “There could be! There could be… ass — hole!”

“Easy, Juke,” the scarecrow said, patting the air with a leather riding gloved hand. “Be polite. We ain’t heard his explanation yet.”

“Okay, Skull, okay-but I don’t like his fuckin’ face.”

I’m afraid I laughed. “Skull,” as a biker nickname, had been so on the nose, it made me smile. And now Juke-as Skull’s bandana-sporting compadre was apparently known-was bitching about other people’s faces. I mean.

Skull’s eyes popped-even so, they still were pretty small-and he got right in my face, the wolfish yellow teeth exposed but no longer smiling. He was shaking, like a Hell’s Angel version of Barney Fife. Maybe a touch scarier.

“Okay, laughing boy-you explain yourself or we stop askin’ and start walin’. ”

Waling? Really?

I just looked at him and he backed away and crossed his skinny tattooed arms and jutted his pointy chin.

I summoned as genuine a smile as I could muster. “What’s the problem here, gents? I assume you’re security. I’m Jack Reynolds, unit publicist. Just started today. You can check with any P.A. I’m supposed to grab interviews with the stars for publicity purposes. What was I doing in Miss Goodwin’s trailer? I have been interviewing her. What do you think I was doing? Getting blown?”

They both stood there with slitty eyes, processing that for maybe ten seconds. Naturally the scarecrow’s circuits cleared first, and he said, “You’re a PR guy?”

“Right.”

He took a deep breath, let it out, reassembled himself and his dignity. “Okay. Well. See, we been told to make sure nobody bothers Miss Goodwin.”

“Particularly men,” bandana boy put in.

“I wasn’t bothering her,” I said. “Who are you working for-Mr. Licata?”

They glanced at each other, obviously disturbed that I possessed that information. Even the smarter one wasn’t sure how to respond.

So I saved them the trouble: “Listen, guys, where Miss Goodwin is concerned, I’m no threat to Mr. Licata or anybody else. I’m one of those show biz types you hear about-boys who like boys?”