Max Collins - Quarry's ex

“I don’t give two shits about the technical side, Art. It’s just that…if this completion bond money is the motive behind taking you out, then that means any accident you have needs to happen soon.”

“Is that bad for us? Or good?”

“Neither. It just is. It does give me a glimmer of who might be responsible.”

“Who are you thinking?”

I told him, and he just laughed. He waved that off, saying, “You’re crazy. That’s impossible. You can’t be serious. Don’t waste any time going there.”

“All right,” I lied. “I’ll trust your judgment.”

I was hoping that the kiddies would be out of the pool by ten-that was the Spur’s supposed cut-off for swimming, as you may recall-and I got my wish. A young married couple was in the hot tub for the first ten minutes, but otherwise I had the pool to myself.

The water had just enough coolness to contrast nicely with the humidity-free warmth of an evening enjoying a sultry breeze. The sky was like a special effect that the Hard Wheels 2 budget couldn’t manage-a Cheshire Cat smile of a moon and a scattering of sparkly stars. Desert night sky had a look of its own, faintly surreal, even from a hotel swimming pool.

I’d been swimming easy laps and was floating on my back, looking up at that phony sky, when somebody dove in. Somehow I knew it was Joni.

It was.

She had her long dark hair rubber-banded back and was in the skimpy red bikini. She began treading water. I treaded water, too, and went over near her and said, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“What is this about, Jack?”

“Your husband hasn’t told you?”

“No.”

“Then it isn’t my place to.”

I swam over to the side of the pool and climbed up and sat there dripping. She swam over and treaded water some more. Looking up at me with big lovely brown eyes.

“You were…telling the truth the other night?”

“About what, Joni?”

“About my husband being in danger. Death threats?”

“Yeah.”

“That wasn’t just some…some head trip you were pulling? To get even with me?”

“Putting you through a ‘head trip’ wouldn’t quite do it.”

Her hands moved in the water as if she were hiking through high brush. “Art hasn’t said anything. I keep asking him what’s bothering him, and he just says it’s a tough shoot. That’s all. Not sharing anything.”

“His prerogative.”

Breathing fairly hard, she said, “I want to know what’s going on, Jack. Am I in danger, too?”

Collateral damage again.

“I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t want to see you die or anything.”

That made her smile. Bitterly, but she smiled, still treading, spitting a little water now and then. “What about what you said the other night? About ‘all of the above?’ ”

“I don’t want to kill you.”

“That’s almost like…almost like hearing you say still love me, Jack.”

“I don’t remember saying I ever stopped.”

She treaded water some more.

“Listen,” I said, “if you want him dead, just say so.”

She frowned. “Are you kidding? What a terrible thing to say.”

“Yeah, well…maybe I was just kidding.” I got up, trunks dripping heavily onto the concrete like a hard lazy rain. “Good night, Joni. Enjoy the rest of your swim.”

From off the nearby deck chair, I got my towel-it had the nine millimeter wrapped in it again, not to impress my ex, just because I thought the shit on this job was getting deep enough that maybe having a weapon handy wasn’t a bad thing.

I went up to my room, took a hot shower, and put on my jockey shorts to sleep in. I felt relaxed physically, no kinks in my shoulders or neck, but my mind was twitching in a way I didn’t much care for.

I put the nine millimeter on the nightstand and got under between the sheets and played with the remote a while. Johnny Carson was a rerun and I had just about settled on an old Randolph Scott western (well, hell, all Randolph Scott westerns were old, weren’t they?) when somebody knocked on the door.

I got out of bed, nine mil in hand, and used the little peephole.

You’re ahead of me again, right?

Joni.

She was in a short white terrycloth robe and her hair was still damp from the swim. The darkness of her tan sharply contrasted with the white of the robe.

I let her in.

Shut and night-latched the door. The only light on was the TV, but the volume was muted. It threw a shifting, shimmering light on the room not unlike the effect of the under-lighting down at the pool.

She took the gun from my hand and set it gently on the nightstand, like she knew where it went, then undid the belt at her waist and dropped the robe to the floor, leaving just the skimpy damp bikini and all that tan flesh.

“Was there something you wanted?” I asked.

“Fuck you, Jack.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The first kiss was passionate but not exactly loving, more like angry and demanding and she was making noises that sounded like tears being held back, or maybe it was rage. The next kiss was yearning and youthful, a real flashback right down to her searching, darting tongue. Then she let me take the bikini top off her and her breasts were larger and not as pert as before, but I recognized them all right, and stroked them and plumped them and kissed them, their dark nipples stark against white flesh untouched by the sun that had darkened the rest of her. Almost the rest of her, because as her long legs stepped up and out of the bikini bottoms, the thatch of tangled brown against the white, white flesh made a contrast that resonated in my memory.

I kissed her neck, I kissed her ears, I kissed her face, here, there, then she dropped down and tugged down my shorts, leaving them around my feet in rumpled confusion, and she moved her mouth down the shaft of me in one long smooth move until her nose was getting tickled by the short and curlies and I thought I would pass out or at least lose my balance. She lavished attention on the old acquaintance standing at attention for her, with her mouth and her hands, kisses and licks and strokes and suckles and when she had me on the verge, she knew to stop and led me by the dick to the bed where she deposited me on my back and climbed on and I was sucked up into that tight familiar warmth and she ground slowly at first, her beautiful features caught in a dreamy, half-lidded state of realized desire, her damp hair dangling in dark tendrils at her shoulders, her slender body, still slender fifteen years later, moving serpentine with a dancer’s fluid grace, and when she came it was a shuddering thing, beaming and crying and whimpering and laughing. I didn’t think I was doing anything but fucking her, and didn’t realize that some of the tears on my face were my own.

She was beside me then, against me, head where my arm and shoulder met, her cheek wet against my chest. She said nothing for endless seconds. I thought she was sleeping, but then she said, “Did you come looking for me?”

“No. It was a coincidence.”

“I don’t know if I believe in those.”

“Well they do happen. Or maybe it was fate. It sure wasn’t God.”

“Jack…Jack. I did love you. I didn’t want you to die over there. I wanted you to come home.”

“You knew I was coming home.”

“I did. But you came home a day early.”

“Really? I’d forgotten.”

“Jack, I was ready to take you back into my life. That afternoon…when everything went wrong…it wasn’t how it looked.”

“Wow. Really?”

“I was just…just saying goodbye to somebody.”

“You know what the Beatles say.”

“All you need is love?”

“You say goodbye and I say hello.”

“…You’re still angry.”