Max Collins - Quarry in the middle

“What, collateral damage? No. That’s my problem. I don’t charge for soldiers, only generals.”

This he found amusing, the leathery flesh around the eyes crinkling with glee. His big white smile seemed genuine. Nice to know he had a sense of humor.

“Dickie,” I said, “you’re tied in with your wife’s father, back in Chicago-Tony Giardelli. I need to know if you’ve consulted him about this.”

He shook his head. “Uncle Tony expects me to take care of my own problems.”

“But would he back you up, after the fact?”

“Oh yes. He knows very well what’s at stake.”

“What is at stake?”

That stopped him, and he thought for several long moments, then got up and gestured me to follow him.

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.