Max Collins - Quarry in the middle

The music was strictly Vegas-the barmaid was using the turntable, not the CD player, and spinning Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bobby Darin, Keely Smith, Steve Lawrence, that kind of thing. I could see Jerry G, with his heritage, being a traditionalist, but guessed (with that skinny tie of his) that our host might really have preferred Robert Palmer or Kenny Loggins, or in his darker moments maybe Black Sabbath. Most of his guests, however, were of an age that the Vegas lounge lizards were more their style than Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat.

We were set to take a bathroom break around three-thirty, and were playing one last hand before then. Jerry G was dealing a round of Chicago, seven-card stud with the high spade in the hole taking half the pot. There had been some grumbles at the table, since the high spade thing struck several players as damn near offensive as wild cards; but it was clear Jerry G liked to deal a hand of this now and then, so we were all stuck.

The first card dealt me down was the ace of spades. That gave me half the pot, even if the rest of my hand had been warm spit; but it wasn’t-by the time the last bet came around, I had a pair of deuces up, plus the ace of hearts, and a piece of shit. But the three cards in my hand included that ace of spades, the ace of diamonds, and another deuce.

I had been betting modestly, getting everybody to stay in. You might almost call that bluffing, or reverse bluffing, anyway. Everybody but the lawyer took the ride-the pot was huge, two grand and change already. I could tell the surgeon probably had either the king or queen or maybe jack of spades down, and he seemed to have a spade flush going. Between me and Jerry G, in betting order, came the contractor, who could have had a jack-high full house going, and if he had the jack of spades as one of his hole cards, he would have to stay in, with a pot like that.

But the bidding had been hot and heavy enough to give him pause. The contractor bet a modest white chip-fifty bucks.

I had half this pot in the bag, and almost certainly the rest of it. I would like to have raised. I would like to have raised maybe one hundred thousand dollars.

But I checked.

The surgeon was next in line, and he raised a blue chip-five hundred clams.

Jerry G, who had two queens up (and might have had the queen of spades down), saw that bet. The contractor said, “Fuck this shit,” and folded.

I raised another blue chip.

Everybody gave me looks to kill, since checking and then raising was bad manners, if kosher. But the surgeon took the final raise of another blue chip, which both Jerry G and I saw.

I’d been right on every assumption-the surgeon had the king of spades down and a flush. Jerry G had a queens-high full house and the queen of spades down.

But, like I said, I had the ace of spades in the hole, and an ace-high full house, so I hauled in the chips. Math was never my strong suit, though I had to be four grand ahead on just that round.

The players swore at me good-naturedly, and Jerry G nodded for me to follow him out the exit door.

I was near a little light over the door to the poker room, but he was in the shadows, an arrangement he’d contrived. He offered me a cigarillo, I declined, and he lighted up the little cigar, and regarded the rear expanse of the Giovanni kingdom. At three-thirty A.M. on a Wednesday, the graveled lot was damn near full. A big-hair hooker in a pink spandex minidress was leading a biker like a lamb to the slaughter (or maybe to the slattern) toward one of the eight little trailers that lined the lot at right and left.

“What do you want to talk to my father about, Jack?”

“I mean no offense not telling you, Jerry G. I don’t mind if you accompany me. But I need to talk to him in person.”

The amber eye of the lighted cigarillo stared at me. “What about, Jack?”

I had a feeling I better take a shot. I took it. “I used to work through a middleman, not directly for your friends in Chicago. There was always insulation. You know about insulation.”

“I know about insulation.”

“So maybe you can figure out what kind of work I used to do.”

The cigarillo looked at me; somewhere behind it, Jerry G was looking at me, too. “You don’t have the size for a strongarm. You’re no pipsqueak, but I wouldn’t hire you on as a bouncer, that’s for fucking sure.”

“I’d get a nosebleed up on those boxes. No, my specialty wasn’t handling problems or convincing people not to be problems.”

“Your business is removing problems.”

“Used to be.” I held my hands up in surrender, my empty hands. “I retired. I made a lot of money, and I retired.”

“So you just happened to be in Haydee’s Port.”

“I heard a good time could be had.”

“Got that right. So, then…you just want to pay my papa your respects? I don’t think so.”

I shook my head. “No. I want to tell him about somebody I saw over at the Paddlewheel. Somebody I recognized.”

He settled a hand on my shoulder. Gently. His smile emerged from the darkness, Cheshire Cat style. “Jack, you’re going to have to tell me. The only path to my pop is through me. I’m the gatekeeper, capeesh?”

I capeeshed.

“I saw a guy I’d worked with once in the old days,” I said. “He was a specialist in hit-and-run. You know, ‘accidents’?”

The hand came off my shoulder, the smile disappeared, and the cigarillo tip stared.

“I believed he was casing that guy Cornell, who runs the Paddlewheel-”

“I know who Cornell is.”

“And I think Cornell was his mark.”

“ How do you know, Jack? Did you talk to this old pal of yours?”

Improvising like a jazz solist, I said, “I only worked one job with him, a long time ago, and that was before I had my face worked on.”

“You had a plastic surgery job? That good, was it?”

“My mother wouldn’t know me. Anyway, I didn’t want any part of it. No skin off my ass if my old ‘pal,’ as you put it, takes Cornell out. My experience is, anybody with a target on his back probably mostly put it there himself. Fuck the guy.”

“All right,” Jerry G said.

He’d liked the sound of that, I thought.

“Anyway, last night, or I guess this morning, I was in my car in the Paddlewheel parking lot. I drank too much and fell asleep in the back seat. Something woke me, and I realized it was daylight, and I saw a couple of Cornell’s security guys grabbing Monahan. That’s his name, Monahan, the hit-and-run specialist.”

“What do you mean, grab?”

“Well, more than grab. One of ’em smashed his head into the steering wheel. Then another shoved him over, and took off out of there, and the other Cornell security guy followed in a second car.”

“Disposing of the body…”

“Obviously.”

Silence.

He dropped the cigarillo, crushed it under his heel, and stepped into the light. “And what does this have to do with my father? And me?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I can see who around Haydee’s Port would want rid of Cornell. If a hit on that guy has gone tits up, I figure you guys would want to know about it.”

“Just out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Not really. I thought your papa might think the information was worth a buck. Or maybe…well, I should save this for him.”

He thumped my chest with a finger. Lightly but the threat was there. “No, Jack. Give it to me.”

I shrugged. “I thought you might need somebody else to step in, and take care of Cornell.”

“…But you’re retired, Jack.”

I grinned at him. “Yeah, but I retired early. I’m still healthy enough to pick money up in the street.”

His tan puss split into a white grin. He and Cornell were two fucking peas in one fucking pod.