Max Collins - Quarry in the middle

“Yes. Are we agreed as to price?”

“Considering the work I did eliminating the old man from the equation, let’s call it thirty.”

He considered that. Then he shrugged. “All right. For all the grief it’ll save me, it’s a goddamn bloody bargain.”

Soon I was downstairs on the main floor, heading past the dining room toward the Paddlewheel exit when a husky female voice called from the bar: “Jack! Come say hello.”

In a little black dress that exposed a nice amount of bosom, redheaded Angela was in her favorite booth, sitting with a yellow pad in front of her, smoking a cigarette as she made notes.

I joined her. “You go on this early?”

“No. This is just the closest thing I have to an office. Going over my set list. Making a few changes.” She turned the wide-set green eyes loose on me, and they quickly tightened in concern, as she took in my colorful face. “My God! What happened to you?”

“Couple of Jerry G’s guys took me through the Jane Fonda workout. Do I look slimmer?”

She touched my hand. “You take awful chances, don’t you? I thought…nothing.”

“What?”

“I hoped to hear from you. I…the other day, morning I mean, at your room…rather sweet. On the… special side, I thought.”

“A lot more pleasant workout, I’ll grant you. Hey, I’m sorry, I really did get my ass handed to me, and I’ve been recuperating.”

She gave me a smirky kiss of a smile. “Then you weren’t shacked up with some sweet young thing?”

“Yeah, right. I was cheating on you, screwing a twenty-year-old stripper.”

That made her laugh. I love telling the truth; often the best way not to be believed…

“You wouldn’t want to stop by and catch my last set? Maybe buy me breakfast?”

“I better take a rain check. I’m on the clock.”

The green eyes widened. “On the clock, around the clock?”

“Right now I am.”

Out that hallway, where the private elevator emptied, trotted Cornell’s little squeeze, Chrissy, yellow permed curls held by a hot-pink sweatband, making her head look like a ginger ale bottle that fizzed over. She was in tight jeans and a hot-pink shirt tied in a big knot under her pert boobs, and her feet were shod in sandals that showed off red toenails, to match the fingernails she’d been painting. All freshened up, pink lip gloss, blue eye shadow, and no white powder on her nose at all…

“What’s the story on baby Madonna?” I asked.

“She’s just the latest little lay on Dickie’s roster,” Angela said, light but with a bitter edge, letting smoke out her nose like a lovely dragon. “One little blow-up doll’s pretty much like any other.”

“Does she live with him out at the plantation? Or maybe up in his Hefner hideout upstairs?”

“No. She’s from River Bluff. Another of these community college girls, if you can believe it.”

I didn’t, actually.

“Excuse me,” I said, and smiled at her, and she gave me a curious look that I let hang.

When I got to the parking lot, Chrissy was pulling out in a red Firebird convertible with a crysee vanity plate-Illinois, not Iowa, where the community college was. I moved toward my lesser Pontiac, but didn’t run or anything.

Pretty sure I knew where she was headed.

At a quarter till eight or so, the Lucky Devil parking lot wasn’t close to full. This was a Friday, and one of their big nights, but the Lucky was chiefly an after-hours joint, so Chrissy had no problem finding a parking spot near the building.

I took a space in the row behind her, shut off the engine and sat in the dark watching her, trying to figure out what the fuck to do. Tailing Chrissy’s Firebird to the Lucky hadn’t allowed a stopover at the Wheelhouse motel to grab my spare nine millimeter.

So I didn’t have a gun on me. And I didn’t have a plan. All I had was my brute strength, and we’ve seen how well that had served me in this venue…

Well, maybe I had a vague plan.

The Lucky Devil parking lot was about as handy as a pair of gloves with two lefts-the three doors facing the lot all were exit only: that one off the soundproofed private poker room, another off the casino, and one with FIRE EXIT ONLY written on it for the strip club.

To gain entry, you had to cut over to the sidewalk and walk around the building, or cut through the alley where not long ago I’d had so much fun. I figured to watch Chrissy and follow her on whichever path she chose, and intercept her before she could go in, only fuck me sideways- she was heading for the casino exit!

And now she was knocking on the thing…

It must have taken a while for the bouncer to climb down off his perch and answer her insistent pounding. He was unfamiliar to me, a bushy-brown-bearded bruiser bursting his black Lucky Devil polo with both muscles and fat, and he was not happy to be disturbed.

Finally emerging from her self-absorbed stupor, Chrissy was animated, words and spittle flying out of her. The bearded guy scowled, nodded, but shut the door on her. She dug into her little pink purse and got out some cigarettes and was lighting up when I grabbed her.

“Let’s talk,” I said, and the cigarette hit the gravel as I pulled her by the arm toward my car. The night was unseasonably chill, and her nipples were erect under the t-shirt, but for some reason that just annoyed me. Her expression was a hissing cat’s, but she was too thrown to do much about it.

Still, the parking lot was lighted, if half-heartedly, and my actions were right out there for the world to see. Several patrons, groups of guys, a couple of couples, some girl duos, were laughing and making their way toward the Lucky from their various cars, but nobody thought twice about some jackass dragging a protesting girl along. Again, just that kind of town…

“You fucker! ” she said, her upper lip curling back. “You’re in trouble! ”

We were to the car now, and she started to scream, and I slapped her. The sound rang in the open air like a gunshot. She gave me a look that wondered how I could be such a brute to a beautiful girl like her.

“Shut up,” I told her. “I’d rather kill you than fuck you.”

She had a hand to her red-blossoming cheek, but that statement crinkled her forehead as her brain tried to process it.

I had her wrist in one hand and used my other to work the key in the trunk. The lid opened and I nodded toward the yawning space.

“Get in,” I said.

“Fuck you,” she said. But quietly.

“We need to talk, but here is not good. I won’t hurt you if you behave. Get in.”

By the way, I’d driven the Sunbird over to River Bluff on Wednesday, to give it a thorough cleaning, not that it would have fooled any forensics experts. But at least it wasn’t blood-crustedly awful in there. I’m not that big a monster.

Anyway, she was crawling in, frowning, but more confused than afraid, when a hand grabbed my arm, and it was the bearded bouncer.

“ That’s not nice,” he said, and head-butted me.

If I’d had the time for a thought, it would have been: This is what happens, going around unarmed.

But I didn’t have the time.

When I woke up, I was lying on my back and looking up at ceiling tile.

“Little early for the game, aren’t you, Jack?”

I knew the voice: Jerry G’s.

And by now I knew where I was-supine, with my knees up, on one of the room-length built-in couches in the Lucky Devil’s private poker room with its creamcolor carpeted floor and walls. I could feel the adhesive strip across my mouth, and more of it was around my wrists-silver duct tape-and more yet around my ankles above my running shoes.

“Only it isn’t ‘Jack,’ is it? It’s Quarry. What kind of name is that? Some kind of hired gun, aren’t you? Working for Needle-Dickie Cornell?”