Max Collins - Quarry in the middle

He had both his hands up, his palms out-surrendering, in a way; but still trying, as he said, “What can I do to make this right?”

“Nothing,” I said. “But I do want to thank you for one thing.”

“… What the fuck?”

“Soundproofing this room.”

I put one in his forehead, and his skull didn’t explode exactly, but it definitely cracked, and after he’d gone backward initially, he flopped forward on the table and spilled blood and brains on the green felt.

I didn’t leave immediately-I had noticed his little tin box on the bar, which held the bank from the recent poker game. Taking a quick look, I determined Jerry G had done very well tonight-the box had twenty grand in it. Make a lucky devil joke here, if you’re so inclined.

The tin box of money I tucked under my left arm, and-with the nine millimeter in my hand, and my hand in the right pocket of my windbreaker-strolled out into the dead parking lot and got into my new car.

The morning had stayed chill, the sky smoky gray. One of those cold days in Hell they always talk about, or anyway a cold day in Haydee’s.

It was six-thirty-something when I pulled into the Paddlewheel lot, which was empty save for two cars, one of them Richard Cornell’s Corvette, the other Angela Dell’s little red Subaru. I’d figured there was a good chance everybody would be gone for the night/day, except for Cornell himself, and I was almost right-and the only other person still here was part of the family, in a couple senses.

So my timing was excellent, particularly considering that my client-typically spiffy in a navy blazer, yellow sport shirt and light-blue trousers-was exiting the big old reconverted warehouse and striding toward his Corvette, parked toward the rear of the lot. Had I been Monahan doing his vehicular homicide bit, I’d have been in perfect position to send Dickie flying into the next life or at least a hole in the ground.

But of course I’d turned down Jerry G’s offer for a contract on my boss, for reasons previously stated.

He saw the Firebird pulling in, and smiled, thinking it was Chrissy come to see him, which was sort of true. Then he made me behind the wheel and frowned, not in displeasure, just confusion. I stopped next to him and got out. He met me at the rear of the sporty red convertible.

“Something I want to show you,” I said.

The white crease lines formed in the too-tanned forehead. “What are you up to, love?”

“This is sort of where I came in,” I said, and unlocked the trunk.

The lid popped up to reveal, down in the well, the little yellow-permed Chrissy in her pink blouse (unknotted and loose now) and tight jeans and sandals, on her side fetally, front of her toward us as she craned her head to glare at me, the big dark-blue eyes popping over the wide slash of silver duct tape. She tried to call me something but I couldn’t quite make it out, though I think I got the gist.

I’d taped her wrists behind her and wrapped the stuff all over and around her little fists, in hopes that would keep her bound. Her ankles were taped tight, too. She didn’t seem to have budged, which either meant she wasn’t as ambitious or smart as I’d been on that boat, or maybe I had just done a better job of taping her up.

Cornell’s yap was hanging open. “What the bloody hell…?”

I shut the trunk, and took him by the elbow, walking him near the line of trees at that end of the lot.

“Little girls have big ears,” I said, keeping my voice low and raising a shush finger.

“I didn’t hire you to kill some innocent-”

“First of all, she’s about as innocent as Marilyn Chambers, and second, she’s still breathing. And I’m not going to make her stop, either. You can do what you want with her, from spank her to toss her dead in a ditch, but it’s not a job I want.”

I quickly explained that Chrissy had been Jerry G’s industrial espionage agent, and Cornell found this news predictably dismaying.

“I thought I was a better judge of character than that,” he said, shaking his head, the half-lidded, unblinking aqua eyes taking on a hurt, almost haunted quality.

“Dickie, you may be a good judge of character, but few heterosexual males are good judges of character when that character is attached to a tight little twenty-year-old pussy. If you’ll pardon my bluntness. Anyway, the job is done and maybe we can transfer that package to your trunk, and you can do whatever the fuck you-”

“ What job is done?”

“Are you kidding? Jerry G is still warm but he’s not breathing.”

“…You did it. You really did it.”

“What did you think I was going to do? Performance art?”

“I mean…before, it seemed abstract…”

“That other body in the trunk I showed you, that seemed abstract to you?”

He was going pale despite the tan. “How…how did it go down?”

“I told you I don’t do details. How it’s perceived depends on Jerry G’s Chicago partners and the bent local cops. It’ll probably be one of two ways-a robbery/homicide, or a boating accident. Or even, with the right doctor, natural causes. My guess is, the last thing Jerry G’s associates want, and I include both Chicago and the county sheriff’s department, is a homicide that brings in state cops. That kind of investigation could shut down Haydee’s Port, you included, at least for a while.”

He didn’t contradict me. He seemed in shock.

“What should I do with her?” he said finally, nodding toward the trunk.

“I wouldn’t kill her.”

“ Jesus! Neither would I!”

“Give her a second chance. Maybe make her work for her supper as a hostess or something. Or send her back to Chicago. She has friends there. Oh…” I got an envelope out of my windbreaker jacket pocket. The envelope came from the Wheelhouse Motel, and it was plump with hundred dollar bills-four grand worth. “Give this to Chrissy. I bought her car.”

A sick slice of white appeared in the dark face-a smile, technically anyway. “A little flashy for you, isn’t it, Quarry?”

“I don’t know. Bright red car might be a nice souvenir of my trip to Haydee’s. Or I might trade it in for something more suited to my part of the world.”

“Where is that?”

“You don’t really want to know.”

“No. No, I don’t. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Right. Now let’s transfer the package from my trunk to yours…”

He had no objection, and I was about to pop the lid when someone exited the big brick building-a woman, and we were far enough away that Cornell felt he had to prompt me.

“That’s just Angie,” he said.

But I already knew that, because I’d made her car. His wife or ex-wife or whatever she was strolled right toward us, which was natural, because she belonged to the one remaining ride in the lot. She was wearing jeans, rather looser than those Chrissy preferred, and a white blouse whose sleeves stopped at mid-forearm and with some ruffles up the front, like a gambler’s shirt seen on a real paddlewheel a hundred years ago.

“Fellas,” she said, with a smile. She looked her age in the cold morning light, with no lipstick and not even eyeshadow, but her face was nice enough to get away with it. Her red hair was pinned and piled up like a turban, nothing fashionable, just getting it out of her way. “This looks like a serious pow-wow.”

“My friend Mr. Gibson has finished his work for me,” Cornell said stiffly.

Angela-who not long ago had helped me dump two bodies (let’s call it aiding and abedding)-knew damn well that that “work” almost certainly had to be something on the nasty side; but she didn’t blink. She was, after all, this man’s wife-separated or not-and moreover she was Tony Giardelli’s daughter. She had spent a lifetime on the fringes of violence and had to be used to it, or at least used to ignoring it.