Max Collins - The first quarry

Her coat was off-the heat was going at a pretty good clip here in the tropical world of Sambo’s-and she had on a black sweater that made the polka dots on the purple slacks stand out more; her smallish breasts under the sweater were doing a swell job, considering. She wasn’t eating anything, at least not yet, just working on a cup of black coffee.

She seemed fairly engrossed in the book. I had my eggs, sausage and pancakes, “tiger butter” and all, and decided to take a risk. Maybe it was the sugar rush.

On my way to the counter to pay my bill, I stopped at her booth and asked, “How is that?”

She glanced up from her paperback, not at all irritated by the interruption, and said in a nice throaty alto, “Do you like Norman Mailer?”

“I’ve only read Naked and the Dead,” I said, which was true. I read it in high school back when I thought war sounded like a heroic thing for a kid to get involved in. Mailer’s opinion had been different, and now so was mine, although he hadn’t had anything to do with it.

“Well, he’s a completely out of control egotist,” she said. “Or perhaps I should say ego- ist.”

Was there a difference? Not if you hadn’t been to college there wasn’t.

She was saying, “But he may be onto something here-referring to himself in the third person and all.”

I nodded toward the book in her scarlet-nailed hands. “Isn’t that non-fiction? Something about the march on the Pentagon?”

“Yes. But it’s a non-fiction novel, or at least it’s trying to be. I don’t know if he’s really successful here, but it’s interesting to see him try. I really think this is the future.”

“Yeah. Of what?”

She beamed at me in a winning combination of embarrassment and confidence. “Of the novel. Of journalism. I don’t know really, but something new.”

“Does sound interesting.”

I smiled and nodded, and she smiled and nodded back and returned to her book, and I went on outside and climbed into the Maverick and got the heat going.

No way to know how long Mailer’s book and Sambo’s coffee would hold her interest; no way to know if she’d be heading back to her place or the prof’s cottage, after. I could sit here and wait and watch to see when she emerged, five minutes or two hours from now, but if she noticed me, that would be bad. That was the downside of getting friendly with my target’s best girl. I couldn’t think of an upside, incidentally. I just kind of liked her looks.

Less than half an hour later I was back at the old stand. The space heater was doing fine and in fact was making me a little sleepy; well, the space heater and those pancakes-blame the tiger butter. A car belonging to another of those male Writers’ Workshop students was parked in front of the cobblestone pad, meaning a legit advisory session was again under way.

This meant Annette might be staying away just until these meetings were over. Another half an hour dragged by and I was sipping some cocoa from the thermos lid-cup when I heard a crinkling sound. Now this new house had plastic down on the floors, but I had rolled the living room sheet back to give me a nice space by and around the window where I could sit on carpet and not on cold crinkly plastic. I mention this because the plastic could also serve as an early warning system, alerting me to somebody else moving through this house.

Of course, I would have to have been fully awake and not trying to maintain surveillance with my head up my ass, and when I removed my head from that orifice and turned, I was facing a guy with a gun. Which is to say, I wasn’t facing him with my gun, he was facing me with his, a little. 38 Police Special with a snub nose, a dinky nothing that could kill you deader than Jimi and Janis.

He was short and dark and pudgy with Nixon jowls and tiny dark eyes and an awful bulb of a nose. He had no hat on a mostly bald noggin, though the hair he did have was longish, enough so that he had sideburns, not quite mutton chops but close. He was in a tan trench-coat that had a lumpiness indicating it was heavily lined; and brown slacks and brown rubber-soled shoes.

He was grinning, not a very wide grin, but a toothy Bucky Beaver thing that gave him a hint of childish glee. Whoever he was, he figured he’d really put one over on me.

Which he had.

“Just take it easy, kid,” he said. His voice was a fairly squeaky tenor, not at all impressive, except for belonging to a guy with a gun.

The nine millimeter was in my waistband but my corduroy jacket was zipped. Maybe I could slip my hand up and under and get at the weapon; and maybe not. Probably not.

“Why don’t you come over here, kid,” he said, and motioned with the. 38. “Get away from the windows.”

“I’m okay where I am.”

“No, really, you aren’t. I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Then put the gun down.”

“Not till we’re better acquainted. I think we might work for the same team…well, not the same team. But maybe affiliated teams, you know?”

I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know. I did get to my feet and I walked over to the half of the living room still covered in plastic, my footsteps crinkling it this time. I faced him but kept my distance, maybe four feet.

“Listen, kid,” he said, regret in his voice but the Bucky Beaver grin still going, “I gotta pat you down.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His eyes got hard and the grin vanished; his mouth was a puckery thing in the five o’clock-shadowed face, an anus that wandered off course. “You put your hands up, kid, and stand for a frisk. Be a good boy. I been at this longer than you. I got ties older than you.”

That I believed.

I put my hands up. I was ready to bring them down on him, but he was experienced, I’ll give him that. When he got close, he shoved the snout of the revolver in my side and with his free hand unzipped my coat.

“Now that’s a weapon,” he said admiringly of the nine millimeter in my waistband. He plucked the gun like a metal flower and dropped it in a trenchcoat pocket and backed up a couple steps.

Was I dead?

“Let me guess,” he said genially. “You’re working for the father.”

“Am I?”

His somewhat Neanderthal brow wrinkled. “Don’t answer questions with questions. It’s annoying.”

“Is it?”

The bucktooth grin again. “You have a sense of humor. That’s good. Because people with senses of humor, they have a certain love of life. What is it the French say?”

“ Merde?”

“ Joie de vivre. And people with a love of life don’t take stupid chances, particularly when they don’t have to. I don’t wanna kill you, kid. Really I don’t. It would be a real pain in my keister, and neither would I want to piss off the girl’s father.”

“Who would?”

He chuckled. “You know, you’re pretty good. I didn’t spot you till today. How many days you been here?”

“This is the second.”

“Well, I’ve been on the job for three days. I’m in the split-level house across the way. I saw you take your car out earlier this evening. That’s maybe not a good idea in the daylight.”

“You may be right.”

“Who do you think I’m working for?”

“Not the girl’s father.” That’s all I could think of to say-my information was limited.

“No,” he said, shaking his head in agreement, “not the girl’s father, which is a pity.”

“Is it?”

His tiny glittery eyes tightened. His nose was really ugly, with veins and blackheads and whiteheads in the crevices. And those beaver teeth were yellow, probably from smoking, because he stank of it. Death is never pretty, but did I really have to get killed by somebody this unpleasant?