Max Collins - The first quarry

“Not such a good idea. Listen, I’m experienced at this, or anyway Mr. Koenig is. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that having contact with your husband, harassing him and so on, will only hurt your cause in court.”

Her chin crinkled-she wasn’t was about to cry or anything, this was more like a pout, and not as fetching as ones she’d given me earlier, back when she was stripping for me.

“If you want simple revenge,” I said, “you could throw the photos in his face, kick him in the nuts, do whatever you like. But if you hired our agency because you want to build a divorce case against this cheater, then let me do the job I’m being paid for. And as delightful as spending time with you is, you need to get out of my way.”

She frowned. “You’re not finished with the job?”

I shook my head. “I may not be. I haven’t seen the developed photos yet. I took some through the window catching your husband in flagrante delicto. ”

“That’s French for fucking some whore, right?”

“More or less. But I’m frankly not as good with a camera as Mr. Koenig, and it was at night, and I didn’t have a flash, going through hazy curtains-we need to see what I got. I may have to go back for more.”

“And I’m…I’m in your way.”

The couple on stage was doing a version of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” Try to imagine how wretched it was. Nice try, but no.

“Iowa City is a small town,” I said. “If your husband even sees you around here, you may blow it for me. Please let me do my job.”

That was a genuine plea: please let me do my job.

“Okay,” she said, and shrugged helplessly. “Listen, I, uh…I’m going up to my own room to spend the night. That doesn’t offend you or anything?”

“No.”

“It’s just…I’ve kind of gotten used to sleeping alone.”

“Fine.”

“You’re not hurt?”

I gave her my best smile. “No. I had a wonderful time. This is a night I’ll never forget.”

Her smile was rumpled, but she really was very pretty. Not that blank, advertisement pretty I’d seen earlier, but a woman with lovely features and an intelligence that the beers and the vodka hadn’t completely diminished.

She asked, “Really? Even though I have a few miles on me?”

“I’d be glad to help you rack up a few more, any time.”

That made her laugh a little, and she slid out of the booth and so did I. The duo was slaughtering “Fire and Rain.” Really should be a law.

I walked her to the elevators and up to her room. She gave me a nice kiss, soft and sweet, and unlocked her door and hip-swayed in, at least a little drunk.

Back in my room, I collected the nine millimeter and stuffed it in my waistband. This goddamn job was getting out of hand. From what I’d overheard, Annette would have gone over to the prof’s around six this evening. If she did not stay the night, I might be able to get this turkey shot.

So within an hour, I was back at my window in the split-level, with the only change the addition of the little portable TV, its rabbit-ears adjusted to bring in Johnny Carson as best as possible. I kept the volume pretty low. The show had just started and Johnny and Ed and Doc were just fooling around, no guests yet.

Surprisingly, I was fairly alert. I’d slept most of the afternoon, starting when I got back from lunch at Bushnell’s Turtle up till my phone call to Broker, so I was ready to put in a night shift. Annette’s white Corvette was at the curb, meaning she was still in there, getting tutored in one way or another.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, while Johnny Carson was interviewing Charles Nelson Reilly, I thought for a second I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, and not in a good way. A car had just pulled up behind the Corvette, a Plymouth Barracuda with a rental sticker in the back window. I hadn’t seen this vehicle, among the several thousand that seemed to have shown up at the cobblestone cottage, but I sure knew the driver who got out and strode up the sidewalk: Dorrie Byron herself, the lovely woman who had so recently fucked my dick raw.

Hadn’t she had enough fun for one night?

She was dressed as before, the orange of her toreador pants flashing under a white fur coat, possibly a mink, meaning she’d already got at least some money out of the prof. My mouth had dropped and it was all I could do not to yell out the window at her, What the hell do you think you’re doing, lady?

Johnny was laughing at Charles, and I turned the little portable down so I could make out what was coming. Already I could hear her fist pounding on the front door. She paused and then pounded some more.

Finally the door opened and yellow light poured out around the tall figure of her husband, in his maroon terrycloth bathrobe.

As before, voices carried in the crisp, cold air as if from a stage to a theater’s audience.

“Darling!” he said. “What a wonderful surprise!”

“It was terrible spending Christmas without you,” his wife said. “I can stay till New Year’s if you like!”

“That would be wonderful!”

He sort of seemed to be shouting, and of course I knew why. Anyway, the prof was now enfolding his wife in his arms and they were kissing, fairly passionately considering he was a philandering prick and she was the wronged wife seeking a divorce, not to mention solace by having sex with innocent young boys like myself.

With an arm around her, and considerable concern, he ushered her into the house and shut the door. He’d hardly done that when Annette, naked flesh and a dark pubic thatch flashing under her unbuttoned white leather coat, a pile of clothing in her arms, went running in her bare feet on the snowy ground along the side of the house just at the edge of the gravel driveway. She scrambled around to the driver’s side of the Corvette and fumbled unlocking the door, but then was in and behind the wheel and taking off quickly though not peeling out or anything, no burned rubber to attract the attention of the professor’s new house guest.

Now I might have found this amusing if I hadn’t noticed something beside clothing in her arms as she scurried out from around back in French farce fashion. She also had a box, the kind of box a ream of typing paper comes in, and this she held as preciously as the items that would cover the pale flesh under the white leather.

Was that the book? The book?

My job here wasn’t just eliminating the professor, after all, but getting rid of the non-fiction novel that would embarrass and expose Annette’s father back in Chicago.

I quickly exited the split-level and ran down to the garage next door and got in the Maverick and took off after Annette. I admit to having no plan. The last thing I wanted to do, or for that matter that our client would want me to do, was harm this girl. But the possibility of me dealing with Professor Byron tonight, with his loving wife around, was nil; and maybe I could find some way to pry that manuscript away from Annette without blowing my cover or having to kill her lovely ass.

Confused as hell, feeling like I was in way over my head, I made sure at least one car was between me and the brunette’s Corvette as I tailed her. Hell, it was no secret where she was going. And, sure enough, before long she was pulling into her slot at the little apartment building in Coralville. She had taken time to button the white leather coat, so no major flashes of skin or bush were on display as she got out of the vehicle and trotted up the stairs to the second level and sealed herself in her apartment.

I pulled into the Sambo’s lot again.

Christ, I had no idea what to do. Would I really be reduced into breaking into that girl’s apartment, subduing her somehow, and stealing that manuscript? What, wearing a ski mask like the Broker suggested? What was I, a second-story man now? A burglar? Didn’t I have some goddamn dignity?