Max Collins - The first quarry

“I’ve been thinking about that. How shaken up are you?”

“How shaken up would you be?”

“Fairly shaken up. You said you weren’t hurt, but they grabbed you, treated you rough, taped you up and threw you in that trunk-you must have aches and pains.”

“You could say I have aches and pains.”

I watched the road. We were coming up on the Quad Cities. “I think we should get a room somewhere and let you rest up and kind of heal up.”

“Why? What’s wrong with my apartment?”

“Your apartment, across from the Sambo’s where two black thugs kidnapped you, couple hours ago? That the apartment you mean?”

She said nothing, but she was holding onto her coat lapels again, and despite her dark complexion looked very pale, though some of that was moonlight and dashboard glow.

I said, “I would like to talk to your father. Tell him what happened.”

She turned sharply toward me. “I don’t want to have anything to do with my father!”

“I can understand that. But those two dead guys from the South Side, they do have something to do with your father. He’s in the middle of some kind of war with them and their black brothers. I want to ask him what to do with you, strictly for your protection.”

“I don’t want his protection.”

“Would you rather I hadn’t been here tonight? Do I have to paint you a picture of what kind of fun and games would’ve been starting about now?”

She said nothing, but then shook her head. “You’re…you’re probably right. In a case like this, my father is the person to talk to.”

“You want to talk to him yourself?”

“No. He and I don’t talk.”

“Would it be all right if I protected your interests?”

She nodded, once, still clutching her lapels.

We crossed the Mississippi and before long I took the Highway 61 exit and drove down through Davenport all the way to the riverfront, crossing under the government bridge and pulling into the Concort Inn parking lot.

I was able to park near the entrance. “Look,” I said, turning to Annette and resting a hand on the seat behind her. “Just so you know. We’ll go in, I’ll register us as husband and wife, Jack and Annette some-shit, and ask for twin beds. You have some fairly liberal notions about sex, but in case you’re wondering, I have no intentions of asking for a reward or anything.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Good. This is about not getting killed. You not getting killed, me not getting killed. Those are the goals.”

“I can get behind those goals.”

“Fine. Let’s go in. If we get a twitchy desk clerk, I’ll say the airline lost our luggage.”

But the desk clerk didn’t give a shit whether we had luggage or not. He was a little put off by me paying in cash since the hotel really did prefer credit cards, but that was all.

The room was not as nice as the suite the Broker had arranged for my last visit, but it was anonymously modern and clean and had a view on the river. Also, the twin beds I’d requested. I set my nine millimeter on the nightstand between us, to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, and also because I might need the fucking thing.

Then I realized I was still in that stupid jacket I’d bought at the truck stop, and took it off and threw it on a chair. I also got out of the black Isotoner gloves.

She sat on the edge of her twin bed facing mine almost primly, hands folded in her lap. She looked beautiful in that fashion model way of hers, dark hair stopping at the white leather shoulders on its way down her back, eyes as big and brown as ever, mouth as fully lush if sans lipstick; but with an edge of controlled hysteria about her.

“Jack…Do you mind if I take a shower?”

“No. Let me in there for a couple minutes, first, would you? I neglected to use the bathroom at that rest stop, having other business to attend to.”

That actually made her smile.

So I went into the bathroom and I took a fairly major shit and emptied my bladder while I was at it; afterward, I turned on the ceiling fan, gentleman that I am, and splashed water in my face until I felt slightly alive. I mention all this not to share the fascinating details of my toilet activities but to demonstrate that I was giving Annette every opportunity to bail. She was alone out there, with my gun on the nightstand, with fan noise going behind the closed bathroom door, and I was doing my best to display trust. And to give her an opportunity to do the same.

When I emerged lighter and renewed, she was hanging up her coat in the closet. She smiled at me. She seemed calm enough.

She said, “I guess I haven’t thanked you.”

“It’s okay. I’ll hit your father up for some kind of bonus.”

She came over and touched my face. “You aren’t as tough as you pretend. I have a feeling, underneath it all, you’re a pussycat.”

I smiled. “I guess you’ve got my number.”

On the other hand, those dead assholes in the rest-stop john might’ve had a different opinion, if they’d still been in any shape to have opinions.

A terrycloth robe was hanging in the closet, with a CONCORT INN logo stitched on its breast pocket, and she took the robe with her into the bathroom and shut herself in.

I went over to the phone and had the desk put me through to the Broker’s emergency number. Three rings this time.

“I’m at the Concort Inn,” I said.

“What the hell are you doing there?”

“I’m in a room with our client’s daughter. She’s taking a shower. You wouldn’t want to come over here and have a talk with me about what I’ve been up to lately?”

A long pause. “I believe I would. What room are you in?”

I told him.

“I’ll get the key to another room nearby where we can talk.”

“How long?”

“It may be an hour.”

“Call from the lobby.”

“All right. Quarry?”

“Yes?”

“What have you done?”

“I’ve done fine. You’ll be pleased.”

She came out of the shower, her hair in a turbaned towel, her nice shape wrapped up in that terrycloth robe. She came over and sat on the edge of her bed, facing me where I sat on the edge of mine, having just got off the phone.

“Why don’t you take a shower?” she asked. “I feel like another woman.”

I felt like another woman, too, but I said, “Only one robe.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be refreshing.”

Hell.

I went in and showered. When I came back out with a towel knotted around me, all the lights were off and she was under the covers of my bed. But the drapes were open on the window onto the river and River Drive, so some flickery illumination came in and turned the room blue-gray.

Her hair, towel-dried and a little frizzy and lots of it, framed that model’s face of hers; the covers were pulled up above her breasts but her shoulders were bare except for where her hair touched them.

She asked, “Don’t you want a reward?”

I came over and said, “Who’s that sleeping in my bed?”

She giggled; it did seem kind of funny at the time. On the other hand, she was about half out of her gourd, after all she’d been through.

“You know,” I said, looming over her, “your father, though I repeat I’ve never met him, hired my agency because he didn’t like the idea of you sleeping around with your professor.”

“You’re not my professor.”

“How do you know I’m interested? Maybe I’m gay.”

She pointed to where the towel was pointing back at her.

“Touche,” I said.

She giggled at that, too. I’m telling you, it was funny. I was wittier than Oscar Levant on the Jack Paar Show. You had to be there.

Of course, I was there, lucky me, and when she flipped the covers back, she showed off an olive-toned body that was perhaps more slender than to my usual taste, but those legs were as shapely as they were long and her waist was supernaturally narrow and the breasts, while small, got help from a prominent rib cage and had dark brown aureoles with nipples that were looking right at me, daring me to make something of it.