Max Collins - The first quarry

With morning sunlight pouring in the mostly glass walls of the corner-set restaurant, this being a new day was readily apparent, and she shook that fluffy, slightly frizzy brown mane as she interrupted sips of orange juice to say, “I can hardly believe it happened. Last night seems unreal, like something out of Jean-Luc Godard.”

“What did he write?”

“He’s a filmmaker. French New Wave?”

“All I know about the French is, they dig Jerry Lewis.”

She made a face. “Well, they are a contrary lot, the French.”

What was wrong with Jerry Lewis? Hadn’t she ever seen The Nutty Professor?

But I never argue with beautiful women who fuck me in the shower, so I said, “You need to cooperate with your father.”

“I will.”

“Really?”

“Really. I will. I know my ass is on the line.”

“And it’s a really nice ass, you don’t mind my saying, and I’d like to see it and everything attached to it stay that way. Nice, I mean.”

Our breakfast came. I was having Eggs Benedict and she had French toast.

When I cut into my eggs and they bled yellow, she said, “ Ick. How can you stand that?”

“The same way the French stomach Jerry Lewis, I guess.”

“I never liked Eggs Benedict. It sounds like somebody who might work for my father.”

That was pretty funny, and I gave up a smile. “Speaking of your father…please tell me he doesn’t know about the book you’re writing.”

“He doesn’t! Oh my God, how stupid do you think I am?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid. But you might be foolish.”

“I am not foolish. I pride myself on my levelheadedness.”

Sure. Like spending the night with a guy she knew jack shit about and humping him silly. After all, hadn’t I rescued her from kidnappers? Kidnappers I’d murdered without qualms, which I assumed was a trait not shared by all of her boyfriends. That kind of levelheaded.

I swallowed a bite of the eggs; the hollandaise wasn’t great, kind of vinegary.

“Your old man’s not to know,” I said. “Don’t mention your book under any circumstances. If he asks about the professor, just say Byron has been helping you on short stories or something.”

“Okay, but…some day he’s going to find out.”

“Right. If it’s published-”

“ When it’s published.”

“When it’s published, he’ll know…and probably won’t be able to do anything about it. But keeping it from him till then may be tough. I don’t know diddly damn about publishing, but don’t they announce the books they’re doing? Don’t they do advance publicity?”

She shrugged. “If the publisher is discreet, Daddy won’t learn of it until the review copies have gone out, and then it will be too late.”

I held up a palm. “Okay. I can’t help you with that. I don’t know what he’s going to do under those circumstances. But I do know, if he finds out now? He’ll do something severe.”

“Daddy wouldn’t harm me.”

No. He would just have sex with her when she was twelve and then have sex with her for another couple of years after that, and screw her up psychologically so bad that she was capable of levelheaded judgment like checking into a hotel with a hired killer just because he looked like a college student and was pleasant after he murdered people.

“Well,” I said, “he’d harm your book. He’d grab you just like those spades did, and hold you until his people have found every manuscript, every carbon copy, and destroy them all. If copies are in New York, you’ll read and hear all about a major office building where a whole floor got taken out by an electrical flare-up resulting in a most unexpected fire.”

She said nothing. She ate a bite of French toast.

“You’re not disagreeing with me,” I said.

“No.”

“Good. You be discreet. Anybody else on campus know about this project?”

She shook her head. “Just K.J.”

“And he won’t have told anybody, since all he’s doing is stealing from it.”

Her olive complexion paled. “It’s so hard for me to believe…that K.J. would betray me like that. I thought we were artists! Fellow artists.”

“I don’t know much about artists, but I do know they are self-centered egomaniacs who don’t give two shits about any other artist.”

Her full lips formed a tiny smile, touched with just a little maple syrup. “For somebody who doesn’t know much about artists, you could write a book.”

“Maybe I will someday.”

That amused her. “Will I be in it?”

“No. You can trust me for my discretion.”

After I paid the check, I ushered her into the lobby and then walked her to the bank of phone booths and she slipped into one. She’d be reversing the charges, so we didn’t need to go get change from the front desk or anything.

While I was waiting, a hand touched my shoulder and I whirled and damn near cold-cocked the Broker, who bobbed his head back in momentary alarm, then said, “Easy, my boy. Take it easy. We only have a few minutes, perhaps seconds. What is it we need to discuss that we haven’t already?”

I took him by the elbow and we crossed to a pair of soft chairs in a waiting area. I leaned forward and so did he, the light-blue eyes unblinking and looking almost gray today, possibly because of his gray-vested suit.

“I may be new to this business,” I said, “but I know all about loose ends.”

He said nothing, just barely nodding.

“Am I in any danger?” I asked. “Are we in any danger?”

He didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about. His white eyebrows rose a tad, his thick white mustache wiggled just a little.

Then he said: “It’s true that we’ve wandered off course in this affair. That we’ve severely broken protocol. You are not supposed to know who our client is.”

“Yeah, and our client isn’t supposed to know who I am, either.”

Another tiny nod. “But none of that was our doing. And I think the gratitude of our client, for your gallantry where his daughter is concerned, cancels out any concern we might have that our client could consider us, as you say, loose ends that need…snipping.”

My gallantry, huh? Killing those soul men in a rest stop shitter, and banging the client’s daughter in a room in the Broker’s hotel. Who says chivalry is dead?

“Okay,” I said. “But if anybody with spaghetti sauce on his tie gives me a funny look, he’s had his last fucking meatball.”

“Understood.”

“And, Broker-if some people die who maybe weren’t scheduled to die, you need to know I was protecting our asses… capeesh?”

He smiled a little and nodded. “By all means, protect us at every cost. One can always find another client. A young man with your skills, Quarry, is a rare find.”

He sounded like that fat guy in that movie about the Maltese falcon, right before Chubby sold out his sidekick.

But I said, “Just so we understand each other.”

“We do.”

I got up and went one way and the Broker got up and went another.

When Annette stepped from the phone booth, I asked, “Everything all right?”

She nodded. “He says he’s concerned for my safety, and insists that two of his people position themselves outside my apartment. He wanted two more in the apartment, but I convinced him there just wasn’t room.”

Plus, there seemed to be no access to that second-floor apartment other than the front, open stairway, so another pair of bodyguards would have been overkill.

“That’s all?” I asked. “You were on with him for quite a while.”

“I know. We did…we did argue about something.”

“What?”

“He wants to come to Iowa City himself, tonight. To see me. He’s worried about me. He says he wants to make it up to me. Make amends.”