Max Collins - The last quarry

Now his eyebrows went up. “Is that my fault?”

“No,” I admitted. “That’s my fault. Blowing her up in her car, that would be yours.”

He backed away, hands half-up, saying, “Listen, I’m sorry I stepped on your fuckin’ toes…but I had orders to follow…and now I got a plane to catch.”

Cautiously DeWayne returned to the duffel bag he was packing; his gun was over there on the floor, somewhere. Part of me wished he would go for it, please go for it, right now, go for it…

“I need to finish packing,” he said, doing his best to sound casual, gesturing to the bag. “You got a problem with that?”

I shook my head. “Not at all-but why don’t you pack after your shower?”

“My what?”

“When’s your plane, DeWayne?”

Various vague gestures accompanied his reply: “Two hours from now, but I got to drive over to-”

“You got plenty of time for a quick shower.”

He stared at me like I was a raving madman, even though I was not raving. “What the fuck…?”

Slowly but steadily, I removed the nine from my waistband and pointed it at him. “Take your clothes off, DeWayne.”

His eyes and nostrils flared, the short blond hair damn near bristling. “The hell! ”

I gestured a little with the gun, not vaguely. “Go on and strip…I’m locking you in the bathroom so you don’t follow me.”

He shook his head, wild-eyed, blurting, “I’m not gonna fucking follow your ass!”

“That’s right,” I said. “Because I’m locking your ass in the can, and taking your clothes. That’ll give me the lead I need, to get out of this podunk.”

DeWayne sighed. Shook his head. Opened his palms placatingly. “ Please, buddy. Come on, will ya? What the hell’d I ever do to-”

“Skivvies and all, DeWayne. All the way.”

“…Christ.” His eyes popped with alarm. “Oh, Christ, you fell for her!”

“ Now, DeWayne…”

Frantic, pawing the air, he said, “Look, you can’t blame me for this. It was Mr. Green. Once a guy like Mr. Green decides you’re dead, you’re fucking dead! You know that! She was a dead man walkin’-I was just the means to an end, and if it wasn’t me, it coulda been any-”

“Spare me the horseshit, DeWayne, and strip the fuck down.”

DeWayne slumped in defeat.

Moving in slow motion, he began unbuttoning the pale yellow shirt, then-and this was admirable, he didn’t telegraph it all-swept a curving martial-arts kick around that popped the nine millimeter right out of my grasp.

The gun slid across the carpet and hid under a chest of drawers, as if wanting nothing to do with any of what was about to come.

Shaking my head and smiling, I said, “This isn’t really necessary, DeWayne.”

He went into a karate-school stance that I wish I could say looked hokey, but it didn’t-he was a muscular young ex-Marine who clearly knew his shit, and it hadn’t all come out of Black Belt magazine, either.

“That’s my call, Pops!”

It was my turn to sigh.

“Go ahead, kid. Take your best shot.”

And he did, kicking high and out, aiming at my head. If it had connected, I’d likely have been dead, my neck broken.

So I ducked it.

DeWayne reared back, confusion coloring his face, and paused for a moment.

“Couldn’t we just skip this, son?”

Teeth bared, he tried again, rushing me with a flurry of blows, bladed hands here, fists there, and I ducked and slipped and dodged.

He followed me as I circled away, and when he high-kicked, I got out of the way, and his running-shod foot broke a mirror over the dresser, shards raining noisily. I circled back and he charged me and I stepped aside and he busted off the top half of a chair, making a stool out of it.

Finally he began to lose his cool, which isn’t a part of any martial arts program I know of; but you couldn’t blame the poor bastard-I was frustrating the hell out of him, avoiding his every blow, never raising my hands. I didn’t even bother taunting him, ignoring anything he said to me (“Stand still, gramps!”) and, with the mini-suite half demolished, he went for broke with a flying kick that I stepped aside for, and he crashed to the floor with a whump.

I just stood there, arms folded causually, not having broken a sweat, while he got to his feet, then bent over, exhausted, panting, pausing with his hands on his thighs.

“ Je — sus,” he said, trying hard to catch his breath, still hunkered over, “ Je — sus…why don’t you…you… fuckin’…fuckin’ do something?”

I slammed a fist into the side of his head, connecting with his ear and temple, and the big guy went down, in a pile.

He wasn’t out, but he was out of it, and when he finally looked back up at me, pitifully-his face red and fully sweat-beaded, his ear bleeding from the side of his head where I’d hit him-the nine millimeter was back in my hand, its dark eye staring him down.

“See, DeWayne? You do need a shower.”

That made him slump some more, as if all the remaining energy just drained out of him, but he was still breathing hard. He sat there, kind of sideways, his legs sprawled, like a cripple whose faith-healing hadn’t taken.

“Just,” he said, and heaved a couple breaths, and then tried again: “Just do it. Awright? Just…fucking… kill me.”

I shook my head and my expression was fairly pleasant. “I’m not gonna kill you, kid. Strip.”

Allowing himself the luxury of being reassured, DeWayne somehow got to his feet-it was kind of like watching one of those demolition-of-a-building film clips played backward, a structure reassembling itself-and once again, back to slow motion, he began to unbutton his shirt.

No tricks.

No attacks.

No surprises.

All he did was perform the least interesting striptease I have ever witnessed, discreetly turning his back to me at the finish, his arms-muscular, decorated with various USMC tattoos-hanging as slack as his muscular buttocks were taut.

He glanced back at me for his orders.

“The shitter,” I told him.

And I marched the dejected DeWayne into the bathroom. The young soldier wasn’t looking for an escape route, or at least I didn’t think he was. He seemed relatively unafraid, probably figuring I’d have killed him by now, if that was the point.

Just inside the cramped bathroom, he again looked over his shoulder and said, “You mind a little friendly advice? Don’t tangle asses with Mr. Green. I know you’re not happy about how this went down. But just…go your own way.”

“Semper fi, Mac,” I said.

There was no tub, just a shower stall with the familiar pebbled glass.

He swallowed. “Now what?”

“Get in.”

This seemed to alarm him, and his head swivelled on the muscular neck. “What the fuck for?”

Keeping it low-key, sticking the nine back in my waistband, I said, “I’m going to wedge something against the door, and lock you in. Buy me some time.”

“I told you I wouldn’t-”

“Right. Get in.”

Compliantly, DeWayne opened the door and stepped in the stall, and stood there with a good-size dick hanging and an expression that was neither moronic nor intelligent-perfect makings for a Marine.

“And?” he asked.

“And,” I said, “be careful, DeWayne. You’d be surprised how many accidents happen in the bathroom.”

He squinted at me, not getting that, and I used both hands to slam his head into the shower stall wall, with all the force I could muster.

The sound of his skull cracking wasn’t loud but it was distinct, and perhaps DeWayne even had time to hear it; either way, he was already dead, wide-eyed and frozen in time, as he slid slowly down the wall, leaving a bloody snail-smear behind him.