MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

Ridge was large in my thoughts, but he wasn’t alone.

He shared them with the man he’d hired to do the job I turned down.

I had, in fact, spent the day trying to track that man-Stone-without much luck. I felt he had to be in town-I almost sensed he was here, if I believed in that shit-but he had apparently not checked into the Blackhawk. I was dealing with desk clerks on all three shifts and none of them seemed to have seen him.

Having worked with him, I knew he liked to roost close to the site of a hit. It was something we argued about, one of the reasons, really, why I had asked the Broker for somebody else to work with. I’d learned a lot from Stone, he was a good teacher, but he had a serious flaw: I felt he left a trail. He would go so far as to stay in the same hotel as his target and that, I knew, was stupid.

But either he had gotten smart in the intervening years, or he just hadn’t checked in yet. I laid twenties on desk clerks in three other, nearby downtown Davenport hotels, but my description of Stone, and his aliases, rang no bells there, either.

Stone had two other quirks. First, he liked arcade games, was your classic pinball wizard, and he particularly, predictably, enjoyed shooting games. Surveillance over a period of days, even weeks, is tiring, intense work, and I could understand him taking a breather with the mindless challenges presented by an arcade full of games. But he was excessive. In a bar, Stone could park himself at pinball or an electronic ping-pong game for hours.

When I was teamed with Stone, it was before the video-game craze came (and, largely, went). But I had a hunch Stone would have flipped out over Pac Man and Donkey Kong and Galaga and the like. So I spent the afternoon doing what I thought was a clever piece of detective work, checking out several video arcades in Davenport, thinking Stone might be killing time within. But he hadn’t been. So much for my investigative abilities.

Stone’s other quirk? He liked to swim. He would invariably stay at a hotel or motel with a pool, an indoor one this time of year; the relaxation, the soothing, meditative qualities of it were something Stone craved. I had, in fact, picked up the same habit. It wasn’t the only thing Stone had taught me, but in a way it was the most important. Swimming was a constant in my life: in Lake Paradise in the summer months, at the Y in Lake Geneva other months. And like Stone, I would tend to seek out an indoor pool wherever I was staying on a job.

I had swum last night, and today, at the Blackhawk’s pool, relaxing and staking the place out at the same time, my nine-millimeter wrapped in a towel, poolside.

No Stone.

I had also spent some of my time hanging around the non-video arcade below the lobby of the Blackhawk; a shoe shine stand with four seats was unattended and I plopped myself down and watched the world go by. It was a world Stone wasn’t part of.

And I wasn’t surprised, really. Not much by way of recon was necessary on this gig. It would take Stone about five minutes to map it all out, the Bix Beiderbecke Room right next to the steps up to the parking garage, Christ. It was too easy.

By now it was eight-thirty and George Ridge had not been on any of the four flights that arrived so far. The next one would be in at nine-fifteen. I stood and stretched, bones popping in my back. I folded the paper under my arm and walked a bit.

Speaking of video arcades, the airport had its own small one next to the gift shop. I peeked in, and Stone wasn’t there, either. I let out a short laugh at my own expense. As a detective, I made a good hitter. I fed some quarters into several of the machines; there was a Ms. Pac Man that I did pretty well on, but couldn’t make the scoreboard. I checked my watch. Not quite nine. I put some quarters into a game based on the cartoon character Popeye. It was pretty good-Bluto and Olive Oyl were on hand, behaving in character, namely Olive Oyl was a whiney bitch and Bluto was a brutal cheat. I got the hang of it quickly, and on my third quarter made it to the hardest level, a pirate ship. On my fourth quarter I made the scoreboard.

Hot damn, I said to myself, as I punched in three letters (all you were allowed): RYN, for Ryan. I was number two on the scoreboard.

Number one was STO.

I stared at it, wondering if it were some guy’s initials or… no, it couldn’t be Stone… could it?

I went back to my seat and hid behind the Times, waiting, the gun rubbing under my shoulder. People came and went. So did the nine-fifteen flight, which did not get in till nine-thirty. No Ridge.

Shortly before ten something disturbing happened: reporters began showing up. Print guys and TV teams from three stations, with minicams in tow. I began wondering what they were here for, and when the ten o’clock flight arrived, Ridge was on it, and they were on him.

My mouth went dry, seeing him again. The same handsome if slightly heavy-set man who’d come calling at my A-frame, every salt-and-pepper hair in place, though he looked tired, drained, even though he was moving quickly.

He had to. The press was swarming him. Ridge was accompanied by two men, who (like him) were dressed in London Fog raincoats over business suits; nonetheless, they had the rough-around-the-edges look of bodyguards, in other words cut from the same cloth as Jordan and Crawford. The bodyguards went to get the luggage while Ridge cut quickly through the reporters, smiling somberly, answering a few questions but not lingering.

He hadn’t noticed me, which was one small blessing. I hadn’t figured on the reporters. If I’d been thinking I would have known that the Quad Cities was just small enough an area, and Ridge large enough a local celebrity, for the “boating accident” of the day before to have attracted regional media attention. It had already gotten big play in the local papers, after all.

I followed on the heels of the reporters through automatic doors out into the chilly night and watched, with a sick sinking feeling, as Ridge climbed into a chauffeured limo, a sleek black stretch Lincoln. The bastard wasn’t even waiting for his luggage!

Weaving between cars and taxis, I ran across the several lanes that separated the airport from its vast parking lot, hurtled a low cement fence and was soon in the Sunbird, behind several cars in line, waiting to pay the parking fee. I kept an eye on that limo, saw it caught behind some traffic in the exit lane nearby. Another small favor.

I was able to slide in behind the limo at the stoplight, planning to keep at least one car between us for the ride to wherever we were going. Then, oddly, the limo turned almost immediately, wheeling into the airport Howard Johnson’s. We weren’t going far at all. George Ridge lived in a big, Frank Lloyd Wrightish home on the so-called Heights in Davenport, up above where Werner had lived, with a magnificent view of the Mississippi. He had not been home for several days, but rather than retire to his modernistic castle, he was being dropped off at a room at a Howard Johnson’s.

Interesting.

I moved along by, while Ridge got out of the limo, shooing it on its way. He stood there in his London Fog, on the sidewalk by the first-floor rooms on the west side of the motel. He withdrew something from an inside pocket; light glinted off it. Soon he was smoking. Then he put the flat silver cigarette case away. He was watching and waiting. Possibly he was watching to see if any of the media people had followed him.

I had pulled into one of the motel stalls and sat in darkness with the nine-millimeter in my lap. I was down a ways from him, but I could see him. I felt myself tightening like a fist, and made myself relax. It was hard to do. I’ve killed people before, as you may have gathered; and usually with utter dispassion. But George Ridge was someone I would enjoy killing. I was sorry only that I was limited to killing him once.