MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

He was nervous. I hoped that was because he knew I was out here somewhere. He just didn’t know how close. That made me smile. He checked his watch. Then, quickly, he slid open one of the glass doors of the room just behind him and stepped in and slid it shut again.

I thought about that. I knew he wasn’t meeting a woman for an affair in there, at least it was unlikely; he was divorced, although I supposed a married woman might be meeting him here. More likely-much more likely-he was meeting with someone about tomorrow’s press conference. Where he’d cast his vote by way of a bullet delivered by a surrogate, putting an end to the candidacy of Preston Freed. Isn’t democracy grand?

The question was, when to go in? If he was meeting with, say, Stone, and I went in, the shooting could start before any questions got asked and answered. And in the motel setting, I’d have to use the suppressor, and that meant the relative slowness of working the gun’s action by hand after every shot. Well, I’d have to make the best of it.

I was about to get out of the car when a figure walked quickly by, in front of my parked Sunbird, heading in the direction of the room Ridge had slipped into. The man was heavy-set and balding but moved with an athlete’s grace. He was about six feet one and was wearing a long black leather topcoat and black slacks. He looked like something out of an Italian western.

He was Stone.

Older. Less hair, and what there was of it grayed, the widow’s peak a casualty of time; and heavier. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I was heavier myself, although not that much heavier. I had given the hotel desk clerks descriptions of Stone as I had known him perhaps a dozen years ago. I had not allowed for-and, in fairness to myself, could not foresee the exact nature of-the effect of time.

Stone’s hands slid open one sliding door. That meant he was expected: otherwise those doors would be locked. He ducked in there.

I crouched between two cars, nine-millimeter in hand, watching the glass doors, draped, shut, possibly locked now, perhaps ten feet away. I was trying to decide how to go in-the room number was no problem, it was posted above the glass doors, 114-when Stone came back out, moving quickly.

His face was white. Stone was naturally pale, but not that pale; and his eyes were round and wild.

He ran back the way he came, not past where I was now crouching, not seeing me, and moments later I heard a car start up and tires squealed and I glanced back and saw a sporty little cinnamon car-a Dodge, maybe-flash by, and he was gone.

The glass doors were not only unlocked, one remained open, the cold breeze making the blue drape flap like a ghost.

I stepped in quickly, fanning the nine-millimeter around, easing the door shut behind me with a gloved hand. Other than Ridge, the room was empty, but I checked the bathroom, including shower stall, and closet. Nobody there.

Just Ridge.

Ridge, who was on the floor next to the bed on his back, still in his London Fog raincoat, which was appropriate, because his throat was raining blood. He’d been cut from ear to ear, an obscene scarlet grin below the sorrowful frown and empty open eyes of the late George Ridge. The only real estate in his future would be a cemetery plot.

And there’d be no talking to him now; no questions, no answers.

Shit!

I wouldn’t even get to kill the fucker once.

I dove into the pool, into the deep; no diving board, just off the edge. Sign said NO DIVING but another said NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY, and I’d broken rules before. A nice clean dive, and I stayed under, swam the length of the pool that way and came up in the shallow.

The pool room was steamy, the lighting subdued, the blues and grays of the tile floor and the brown of the brick walls as soothing as the heated pool itself. Skylights above revealed the night; this was a small rectangular room, taken up mostly by the small rectangular pool. It was after eleven now, midnight approached, and I had the place to myself. The glass wall, separating the pool room from the beige-brick parking-garage entry area, was steamed up; but the occasional shapes of people, going to and from their cars, to and from the hotel, could be made barely out, smudgy apparitions haunting the hall.

I swam laps for a while. Very easily. I don’t push myself when I swim. Exercise is not the point for me. Relaxation is. It helps me not to think, when that’s what I want; and it helps me to think, when that’s what I want-the way they used to claim a sensory deprivation tank would bring you in closer touch with yourself. I was in close touch with myself already, thanks, but I did like the way the water and the warmth slowed my thoughts and at the same time brought them clarity.

I had told no one about finding Ridge’s body, having left as quickly as I arrived, apparently unseen. I considered calling Freed, and I would tell him, but now was not the time.

But I had called Angela Jordan, albeit not to tell her about Ridge. I’d apologized for calling so late-ten-thirty is late to make a phone call, anyway in the Midwest it is-and asked her how she was doing.

“Just fair,” she said “The girls… especially Kristie… are just devastated. Mom’s staying here with me. With us. Thank God for her. It’s been just awful.”

“Have there been arrangements to make?”

“No, not really. Bob’s parents are taking care of everything-there’s a memorial service Wednesday.”

“I didn’t know if I’d catch you at home,” I said. “I kind of thought you might be at the funeral home or something.”

“No. There’s no… body, remember?”

Actually, there was a body-partially cremated in my A-frame; by now, no doubt, it was buried in a grave with one of my names on it.

“It’ll be a church service,” she was saying. “I.. don’t get along with Bob’s folks very well. I mean, I’m not the wife, I’m the ex-wife. But the girls aren’t his ex-daughters, so… aw, jeez. This has just been a horrible day.”

I was about to make it even worse.

“What if I said I thought your husband’s death was not an accident.”

A stunned silence followed, briefly.

Then, in a somewhat accusatory tone: “What do you mean?”

“What if I said I thought it was murder.”

“Murder? Murder? I know Bob was involved in some… rough things sometimes, but…”

“And what if I said I thought I knew who was respon- sible.”

“Jack, what are you saying?”

“What if I said I couldn’t prove it, and that there was no way we could go to the police about it.”

There was firmness in her voice now: “Jack, if you know something, we’re going to the police. Right now-no discussion.”

“Forget I mentioned it.”

“Forget you… Jack, I’m coming there to talk to you.”

That’s what I wanted anyway.

“Okay,” I said. “Make it midnight in the lobby of the Blackhawk. I’ll spell things out.”

She’d agreed to that. I’d called her from my room. Now I needed that swim. To relax. To think. And for another reason.

I sat in the shallow section, my head out of water, rest of me under, and waited. Played a hunch. I was starting to feel foolish, not to mention wrinkled, when I was suddenly not alone.

Another guest of the hotel invaded my dank, until-then solitary chamber. As I had hoped he might. He was six-foot or so, a pale, potbellied, balding man wearing a dark blue knee-length terry cloth robe and black thong sandals. Something heavy was in one pocket of his robe; the right. His face was pockmarked, his chin cleft.

He was the man I’d known as (among other things) Stone.

He took off the robe and draped it carefully across a yellow deck chair. Stepped out of his sandals and, ignoring the sign just as had I, dove into the water. Graceful as an Olympic diver, if considerably fatter.