MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

“You’ve got your security team in place for tomorrow morning?”

“I certainly do. And I will be wearing soft body armor, whether you find that practical or not.”

“Won’t hurt anything. Think there’ll be a good media turnout?”

“Excellent. Representatives from all three major net- works, plus CNN; coming in from their Chicago bureaus, for the most part. The newspaper world should be equally well represented.”

“I saw something in the paper about you today.”

“The USA Today poll? Yes, it said my recognition is up seventy percent since my previous campaign.”

“Yeah, but sixty percent of those who recognize you think you’re a loon.”

His eyes narrowed in irritation. “I believe the question was, ‘Do you take Preston Freed seriously as a candidate?’ Perhaps after tomorrow they will.”

“That’s one of the things we need to talk about. You can leave your bullet-proof underwear home and call off your security. Well, the extra security, anyway. A presidential candidate always ought be protected, don’t you think?”

He was frowning now. “What are you talking about?”

“Stone is no longer a problem.”

He looked at me sharply. “You… found him?”

“Yes, I did.”

Eyes peered out through cuts in his face. “And you killed him?”

I nodded, then raised a finger gently. “You said you wanted no details, remember? Besides, it was nothing flashy. Bullet in the brain. You can read about it in the Times tomorrow.”

He sighed, shook his head. “Damn.”

He was visibly disappointed.

“You wanted him nailed at the Blackhawk tomorrow morning, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” he said irritably. “The attention an assassination attempt would focus upon me would make for invaluable publicity. I explained that. Well, you blew your bonus, didn’t you, Quarry?”

“Nobody’s perfect. Heck, I thought you’d be grateful that I took him out. He was hired to kill you, you know.”

“Yes,” he said, through white teeth, clenched wolf-like, “but we knew he was coming!”

I smiled. Whether it was wolf-like or not, I couldn’t say.

What I did say was this: “That’s what this was about from the beginning, wasn’t it?”

He brushed back his white mane of hair. “What in hell are you babbling about?”

“You took the contract out.”

His smile seemed one of amused amazement. “What, on myself?”

“On yourself.”

He laughed, shook his head, sipped his Scotch. “Really, Mr. Ryan.”

“You wanted to be a martyr. A living martyr. You wanted attention called to yourself. That was the intention from day one, to publicly avert an assassination attempt, which you figured was easy enough, when, as you say, you know it’s coming.”

He gestured with the glass in hand, dismissively. “This is all nonsense.” He scowled at me. “I’d like you to leave my home, Mr. Ryan, or Quarry, or whatever. I don’t think I have any further need for your services.”

“I was sought out because I have vague mob connections. When the authorities dug that out-after I was shot down by your bodyguards, at your press conference-that’d seem to give credence to your pet theory, the ‘Drug Conspiracy,’ the mob and bankers, all that bullshit.”

He looked at me with apparent pity. “The Drug Conspiracy is very real.”

“Yeah, and where would your cocaine habit be without it? You can plug Stone into that same scenario, incidentally. In fact, he’s a better choice than me-his mob ties weren’t so vague as mine.”

“This is insanity. We both know that George Ridge is the man who hired you.”

“And now I’ll tell you that George Ridge is dead, and you can act surprised.”

His eyes and mouth opened wide; he dropped the glass of Scotch and it spilled on the wheatcolored carpet. “What? George? Dead?”

“That was very good. You’re real smooth. Quite the actor. Did you kill Ridge yourself, or use a flunky? I’d say yourself. It’s an amateur’s weapon, a knife, and you’ve got all this hunting shit around, western stuff, there’s knives handy. You had the meeting set up at the motel, he came in, you did him, you went out through the motel. You don’t know how close you came to bumping into first Stone, then me. That would’ve been cute.”

He gave me his most earnest look, mixed in with some indignation. “George Ridge and I were bitter enemies!”

“Hardly. Oh, I was fed a convincing denunciation of you by Ridge, claiming to represent a ‘concerned group of patriotic citizens’ and such shit. That was just in case by some fluke I was not killed in the attempted hit, and fell into police and/or federal hands. That gave me a story to tell.”

“George’s break with me-”

“Was just more acting, mister candidate. Ridge was not the left-wing type. Sure, back in your salad days, you were both in that SDS fringe group; but that wasn’t politics, that was college. That was make-believe. Before Ridge learned about the realities, the glories of capitalism and real estate and especially selling gullible assholes tapes about getting rich quick. Jesus, why didn’t I think it through? George Ridge is about the least likely liberal I can think of. That was strictly for public consumption.”

He rolled those blue eyes. “ Now who’s the conspiracy nut?”

“There were several people involved, beyond you and Ridge, but I don’t think any of them know they were working for anyone but Ridge-like his hapless flunkies Jordan and Crawford, two prime fuck-ups who have managed to die twice in the last few days. And Ridge tapped into his friend Werner for the names and whereabouts of the ‘mob hitmen.’ And Lonny Best, I believe, was asked by Jordan to provide a car for the Wisconsin run, reported ‘stolen’ after the fact. The only thing really stolen were the Rock Island county license plates; the new car would’ve had none, otherwise. Best, you see, despite his public posture, is also still a Freed man-he knew I was doing ‘security’ for you, he told me so today; I thought I knew who told him that, but I was wrong-it was either you or someone in your camp. My hunch, though, is Best at most only vaguely knows he was part of any criminal conspiracy. I wouldn’t bother having him snuffed, if I were you.”

“Your security advice is always appreciated, Mr. Ryan.”

“But, all in all, at its root, it was a two-man conspiracy. That’s why you killed Ridge yourself. And that’s why I know I’m right about all this-how I finally put this together. Only you knew that I knew Ridge had taken that contract out. Only you knew that Ridge, too, was a loose end that now needed tying off.”

“If all that’s true, why didn’t I have you killed?”

“Well, you’d have probably had to do it yourself, and I think you know you’re not up to it. I didn’t tell you where I was staying, and I warned you that if I were followed, there’d be hell to pay. No, I think you wanted me there, at the press conference; I think I’d have been shot down in the confusion, to provide even more proof that some mob conspiracy had attempted to snuff out your idealistic flame. Why not a real president? If the mob wants him dead, he can’t be all bad!”

Finally he dropped the pretense and smiled with infinite smugness. His face took on an almost demonic cast, thanks to the glow and the shadows from the fire behind us. “It would work. It would’ve worked.”

“I think it would’ve at that. It was foolish for a man as public as Ridge-whose business was public speaking, after all, even if most of it was on audio tapes-to show himself to me. He would risk that only to help contain the conspiracy, and with the knowledge that I’d be taken out, later, anyway. You planned the same for Stone, of course. And all it’s really cost you is that ten grand you slipped under Stone’s hotel room door tonight.”