MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

I’d spent some time with Linda, quiet evenings, watching the tube, curled by the fire. We were both readers-I stuck with my westerns, while she read these dismal sappy romance novels, sitting there lost in them, smiling dreamily. The girl saw the world through rose-colored glasses- prescription rose-colored glasses, at that.

Another week passed, and the unsettling feeling that I’d fucked up began to fade. It didn’t disappear; but it did fade. Nonetheless, I took precautions. I owned three nine-millimeter automatics, and was carrying one, a Browning, with me everywhere I went now, instead of just in the glove compartment of our sporty blue Mazda, and the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed.

Early on, Linda had wondered about why I owned so many guns, particularly handguns, keeping them stashed about.

“I’m just a little paranoid,” I said. “Both my parents were killed by an armed robber.”

Her eyes had gone wide and round; that, added to their light blue color, made her look impossibly innocent. “Jack… I knew your parents were… gone… but I never…”

“They ran a little neighborhood market,” I said. “You know, mom-and-pop kind of deal. And they were both killed.”

“Oh, Jack,” she’d said, eyes full of tears, holding me tenderly.

It was all lies of course, but it led to some immediate great sex and some long-term understanding. She never asked me about the guns again, until just recently, when I started carrying the nine-millimeter around with me.

“Why are you wearing that?” she asked, concerned, as I was slipping my sportcoat over the shoulder holster, on my way up to the Inn.

“There’ve been a few robberies in the area,” I said. “It’s been in the papers.”

And there had been, but so what? That was almost always true.

“I understand,” she said, nodding sagely, and came over and hugged me, gun and all.

The girl’s new insight into me apparently came from her adding the truth that I’d been in combat to the lie about my sainted mom and pop being shot down in their grocery store. I was just a poor, sensitive, traumatized soul, wasn’t I?

I wasn’t packing the gun when we drove down to Chicago for the day, however, though one of the three automatics was in the glove compartment. We were picking up her brother Chris at O’Hare early that evening-he was coming in from Atlanta, Georgia-and Linda suggested we go in early, spend a day in the city Christmas shopping. Even mid-week, the city was jammed with traffic, sidewalks packed with people, and was a good reminder of why I lived on a quiet lake.

She shopped at Water Tower Place, six floors of trendy expensive nonsense, equal parts marble, glass, plants and people; it was the sort of shopping center where women in mink coats rode escalators. I quickly found my way to the theater complex and parked my butt in a fairly comfortable seat and watched Clint Eastwood pretend to be a marine for a couple of hours. I met Linda for lunch at a cafe next to the theater-where two people could have pie and coffee and get just enough change back from a twenty to leave a tip-and she was bubbling over about the things she’d bought, including several hundred bucks worth (using the word “worth” loosely) of metal signs, replicas of vintage advertisements for Coca Cola, Crackerjacks, Heinz pickles and so on, for decoration in the Welcome Inn’s rustic dining room. She’d also bought some presents for me, which she was dying to tell me about but managed to contain herself. She was a sweet kid. I didn’t deserve her, but then who does deserve what they get in this life, good or bad?

We walked to Gino’s East a few blocks over and shared a medium pepperoni pizza, the best deep dish pizza (so they said) in a town famous for deep dish pizzas. The walls were carved up with graffiti (it was encouraged-it gave the place atmosphere, and having your customers provide the decoration made more sense than buying little tin advertising signs yourself) and she coaxed me into carving our names there. Too many romance novels. What the hell, I did it, using the serrated part of a table knife, a heart with Jack and Linda in it, squeezed between THE BOSS FOREVER and BON JOVI SUCKS.

I never met her brother before, and when he showed up-his flight an hour late, his only bag a tan leather carry-on-I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He was very blond, very tan, and prettier than Linda. He wore a loose-fitting pastel blue shirt and off-white, baggy, pleated linen pants; he also wore huaraches and no socks.

“Sis!” he said, beaming, and hugged her. Then he backed away, with her still in his arms and said, “I’m freezing my nuts off.”

What kind of dildo would fly into Chicago in November dressed like the fucking beach? This kind of dildo.

“Here,” I said, and gave him my plaid hunting jacket. “It isn’t Ralph Lauren, but it’ll keep you warm.”

“Why, thanks, sport,” he said, and he had a nice smile, white teeth in a face as tan as his Gucci carryon. He slipped the jacket on and it fit him fine. Well, in terms of size it fit him fine.

“I thought I’d never get here,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him adoringly. I fell back, following them down the wide aisle toward the main concourse. “All these delays, and the turbulence? I’d have lost my lunch, if I’d eaten any.”

“You look great, Chris.”

“I feel terrific.”

“Are you being careful?”

“I’m being careful.”

She’d never mentioned her brother was gay, but I had figured it out. First he lived in San Francisco, then in Atlanta-both centers of such activity-and he was thirty-five and unmarried. I know you can be thirty-five and unmarried and live in one of those cities and not be gay, but not when you have a succession of male roommates, and particularly not when you have a sister who cries every time she reads about AIDS in the papers.

“Safe sex,” she said, shaking a lecturing finger at him.

“I know, I know.”

“But you broke up with Ray…”

“I’m looking for a monogamous relationship. I’m not by nature promiscuous.”

I stopped listening about then. I wasn’t interested in the conversation, and I was distracted by the sight of Preston Freed’s clean-cut disciples peddling his Democratic Action party magazines and bumper stickers (the latter seemed pro-nuclear energy and anti-Jane Fonda).

I went and got the car, not minding the cold at all, and picked them up amongst the cabs. He squeezed in back, behind me, with Linda’s many packages, and she sat in front but looking his way. They chattered all the way back, mostly about his work (he was an artist, and had had some gallery showings in several cities-an abstract painting in pastels of his hung at the A-frame, and I didn’t mind it). Later in the conversation Linda revealed that she was “expecting,” and he seemed thrilled, maybe even envious. He patted me on the shoulder and I smiled at him in the mirror.

“I’ll make a fabulous uncle,” he said. “I just love kids.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted the details.

Finally, I pulled in the restaurant parking lot, and Linda said, “It’s getting a little late-I’d rather wait till tomorrow to show Chris around the Inn.”

“Why don’t you kids go back and chat,” I said, getting out of the car. “I have something here I want to work on.”

“Jack,” she said, “come with us-we’ll make a fire, have some drinks…”

“I’ll be home by midnight,” I said. “You have a lot to talk about. Family stuff. You’ll both see plenty of me over the next week.”

She seemed a little disappointed, but she smiled anyway, said, “Okay, honey,” and slid over into the driver’s seat. Chris got out of the back and got in front next to her.