MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

“Fuck you,” he said, sobbing.

“Now you’ve done it,” I said.

“W-what?”

“Gone and made me mad,” I said, and squeezed the trigger. His body muffled the sound and I let him drop and stood over him and watched him die. It took a while.

I went in the bedroom and sat on the bed next to Linda. What had been Linda. Put my hand on her stomach. My hand came away red.

I got a suitcase from the bedroom closet; when I opened it, I found several brightly wrapped packages. Christmas paper and bows, little cards inscribed by her hand, “Love you, Jack-your Linda,” and so on. I left the gifts in the suitcase but filled in around the sides with a few more things: pair of jeans, couple sweaters, socks, underwear, some toiletries. Just enough to get me by for a few days. I’d pick up some new clothes. Linda had some sleeping pills, Seconal, and I took the bottle with me. I had a few business papers I wanted to take along-from the old days, the Broker days-and from the safe in my little office I took my stash of emergency cash, ten grand, in twenties and fifties. Tucked those packets into the suitcase, as well. I left the safe open.

I went outside and took the axe out of the back of the guy’s head, which made a sound like pulling your foot up out of mud, and dragged him by the feet in through the back door, all the way into the living room; he left a snail-like trail of blood and brain matter, even though the mess was facing mostly up. In his pants pocket I found the keys to his car, which I kept. He had no I.D. of any kind, of course. Like a department store window dresser, I arranged my mannequin so that his head was against the metal lip of the fireplace. Near his open right palm I placed the nine-millimeter I used on his partner. I found my hunting jacket hung on the hook by the front door; my car keys were on the kitchen counter and I put them in the right-hand jacket pocket. As if dancing with a clumsy partner, I put it on the other corpse, and draped him near the fireplace as well. I removed his leather gloves; put them on-they fit perfectly-and reached under the sofa for the silenced Luger, leaving the gun near the two dead men. Then I stepped back to look at them, an artist checking his composition. As an afterthought-and with some reluctance, I admit-I removed my Rolex, engraved on the back “To Jack-Love Linda,” and placed it on the left wrist of the corpse wearing my hunting jacket. Now satisfied, I went back out to my little tool shed and got a can of gasoline. Still wearing the gloves, I soaked a good deal of the living room down, dousing the two corpses, and particularly the fireplace, whose dying embers flared into life. I didn’t douse Chris at all-him I hoped would eventually be identified. I splashed some in the hallway. Couldn’t bring myself to splash any around the bedroom. The smell of the gas began to override the death smell.

I went in the bedroom one last time. I was going to kiss her goodbye, but she really wasn’t there anymore, was she? She was gone. I’d fucked up, chose the wrong option, and she was gone. Somebody screamed. Me.

I had lived here a long time. But I could never live here again.

Then I went out the front door, suitcase in hand; I stood on the deck for a moment and held the door open with my foot. Put the suitcase down and lit a kitchen match.

Tossed it in.

The heat rushed back at my face, like an oven door opening.

“Bye, baby,” somebody said.

Me.

Behind me the world turned orange; ahead the world was dark. I walked toward the darkness.

The phone rang until it woke me. It rang a good long time, because I was way under, but it finally did wake me, and my eyes opened, tentatively, to a darkened motel room, just enough light filtering in around the drapes to let me know it was day.

“Hello,” I said. My mouth was thick and foul from sleep and Seconal.

“Mr. Murphy?”

The voice was male and sounded official and unsure of itself at the same time.

“Yes. What is it?”

“We were, uh… worried about you, sir.”

“I’m touched. Why.”

“It’s… Friday, sir. Friday afternoon, and you arrived early Thursday, in the early A.M. Which is to say, Wednesday night, very late.”

I yawned and sat up. Not terribly engrossed in this conversation.

“Yeah, right,” I said. “So?”

“Housekeeping informs us that you haven’t been out of your room since you arrived. You’ve taken no meals, and…”

“Is babysitting your guests part of the service here, at… where am I?”

“The Ramada Inn. Near O’Hare.”

Yesterday I’d been here with Linda. Not here exactly-at O’Hare, picking up her brother… and maybe it wasn’t yesterday, exactly..

“So it’s Friday,” I said. Blinking my sleep-crusted eyes. Tasting my gym-sock tongue.

“Friday afternoon,” he said. “Three o’clock, and no sir, we don’t ‘babysit’ our guests. We as a policy respect the privacy of our guests. But housekeeping has checked in periodically-you didn’t put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign-and, frankly, reports were that you were sleeping very soundly…”

They thought I was in a coma or something.

“Look,” I said, “who am I speaking to, anyway?”

“My name is Hollis,” he said, somewhat defensively. “I’m an assistant manager.”

“Is that your first name or last name?”

“Last,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Hollis, I appreciate your conscientiousness. But I’m really quite all right. I was just very tired, and needed a good deal of sleep.”

Long pause.

Then: “I understand. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Murphy.”

“That’s all right. I like to get up every few days, anyway. Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

His voice still sounded doubtful, suspicious. “I’ll be sure to recommend your facility to my company,” I said.

“Well, thank you, sir,” he said, brightly, mollified.

I hung up.

I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my hand over my face. The grease and growth of beard there confirmed that I had indeed slept for a day and a half. I’d taken too many of those fucking pills. What was I trying to do, kill myself?

That wasn’t in me. I’d worked too hard, for too many years, to survive, to ever throw it away. Even yesterday’s losses-or the day before yesterday or whenever the fuck-weren’t enough to change that. This planet, without Linda on it, was pretty much worthless, but what else was new? It all fit in with the Almighty’s master plan, which was that there was no master plan, or Almighty either.

I’d learned two lessons in Vietnam: the meaningless of life and death; and the importance of survival. They seem to contradict each other, those lessons-but they don’t. I can’t explain it to you. I won’t try.

I got up, feeling woozy from all that drugged sleep; shuffled into the bathroom on rubbery legs and leaned on the sink with one hand and threw water on my face with the other. I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red and dead. My face held no expression at all. There was gray in my beard. I was getting old. Death was coming.

But not today. I went in the other room and dug the little bag with my toiletries out of that suitcase where Linda, in one of her last acts, had hidden my Christmas presents. I would have to open those presents to make room in the suitcase. Waiting till Christmas was out of the question. Death might be here by then.

I shaved; nicked myself twice. I smiled at the mirror, seeing if my face still worked. Seeing if I had the masks needed to go out in the world and mix.

I did.

I showered, cold to wake me up, and once awake, hot to relax me. My stomach was grinding. It had had nothing in it but Seconal for damn near two days.