Max Collins: Quarry's cut

“What do you think, Quarry? How’s he look to you?”

“Like a bigger asshole than you.”

“How’m I supposed to take that?”

“Any way you like.”

“I don’t get you, Quarry. Why the fuck you got to be so goddamn hard to get along with? I been trying to get along with you, you know.”

“Sure.”

“Well I am, goddamnit.”

“Drop it, okay?”

This was only our second contact. Turner had been here a week, getting the mark’s pattern down, and I got in last night. Today I was to see if the setup looked kosher enough to go ahead with the hit. We’d had words last night, at Turner’s motel, about the way he was handling his end, his making like a Shriner as a cover. He thought it was a great idea. I thought it sucked. He could’ve picked up any number of menial jobs at the carnival that would’ve given him plenty of opportunity to stake out the mark; his acting the Shriner role was in my opinion idiotic, as the Shriners were local and could spot him as phony.

But the cover had held, apparently, probably because Turner had a good line of bullshit, so what the hell.

“I got to agree with you,” Turner was saying, through a mouthful of knockwurst and onions and what have you, “the guy’s an asshole. You’d think he’d have fucking sense enough to try and blend in. You’d think he’d notice all the noise the other pitchmen are making, and that he’d have sense enough to join in. But no. He just lays back quiet and waits for customers to come see him and when they do, he don’t give a shit. He don’t know much about being inconspicuous.”

“Maybe you could give him some tips.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Guess.”

“Hey, yeah, well and blow it out your ass, Quarry, if you want my opinion. So you going to tell me how it looks to you, or just sit there?”

“It looks okay.”

“I think so, too. How’s tomorrow afternoon sound?”

“Bad. They pull up stakes morning after next. Tomorrow being the last day might make it atypical. Since you went to the trouble of getting his pattern down, we ought to use it.”

“I suppose. Fuck it, anyway.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I had a date tonight. This evening, I mean.”

“A date.”

“Yeah, I was going to get it on between shows with Zamorita.”

“Zamorita.”

“I been humping her. Zamorita. Actually, her name is Hilda something. She’s the woman who turns into a gorilla.”

“You have that effect on all the girls?”

“Funny. I mean, she’s the one with the stage act. She gets in this cage and they dim the lights and do some electrical stuff and she turns into a gorilla. Anyway that’s what it looks like. Actually it’s just a big hoax.”

“Oh, Turner, do you have to spoil everything?”

“You’re a funny guy, Quarry. Funnier than my old man when he takes out his teeth. Anyway, I guess I’ll just have to take a rain check on the bitch. Damn, is she going to be disappointed.”

“I can imagine. Ten o’clock, then?”

“Ten o’clock. I’ll be there.”

“Where exactly?”

He pointed over to a spot near the mark’s tent, between the exhibit with the giant rats and the House of Mirrors. The Winnebago camper was parked behind there, just fifty feet away, among many other such vehicles belonging to the carny people; in the background loomed the truck trailers, the rides, when disassembled, were transported in.

“Okay,” I said. “See you later.”

“See you later.”

I went on some rides, had my weight and age guessed and threw a few balls at a game tent, but not the mark’s. I ended up in Fun World, a king-size arcade in a long, narrow tent. The pinballs and shooting machines held my attention for several hours, and when I finally came out, at nine-thirty, night had replaced dusk; the rides, with their bright neons of every imaginable color, were tracing garish designs against the darkness, like ungodly jewelry or a hand-painted tie.

And at nine-forty, after going to the rental Ford for my silenced nine-millimeter and a light jacket, I had wandered over by the mark’s stall, where he was closing down. The rest of the carnival stayed open till one, but not this clown. He always closed up early, sometimes as early as ten o’clock. Tonight was a new record.

Which was a little disturbing. It’s always disturbing when a mark varies his pattern, even just a little. But even more disturbing when I looked over where Turner was supposed to be and he wasn’t. Well, it was early. He’d be along soon.

By nine fifty-five the mark’s tent was shut down.

Still no Turner.

And the guy was heading back toward his Winnebago.

I hesitated.

Shit.

Turner would be here momentarily.

I went ahead and followed the guy to the camper. It was dark back there, and deserted, except for the mark and me. I took the silenced gun from out of my belt, where the light jacket had covered it, and went in right behind the guy, shutting the camper door behind us, flicking on the light and showing him the nine-millimeter.

And it should have been over just that fast. I should have squeezed the trigger, sent him on his way and me on mine.

But I was still pretty new at the game. I hadn’t learned the desirability of doing it fast, not yet. In fact I was just in the process of learning.

Because in the split second I wasted, the fat little Jew or Italian or whatever the fuck he was reached over to the little built-in stove and got hold of a frying pan and laid it across the side of my face, and I fired but the silenced gun thudded a shot into the cushion of a chair, and there was grease in the pan, not hot thank God, but grease, and some of it got in my eyes and the little fucker had pushed me aside and was scrambling past me, out the door, before I could get my eyes working and my gun hand around to make up for my mistake.

I put the gun back in my belt. I had to: from the doorway of the camper I could see the mark heading into the carnival, that Hawaiian shirt flashing into the crowd, and I had to pursue him. And that could hardly be done with the nine-millimeter hanging out. I zipped the jacket up a third of the way and went after him.

One good thing, though: he’d angled toward the space of open ground between the giant rat exhibit and the House of Mirrors. Right into Turner’s arms.

Only as I reached that point myself I saw the guy going into the House of Mirrors, nodding at the ticket-taker who knew him as a fellow carny and waved him by without a ticket.

And Turner was nowhere to be seen.

So I bought a ticket to the House of Mirrors.

It wasn’t very busy right now, but I wouldn’t be alone in there with him. I didn’t know what compelled him to enter that place, but chances were he didn’t know, either. It’s easy to be critical of the behavior of people in tense situations: not everybody functions well under stress.

Or maybe he’d seen some movies with arty funhouse shootout scenes, and figured I’d be distracted by all those reflections of myself and he could maybe somehow lose me in there. Which was a possibility. Maybe it would have been smarter to just wait for him to come out.

But he might also know his way around in there; maybe he was a pretty good friend of the guy who ran the house, and knew where an office was or a back exit or something. Or maybe he figured he knew the place well enough to hide somewhere and jump me as I came by.

Who could tell what he thought.

At any rate, I found him, in an enclosed area of perhaps sixteen mirrors, none of them distorting, and nobody else was around at the moment, and if he thought hiding in the House of Mirrors would be to his advantage, he was wrong-unless he enjoyed watching all those images of himself getting shot through the sternum.