Max Collins - Quarry's deal

Damn! She was telling me too much. The other night she’d told me the story about mob people killing her husband, and I knew, from reading her file, that the story was true. And her name, her goddamn real name, it was Lucille. I’d have felt a lot better if she’d lie to me more.

What was she doing, anyway, baiting me? She asks me what happened, how was it I happened to get the piss beat out of me just now, when she was probably there when I was getting that lamp busted across my face. She was playing me like a kazoo.

“Let’s fold the couch out,” she said.

“I’m too weak. You’ll have to do it.”

“Pull out the bed you mean? Or the rest, too?”

“Just the bed. On the other, if you want to start without me, go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

She laughed a little, like she meant it. I laughed, too. Like I meant it. The fuck of it is I did mean it. That’s what bothered me.

Then she turned the couch into a bed and we used it.

She said she didn’t snore, and she didn’t, but she was sleeping deep just the same, that fine, full chest of hers rising slow and steady and, well, it was with not a little reluctance that I crawled out of bed and got in my clothes and left her.

My GT was in the parking lot below her window. I had a spare sportsjacket stowed under some stuff behind the driver’s seat and I took the jacket and shook it and got some of the wrinkles out and put it on. From the glove compartment I took a pair of glasses and my silenced nine-millimeter. I put the glasses on and stuck the gun in my belt and glanced up at her window. Dark. Curtains still drawn, as best I could tell. The change of jacket and the glasses were for her benefit, should she wake up and get back to doing her stakeout number, in which case she could conceivably see me going in or out of the Town Crest, and in that event the jacket and glasses and distance would hopefully keep her from recognizing me.

The jacket and a tie were all it took to get into the Town Crest, even at three in the morning. That and the twenty I handed the guard in the front lot, when I asked him to park the GT for me. I had him put it in the back lot, which was unlit and presented less of a chance of being spotted by somebody with binoculars across the way.

The modern exterior of the Town Crest was more than matched in its cold sterility by the interior, which looked to have been designed by a mortician who read science fiction. The walls were smooth and white, like eggshells pressed flat. Diffused light glowed down from the white tile ceiling, some of it swallowed up by the black carpet. The elevators were shiny metal that reflected like a compassionate mirror. I pushed the UP button and turned away from my soft-focus reflection while I waited.

Tree’s room was on the top floor, the twelfth, down a wide white hail to the right and at the end. I opened his door with a credit card and went in. No lights were on, but I was familiar with the place from my previous visit, in the afternoon, and walked quickly across the tufted shag carpet, though I nearly neglected to sidestep the glass-and-plastic coffee table by the half-circle couch on the edge of the spacious living room, just off of which was his bedroom, where I was headed.

His bed was making noise.

Glugg glugg glugg. Like a hundred midgets swallowing,

Then I remembered. It was a waterbed. Red satin sheets, brown leather padded frame. There’s nothing more pathetic than a middle-aged man who’s trying to be twenty.

He was alone in the thing. Or on it. I don’t think you can be “in” a waterbed. Personally I like to be in control of what I’m sleeping in. On.

He was sound asleep.

I put the nose of the silenced gun against his throat.

He woke up.

Sat up, and the bed rolled and rocked under him.

“Don’t turn on the lights,” I said.

“All right,” Tree said. Calmly. The sea beneath wasn’t calming yet, though.

“Did you sic some boys on me?”

“I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

“You know me. You don’t know my name, but you know me.”

“I don’t sic anybody on you, no.”

“Somebody did. I got jumped by a couple of guys tonight, and if they are yours, just tell me, and I’ll leave town right now. I don’t believe in hanging around where I’m unpopular.”

“Whoever jumped you, they weren’t mine.”

“I hope not. There’s something you better understand. I’m no danger to you. I’m no threat. I’m maybe your salvation.”

“You got a funny way of showing it.” He was referring to the nine-millimeter, the nose of which was still up against his Adam’s apple.

“I’m just being cautious,” I said, easing the gun off, but only a hair. “It’s what keeps me alive. You could profit by my example. See, somebody’s got you set up for the hit. Now. If you want my help, fine. I can try and get between you and the people trying to kill you. I may even be able to find out who hired the job done. But, on the other hand. If you think I’m insane, or a blackmailer, or some kind of con man, or if you simply prefer to handle the situation yourself, or God forbid go to the cops with it, well that’s fine, too. You’ll get blown away, but that’s no skin off my ass. So. Say the word and I’m on my way. It’s up to you.”

“What’s in it for you… helping me, I mean.”

“Money.”

“How much?”

“What’s your life worth to you? It’ll be cheap at half the price.”

The bed was finally settling down, making a lap lap sound, like waves rolling into shore.

“If someone wants me dead,” he said, quietly, “I can use all the help I can get.”

“That’s good sound thinking. Especially since I’m the only help you can get.”

“You’re right about the police, anyway. With my past, and the laws I’m bending right now, I can’t go inviting that kind of trouble. What about my lawyer?”

“Talk to nobody. Your lawyer could’ve hired it done.”

“He’s the best friend I have in the world!”

“Murders happen because of family and friends. Crime of passion and premeditated alike. Oh, a stranger’ll kill you for money, or out of being crazy, or both. But a stranger doesn’t hire you dead. Someone you know does.”

“Jesus. Where do we go from here?”

“We talk again. With the lights on. What’s your schedule the next couple days?”

“Tomorrow, I mean today, Sunday, we’re open noon to midnight. Monday we’re closed. I always drive to Iowa City on Mondays. To visit my son. He’s in the hospital there.”

“You go alone?”

“Yes.”

“What time Monday do you leave?”

“Around ten. I get there about noon.”

“There’s a Holiday Inn at the Interstate turn-off at the Amanas. Stop for lunch.”

“All right. Anything I should do between now and then?”

“Do you carry a gun?”

“No, but I have one. A. 38.”

“You can use it?”

“Yes.”

“Carry it. And put a nightlatch on your door.”

“Done. Anything else?”

“You might try sleeping on the floor. Somebody shoots at you in bed, even if they missed, you could drown. Good night.”

“Did you get up in the middle of the night and go out?” she asked, at breakfast. “Or was I dreaming?”

Even in the morning she looked good. She’d got up before me and washed her hair, and was wearing a towel around her head like a turban. Her face was clean and unblemished and free of make-up, though still dark with Florida tan, and she looked young, or anyway as young as those eyes of would allow.

She was wearing a housewifely patchwork robe that made her look less than glamorous, but there was no way known to make her look bad. She looked good.