Max Collins - Quarry

“That’s right. This morning was no accident, was it?”

I choked on my bite of grapefruit. “… pardon?”

“This morning. You came around here looking for a way to get close to me, didn’t you? Don’t play dumb. I saw you a couple nights ago, at the club. I saw you staring at me.”

I grinned, more in relief than anything else. “I’m sorry. Couldn’t help staring.”

“A lot of men stare at me. Most of them stare at me like I’m so much meat, Grade-A U.S. government-inspected prime maybe, but meat just the same. You, you stared at me like you were staring at a woman.”

“You can really tell the difference, huh?”

“Sure can. I get that goddamn meat stare all the time. Almost every son of a bitch in Port City’s tried to get in my pants one time or another.”

“But you’re selective.”

“That’s right “

“Then let me ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“You won’t get mad?”

“Ask and see.”

“If you’re selective, what are you doing shacking with a freak like that one who tried to heist your wheels?”

She laughed. Her eyes laughed too, sparkled sort of. “I got a weakness for younger men. How old are you, anyway?”

“How old are you?”

“I’m thirty-two.”

“I’m younger.”

She smiled. She touched my hand. “Thanks for stopping that creep. I like that car of mine, I’m fond of it, it’s got sentimental meaning for me.”

“He was drunk.”

“Yeah, well, he sat around smoking pot last night and then he couldn’t get straight and I kicked him out of the bedroom, locked the sucker out, in fact. He must’ve sat up all night drinking up my liquor stock and planning his revenge.”

“I didn’t think he knew what he was doing.”

“Maybe he did. That was his band’s last night at the club, you know, and he told me the group was going to have to break up pretty soon, ’cause him and another guy had the drug rap hanging over ’em and the two of ’em were planning to hotfoot it to Canada. Maybe he got inspired and was going to drive my Mustang over the border.”

“Or maybe he’s gay and pink just appeals to him.”

“He just might’ve been, at that. Most men react pretty favorably to me, that’s the first time I can remember any guy having trouble.”

“Younger guys, huh?”

“Yeah. Younger guys, and guys moving through town, one-night stand things, you know? I like short relationships. Short and sweet. A long relationship to me is one that lasts a week.”

“Is that so? You steer away from the locals, huh?”

“Goddamn right. I like being on my own. Get involved with somebody around here and before you know it, I’d be into something serious. No true, deep abiding loves for me, thanks, I been stung by that shit before. No meaningful mature relationships with married men, either, I seen too many girls get shafted in the ear by that stuff. I like my relationships nice and shallow. One-night stands, yessir. And then there was my mother. When she was alive I couldn’t have men friends in, now could I? So it was motel rooms and backseats of cars and such. Little sordid, maybe, but it serves the purpose. I mean, everybody has to get their rocks off now and then.”

“I know what you mean.”

“What do you do for a living, anyway?”

“I’m a salesman.”

“Then of course you know what I mean. Your goddamn life’s a chain of one-night stands, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t everybody’s?”

She stopped for a moment, looked thoughtful, looked at me. “I wonder,” she said.

It was silent for a while, and just as the silence was getting to the awkward stage, I said, “This grapefruit is good.”

“You want another half?”

“Only if you do.”

“I do.”

“Okay then.”

She got another huge yellow softball and served it up and said, “Florida grapefruit.”

“Thought so. Really fine.”

“Yeah, girl friend of mine sent a crate of ’em up to me. Now there’s an example of what I was talking about.”

“Huh?”

“This girl friend of mine. She’s one who got involved with a guy, a married one at that, and she got shafted in the ear, as well as every other opening on her the son of a bitch could find. That’s one of the reasons I’m trying to get out of business with him.”

“Wait a minute… you mean the guy this girl friend of yours was involved with is the same guy you’re in business with?”

“Shit, I shouldn’t be talking about all this.”

“I’m from out of town, Peg, what do I know?”

“Well, see nobody in town knows about the affair between these two.”

“You know.”

“Yeah, I do, but the guy himself doesn’t know I know about it. Whew, confusing, huh?”

“Don’t stop now, you got me interested.”

“Well… okay. Shouldn’t hurt. After all, I’m not using names, am I? And if I did you wouldn’t know who I was talking about.”

“That’s right,” I said. Raymond Springborn.

“This guy I’m in partnership with, he’s a crackerjack businessman, terrific businessman, really, and fairly ethical as far as that goes, though part of that has to do with his hometown image. Anyway, my best girl friend was this guy’s, what, mistress? Mistress for over a year. He kept her in an apartment and treated her all right, except that the apartment was more like a prison, since he’s a fanatic about keeping their affair an utter secret. Then last month he told her their big love was kaput for now, and he sent her down to Florida and he’s paying through the nose to keep her down there, and he’s leading her on that he’s going to start back up with her as soon as he feels things are safe again.”

“You think his wife found out or what?”

“Maybe, but that’s no big thing. Ray, I mean this guy, and his wife never have been a passionate couple or anything. Separate bedrooms and all that. It’s just their business, the family business, has to do with Mom, the Flag and Apple Pie, and shacking up with girls half your age doesn’t fit the wholesome American Christian businessman image.”

“Interesting.”

“Brother, that bastard, he calls her up and says, ‘Get out of that apartment,’ and she comes crying to me and says she’s going to Florida. Brother.”

“He kept her in an apartment here in town?”

“Sure. Easy enough for him. He owns apartments all over Port City. He owns this building here, for one, and the building her apartment was in is downtown.”

“Downtown. Wasn’t that risky, a central location like that?”

“Hell, he was her goddamn landlord. Who’s going to talk about a landlord calling on a tenant? Anyway, the building isn’t on the main drag downtown, it’s off on one of the side street business districts. And nobody else in the building would have ever suspected anything going on. Ray, the guy I mean, keeps the middle apartment empty, and she was on the top floor, with some old people on the bottom.”

“Old people?”

“Yeah, some old guy has the bottom floor business office, with an apartment in back for him and his wife. He’s some kind of doctor or something. A chiropractor, I think.”

She parted her legs and I crawled up on top of her and slid easily inside. We took our time, as we’d had no foreplay, but she was slick and wet and no trouble getting into and we moved together, instinctively together, working slowly, silently, to a gushing mutual peak where the first sounds from either were simultaneous, semiverbal sighs.

I stayed on top of her for a minute or so, one hand still under her ass, cupping one cheek, the other hand cupping a full breast, the nipple of it going from a hard point to a gentle nudge against my palm. I nuzzled her neck and she rolled her head slowly around, liking it. I felt myself getting small, sliding out of her by nature not by choice, and she eased out from under me and off the bed and paddled out of the bedroom into the bathroom, her ass jiggling beautifully as she went.