Max Collins - Quarry

“I’ll go back and get it for you, Quarry.”

“Naw, that’s okay. Be back in a flash.”

I didn’t see Mrs. Springborn at first. She wasn’t standing on the porch; she was off to the side, near some shrubbery. She was wearing a long black coat and all that showed up, as I approached, was the whiteness of her oval face, like the face of a madonna, but a madonna with a bad taste in her mouth.

When I reached her, she handed me my raincoat and I put it on. Then she handed me an envelope and let me look inside and count the crisp hundred-dollar bills. There were forty of them. When she saw I was finished counting, she said, “Good-bye, Mr. Quarry.”

“Not that easy, Mrs. Springborn.”

“Just that easy.”

“No. I want to hear about it. I want to know all about why you had your brother killed.”

“I’m not going to tell you. My agreement was to pay you. And now here I am paying you again. Which seems payment above and beyond the call of duty, does it not?”

“Are you trying to tell me…”

“That I’m not responsible for your associate’s death? Yes. Your.. what? Agent? At any rate, the man you work through, the man you know as the Broker, I believe, called me and told me all about your wild story of a man with a wrench. I would imagine it’s a true story.. you don’t seem like a man who’d be prone to hallucination… but, sir, whatever it was that happened to you and your late partner was the result of some unknown factor that neither you nor I had control over, some joker in the deck that neither of us put there.”

“If you didn’t have my partner killed, and didn’t try to have me killed, why pay the four thousand again?”

“To get you the hell out of Port City, why else do you think, you incompetent bastard?” Her low voice sounded almost like a man’s-deep, harsh. “Your Broker warned me when he called that there was an outside chance you’d be poking your nose around; he’d take care of it, he said, but there was a slight chance you’d cause some trouble. And then you show up here! I couldn’t believe it. Even after we spoke and I knew that you must be who you were, I couldn’t believe it! I still don’t. My sweet God, I pay close to five thousand dollars for a relatively simple task, a task I could’ve had performed by some derelict in a bar for fifty dollars, but no, I have to have a professional, to minimize the risk, to make it safe, quick, someone who’d handle the task with skill… and what do I get? A bumbling fool who kills my brother and then comes to my home making noises about it!”

“All right. I’ll leave town. With pleasure. But I want to know. I won’t leave until I know it all.”

“You ass! You’ve been incredibly lucky so far… your associate’s body hasn’t been found yet, for one thing, thanks to this miserable weather you’ve got me out standing in, and until it’s found the police will have no reason to figure Albert’s death was anything but a robbery, performed by some idiot who believed the local legend about Albert’s treasure. But your friend’s body won’t go undiscovered forever, and how do you think the police are going to react? We just don’t have two murders on one day in Port City, one is a rarity, two is unheard of. Oh, but you aren’t afraid of the Port City police, are you? Well there’s a man from the Iowa Criminal Bureau of Investigation in this town, and he handles all such matters personally, and he’s a professional, Quarry, you do know what a professional is? And how do you think he’s going to react when he hears you’ve been wandering around town asking questions? Take the money, Quarry, and…”

“And run?”

“Yes, damnit!”

“Take five minutes. Take one minute. But tell me.”

“No!”

“Then listen to me. I think I know what happened, or part of it.”

She was silent.

So I told her.

The way I had it figured, Albert Leroy had found out what was going on between Raymond Springborn and his girl friend in the apartment across the way. Maybe it had started out as a streak of the voyeur in Albert, maybe he had just come upon the two lovebirds by happy accident, who knew? But come upon them he had, and Albert found power in what he knew, power to come to Raymond Springborn and ask for money, more money than he’d gotten in his job as janitor, that was for sure, probably far beyond that. Maybe he’d asked to be on the goddamn board of directors, or some other sillyass thing he felt he had coming to him as right of birth. Whatever, he had used what he knew to twist Raymond Springborn’s arm, and had gotten killed for his trouble.

She remained silent till I was finished. Then she said, “Take the four thousand and go, Quarry.”

“I’m close, aren’t I?” I said through gritted teeth. “I thought I had it figured exactly right, I thought your husband had tried to keep his affair from you, to hide this little girl he was using to scratch his seven-year itch, that he’d hired your brother’s death and had done away with the threat of you finding out about his cheating, getting rid of the family deadwood to boot.”

She leaned forward and spoke with her lips peeled back, saying, “Do you think I care whether or not Raymond fucks that little whore? Do you think I give a good goddamn if he fucks every bitch-in-heat in the world? I don’t want his goddamn bed, I haven’t wanted it for years. I like the pressure off me!”

“Oh… wait,” I said, “wait a minute… no wonder. No wonder. Your husband has never known a thing about this, has he? Damn! Albert came to you with the story about Ray’s cheating, didn’t he? Albert came to you with the demands.”

“This is nonsense.”

“It sure is. No wonder your husband was so indignant when I made those implications about him killing Albert! And you, you didn’t really give a damn about that little girl he was screwing, did you?”

“I told you, I didn’t want to be a part of his damn sex life! Raymond and I, we have an understanding, a way of living together. Our life together is the business. The business is our relationship. We don’t have any children, couldn’t have any, our family is the business, and our relationship is the business, and why don’t you go fuck yourself!”

“You don’t want your husband to find out about Albert, do you? You don’t want him to know that you had your own brother killed.”

“Quarry…”

“And no wonder. A woman who’ll murder her brother might do most anything…”

“How much, Quarry? I have another four thousand in the house. Just wait here. I’ll get it. I’ll get it for you.”

“Why did you want him dead? What threat did Albert pose you? You didn’t give a damn about your husband’s cheating.”

She said, quietly, in defeat, “He said… he said he’d tell everyone about Raymond… he’d go to the press and he’d tell them about Raymond and the girl.”

And I laughed.

Because it all made sense; the motive was there at last.

Scandal.

An empire built on chicken soup and fudge recipes and family cannot endure a scandal. The rest of the world may accept adultery, the jet set and movie stars may be able to screw when and whom they please, but not in the Midwest, not when you’re Linda Sue and Ray Springborn, the Kitchen Korner couple.

And who knew how many ether Springborn skeletons- in-the-closet Albert would have been able to reveal, intended to reveal? Raymond Springborn’s mob connec- tions, perhaps? And what else did Linda Sue have to hide from her public? There had to be something. Perhaps any number of somethings. Whatever they were, the scandals would be fueled by their source: the broken-down, pitifully neglected member of the Kitchen Korner clan, Albert Leroy.

“So that’s why Albert Leroy had to die,” I said.