Max Collins - Quarry

Carl went down face first, splashing into a puddle. He landed just to Vince’s left.

I took the silenced automatic from Carl’s limp fingertips and stuck the gun in my belt. Vince sat there and watched me with his mouth open, his face a mixture of pain and incredulity and stupidity, the rain running down his forehead and over his face like a combination of tears and slobber. He looked at me hard, squinching his eyes, and then he got mad. But before he said anything, he scooched back on his ass toward the Ford, till he was leaning safely against the fender of the car, which gave him a little, not much, but a little breathing room from the unconscious Carl.

Vince sputtered, his mouth full of rain, and perhaps blood. He said, “You, you fucking son of a bitch, you, you goddamn son of a fucking bitch… I’m shot, Jesus I’m shot, that shit shot me… no trouble, you said, easiest money I ever made you said…”

“Shut up,” I said.

The narrowed eyes went suddenly wide, and wild, and he said, “What are you gonna do, what are you gonna do for me? You gotta do something for me… you’re not going to leave me bleed? Huh? Huh? I’m hurt, Christ Jesus I’m hurt, but I know I can make it if you just help me-you’re gonna help me aren’t you?”

“You be quiet. You be quiet and maybe I’ll help you.”

“But…”

“Sit there and relax. Don’t panic or shock’ll set in. Don’t waste your energy or you’ll go unconscious. Just sit there and stay cool.”

‘‘But…’’

I raised the automatic and he shut up. Or almost shut up. He was whimpering, but not loud enough to be annoying.

Carl was starting to rouse. I helped him. I poked his ribs with my foot.

“Up,” I said.

Carl groaned. He rolled around in the puddle and got his nose deep down in the water and he started choking and coughing and flapping his arms. He pushed up on his hands and made wedges in the soft ground and hobbled onto his feet. Or foot. There was mud hanging on his face like melting gelatin.

“How’s it going, Carl?”

Carl swallowed and it didn’t taste good. He said, “You double-crossing son of a bitch!” His voice was strained, and almost shrill.

“I’d laugh at that,” I said, “if I thought we had time to be funny.”

“You’re dead, Quarry. You’re a dead man.”

“No. Not the case. Had Broker sent somebody competent out here to kill me, somebody with two legs and a brain, I might be dead. But I’m not.”

“The Broker…”

“The Broker is home cozy and warm in his bed. He wouldn’t bother coming out here. He doesn’t dirty himself with this sort of thing.”

Carl wiped off his face and stood very still. Like he was at attention, or facing a firing squad or something. He said, “Go ahead, Quarry. Get it over with.”

“Get what over with? You think I’m going to kill you? You aren’t worth killing, you gimpy asshole.”

“What… what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to send you home to Broker. I’m going to let you limp back over to your shiny new Dodge Charger and roar into the sunset.”

He was frozen with disbelief.

I said, “Go back to Broker. Shoo.”

“What’s this… what’s this all about?”

“Go back to Broker, Carl. But one thing… bring him back here.”

“What? You’re crazy.”

“Get him up and bring him out here and let him get his ass wet like the rest of us.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“You got forty minutes. Broker doesn’t live all that far from here. I’ll wait forty minutes. Now go.”

“Go?”

“Go.”

“Sure,” Carl said, humoring me, “fine. I’ll bring him back in forty minutes.”

“I know you will. Just tell him one thing for me. You tell him I only gave him half that load of heroin from the airport job. You tell him I kept back a bag. Tell him I got it hid safely away, and if he wants the key to where I hid it, he should come back here within forty minutes and bring twenty thousand in hundreds with him.”

Carl didn’t argue with me. He didn’t try to tell me Broker wouldn’t be able to raise the money or other similar lies. Twenty thousand was a low figure for the stuff, very low, and I only picked that figure because I knew Broker would have that much on hand at home.

Carl said, “I’ll be back in forty minutes with the Broker.” Carl knew the Broker would come; for the heroin, Broker would come.

“Go, Carl.”

Carl nodded. Very carefully, very slowly, he sloshed back to the Charger, its motor still running. He waited at the door for any last instructions I might have I said, “You come back with him, Carl. Don’t bring anyone else. Come unarmed.”

Carl nodded again, got in the car and pulled out. I watched the Charger disappear into the rain and seconds later the road was deserted again.

Behind me, Vince said, weakly, “What… what’s this about? Who

… who the hell are you?”

I turned and looked at him. He looked pitiful. A skinny shot-up kid in my raincoat, leaning against the Ford and clutching his side. His long hair was hanging in thick wet streaks across his forehead, making a stark contrast with his pale white face. His mouth was slack open, the chipped tooth giving him a look of naive idiocy.

I said, “You don’t know, do you?”

Vince said nothing.

I said nothing.

We waited.

Vince said, “In Christ’s name, do something… help me… I’ll fucking bleed to death if you don’t do something…”

I just looked at him.

He said, “You got to, got to… please… oh, please, please, do something…”

He was right. It was time to do something.

I said, “All right. I got a first-aid kit in the trunk of my car. I’ll go get it.”

He made a strange sound, a cross between a whimper and a sigh. He whispered, “Thanks… thanks, Jack.”

I walked the eighth of a mile back to the Mustang and opened the trunk.

I got out the wrench.

“Shit,” Carl said. He paced awkwardly back and forth, like he was trying to make fun of himself. He’d been fifty minutes bringing Broker out here and I’d told him forty. He’d come back and found the area deserted and for a full minute now he’d been pacing and saying shit. He didn’t know I’d moved the two cars to where they couldn’t be seen. The rental Ford was at the mouth of the gravel access road to the quarry, the car just barely out of view, where I could get to it quick if I had to. Boyd’s Mustang was down in the quarry itself, not far from what was left of Vince.

Carl looked at Broker, whose face was visible in the back side window of the car. Carl held out the palms of his hands as if to say, “What can I do?” Broker pursed his lips and shrugged with his eyebrows. Carl shook his head as if to say, “I’m sorry.” Broker eased the irritation from his face and nodded forgiveness.

Just the same, Carl went back to his pacing alongside the car, which this trip was not the shiny dark blue Charger, but a big brown Buick with a vinyl top. Broker’s car, obviously. An executive’s car.

“Shit,” Carl said again, “shit, shit, shit.”

“Oh stop crying,” I said. I stepped out from the bushes and let Carl see I was still keeping company with the nine-millimeter.

Relief flooded Carl’s face, and then anger. Carl spoke and his voice dripped venom, but his words were contrite: “I’m… I’m sorry I was late.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Open your coat.”

He unbuttoned the black raincoat and held it open. I walked over to him and gave him a quick, one-handed frisk. He was unarmed. “Good boy,” I said. “That fake leg of yours isn’t hollowed out and full of firecrackers, now is it?”