Max Collins - Quarry

I didn’t like leaving the nine-millimeter behind like that. The gun had been with me for a long time. But then so had Broker, and I was leaving a lot of things behind at the stone quarry on the river road.

A pretty girl in a yellow bikini was running and I didn’t see her. She bumped into me as I was getting out of my Opel GT and knocked me down. Her hair was long and just a shade lighter yellow than the bikini. She helped me up and smiled, her white teeth accented by the darkness of her tan, and excused herself. I told her not to worry about it and she smiled again and said that’s a nice car you have. I returned her smile and watched her bounce off, going on ahead to meet her boyfriend, who was waiting up by the penny arcade for her. They joined hands and, in step with each other, crossed the street and disappeared into the swarm of flesh on the beach.

Late August is a frantic time around Twin Lakes. The high school and college kids seem desperate to get every last drop of sun-and-fun squeezed out of the dying summer. I wasn’t moving near so fast, but then I didn’t have to start back to school after the weekend.

I’d come to the arcade hoping to play some pool, but the place was all but empty. It was too clear and hot a day to waste in here, for the kids anyway; the front end of the arcade was open to the street, with the beach just across the way, and a breeze blowing in from the lake was enough to keep me satisfied. I fed several dollars into a machine that gave me change and started in playing the various pinballs. I got lucky with a shooting machine, bagging damn near every jungle animal that reared its head over the green-painted metal bushes. But shooting got boring after awhile and I abandoned the machine and got myself a Coke and wandered outside, sipping it, to get closer to the breeze. Before long I found myself staring at the phone booth on the sidewalk in front of the arcade.

Was it too soon to call her? Or maybe too late. I’d been back in Wisconsin four days now, and this was the first time I’d stuck my nose outside my A-frame cottage, other than to swim and fish in the lake that came up to my backyard. Mostly I stayed inside and watched television, listened to my stereo, cooked myself TV dinners. And sat around feeling paranoid.

Boyd had said I was getting paranoid and maybe he was right. Broker was dead and I should’ve felt fine, nothing to worry about, but I was sitting around like a man expecting a heart attack. I’d even dug out that. 38 I’d smuggled back years ago from Nam, and I was carrying it with me all the time, ready to take a potshot at the first thing that moved.

Of course I did have some legitimate cause for concern. Broker had kept me necessarily in the dark about the larger aspects of my work. Perhaps Broker had been some kind of regional manager, reporting back to higher-ups somewhere; if that was true, my name would be known to those higher-ups, of course, and maybe they could put two and two together regarding Broker’s demise and come up with me.

And there was that white powder in that little plastic bag. From what I knew of Broker’s work, he shouldn’t have been involved with that kind of thing. He’d always insisted that he wasn’t hooked up to the mob, that we did only piece work for the Family. But suppose Broker was directly linked with mob people? Then what? If paranoia is when you think people are out to get you, then are you still paranoid when people are out to get you? I mean, shit. It isn’t pleasant sitting in a room knowing maybe some stranger’s going to walk in off the street with a gun.

The operator told me how much money and I dropped the coins in. I listened to the phone ring and pictured the apartment in my mind and she answered. “Hello?” she said.

I said nothing.

“Hello,” she said, “who is this? Hello?”

“Hello, Peg.”

“… Quarry?”

“Hello, Peg.”

“God. God, Quarry. You’re alive.”

“How are you, Peg?”

“The papers were full of blood the day after you left. The papers are still talking about it. It’s horrible.”

“Oh?”

“When Vince turned up dead, I thought… but you couldn’t have done that to him. The papers said his body was… you didn’t do that to him.”

“Peg.”

“Yes?”

“It’s good to hear your voice.”

“It’s good to hear… Quarry, people are in town asking questions.”

“What sort of people?”

“I don’t know. Different sorts. FBI. People like that.”

“I see. What sort of questions they asking?”

“I don’t know for sure. They haven’t talked to me yet. I hope they don’t. I don’t know what I’m going to say to them if they do.”

“Don’t say anything.”

“You know I won’t tell them anything about you. But what about me? My mind’s full of what I can’t tell anybody.”

“Forget all that.”

“How can. I? Quarry?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you call?”

“I wanted to talk to you. I’d like to see you again, Peg.”

“Quarry…”

“Not right away, maybe, but I want to see you. I have some money saved up, Peg. I could help you. Maybe you and I could…”

“Quarry, what are you talking about?”

“Peg.”

“I’m just a broad you shacked up with once. For a fucking day, at that. Why talk like it’s something else?”

“It is something else.”

“How do you know? How do you know you’re not just another one-night stand for me, huh? I’m a one-night stand sort of person, you know.”

“I feel something for you, Peg.”

“Oh, Quarry, goddamn you…”

“I want to see you again.”

“I don’t know.”

“What? You don’t know what?”

“I don’t know if I want to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been thinking, Quarry. I’ve been thinking about things that happened while you were in town. I’ve been thinking about certain things you said. I’ve been thinking about what’s been in the papers.”

“Forget all that.”

“Okay. Okay I will. But first I want you to tell me something. I want you to tell me what you do. What do you do, Quarry? You said you were like Frank. Something illegal. Okay. I can live with that. But be specific. What is it you do, Quarry?”

I kill people.

“You kill people, don’t you?” she said.

I said nothing.

“Good-bye, Quarry,” she said.

The line went dead.

I played with the shooting machine for another half an hour, and when I quit there were ten free games left on it. Then I went back to my A-frame and for the rest of the afternoon I swam.