Max Collins: Quarry

Carl stood and said, “How are you doing, Quarry?”

There were two things wrong with Carl: one of them was the smell of youthful anxiety that clung to him like dime-store perfume.

I pointed to his left leg, said, “Vietnam?”

He looked flustered, wondering how the hell I knew it was artificial, then nodded. “Hand grenade, I was walking point.”

“I asked where, not how.”

Broker was one fine American, finding jobs for us boys back from overseas like he did, and now here he was breaking in a handicapped veteran. The man deserved a commendation from the VA or the President or some damn body.

Broker said, “You’re still in that foul mood, aren’t you?”

I said, “Give me a second and I’ll get out the party hats.”

Carl sat back down and his cheeks weren’t red anymore. That was an improvement.

“What is he supposed to be?” I said.

“He’s here with me.”

“Oh. Well that explains it.”

“Now look… how am I supposed to know what you’re up to? You’ve never acted so damned irrationally, not in many years of what I always considered a good working relationship. But you’re acting like a wild man, holding out materials which you’ve been paid to deliver. Do you have any concept of the value of what you’re keeping from me? At any rate, I thought it best to have a man along.”

“Why didn’t you bring one, then? But no, you drag in a twelve-year-old gimp, who’s supposed to, what? Snap me in line? Beat me to death with his wooden leg?” I checked Carl out of the corner of my eye to see if he reacted; he didn’t, which was a sign of hope for the boy.

“Quarry, Quarry… let’s not fence.” The Broker smiled and the smile was a crease in his face. “Please, I’m tired of fencing with you. After what we’ve been through together, all of this bickering seems so childish.”

“Broker, will you quit acting like this is some goddamn company and I’m going to get a gold watch and a pension after twenty-five years? Have you worked the front office of the fertilizer plant for so long you don’t remember it’s shit you’re selling?”

“You’ve been paid, Quarry. Don’t play with me.”

“If you come alone, I wouldn’t play. But you’re the one playing, Broker. And you keep playing with me and I keep telling you I won’t be played with.”

Broker looked at Carl and pointed at the door. “Wait outside, Carl.”

Carl made a face.

“Go on Carl,” he said. “Just out in the hall there will be fine.”

Carl got up. He walked to the door. He was pretty good on the leg. Whoever gave him therapy knew what they were doing. I said, “Watch yourself going down steps, kid,” and he was out the door, which he nearly-almost, but not quite-slammed.

“You’re a damned sadist,” Broker said.

“I’m no such thing,” I said.

“Riding a kid with one leg, my sweet God.”

“You’re the sadist,” I said, “hiring a kid with one leg. What’s the idea? Don’t forget, hire the vet?”

“You saw him on it, he’s doing an outstanding job. He’s better on that artificial limb than most men are with what nature gave them. And he’s in tip-top shape otherwise, and he’s hard-nosed and handy with firearms. He’ll be a good man.”

“Doing what? What I do?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m grooming him. He’s one of the men I keep on the payroll here in town. He’s one of two men presently guarding my home, and giving me personal protection.”

“Well he may make a bodyguard,” I said, “but don’t send him out in the field. Not if you want him to last a month, anyway.”

“Oh? Really?”

“Oh really. He may be hard-nosed, but he’s thin-skinned. You saw his hackles rise when I needled him, didn’t you?”

Broker shrugged. “Perhaps you have a point. I don’t know, I’ll watch him. But I still think he has promise.”

“You really think you’re doing the kid a favor,” I said, “giving him a job.”

“You don’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with this business.”

“There isn’t, not for me. I didn’t get into the trade because I lost a leg, either.”

“You lost a wife. Is that so different?”

“Yes. You can grow a new wife.”

“You haven’t.”

I didn’t say anything. It was time for getting things out of the way. I dug into my pocket and tossed him an envelope. The key to the locker was in it. Of course the key to the other locker was elsewhere, tucked safely away for my own later use.

“What’s this?” Broker said.

I told him what it was, and what was in the locker the key opened.

“Christ almighty, you mean to tell me you left the stuff right there in the airport?”

“Right there. In the airport.”

Broker got angry for a moment, said, “What if the police searched the lockers for some reason? After the body was discovered, for example, or in the case of a bomb threat.”

“Why, you thinking of calling one in?”

Broker wanted to stay mad, but saw it wouldn’t do any good. “I don’t know about you, Quarry,” he said, like a father disappointed with junior’s grades.

I said, “You going to send Carl after the stuff? You and I can wait here.”

“I’ll have to go myself.”

“Yourself? You’re full of balls in your old age, Broker, what’s got into you?”

“I can trust myself.”

“And you can’t trust Carl? Broker, I’m ashamed of you. Talking that way about a disabled veteran.”

“Go to hell, Quarry. I’m sending Carl up to keep you company. Any objections?”

Why bother? “No,” I said.

So Broker went out and Carl came in. He got settled back in his chair and sat there and gave me a hard look, which he’d no doubt been practicing outside while he thought about me and the remarks I’d made about him and his leg, or lack of same.

Finally he let it out. He said, “What the hell you got against one-legged guys, anyway?”

“Four of them got together and gangbanged my sister.”

“Aw eat shit, Quarry, can’t you answer straight just once?”

“I got nothing against one-legged guys,” I said. “It’s just you I can’t stand.”

“Oh, oh, really? And, and what’s wrong with me?”

“Don’t ask me for reasons. Don’t ever ask me for reasons.”

“I don’t think I ever met any bigger bastard than you, Quarry. You’re one big fucking bastard.”

“Army teach you to talk that way? Really foul stuff like that? Shocking.”

“You just shut up.”

“What?”

“You shut up, I said.”

“Didn’t Broker tell you what I am?”

“He told me.”

“Then you ought to know better than to tell me to shut up.”

“I’ll tell you again.”

“You tell me again and I’ll come over there and feed you that wooden leg.”

His eyes got big. “It’s… not wooden. It’s not a wooden leg.”

“What the hell would you call it?”

“A prosthesis.”

“Whatever.”

“What… what the hell makes you hate me?”

“I didn’t say I hated you.”

“Oh? What then?”

“I said I couldn’t stand you.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Yeah.”

“Such as?”

“Such as I don’t waste energy hating you. But I can’t stand to look at you, because you’re an asshole, and I don’t like looking at assholes… now that’s all the explanation you’re going to get, so leave it alone.”

He did. He got quiet and folded his hands in his lap and sat there thinking, trying to understand what it was he did that made me want to give him so bad a time. I didn’t know why myself. I just knew this kid was going to die and somewhere in the back of my head, somewhere it seemed vaguely a waste.