Max Collins - Quarry

“Twin beds? And you’re cooking? What the hell kind of lookout is that?”

“Come see.”

“Okay. Seven.”

“Seven. Tacos, Quarry?”

“We’ll see.”

I hung up and finished off the can of Coke and dumped it in a trash can. Then I went down to my room, which was small and clean and new but about the size of a closet; the floor was scuff-marked tile, and the furniture-what there was of it-was that kind of wood that looks like plastic. I unpacked, put my stuff in the dresser, except for the nine-millimeter, which with a few other odds and ends I left locked in my briefcase and shoved under the bed: I set my little travel alarm for an hour and got settled down for a nap. When the alarm went off, I’d go down and see if the pool was free. After my swim I’d join Boyd.

Boyd was homosexual. I figured I better tell you right off, rather than sneak up on it. Queer as a three-dollar bill, but he never tried anything with me, so I didn’t give a damn. His life was his.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Broker knew about Boyd’s sex leaning when he teamed him up with me. Later, when I told Broker about Boyd, he acted surprised and asked me did I want somebody different to work with and I said no thanks, Boyd’s different enough as it is. After I gave it some further thought, I realized Broker had to be playing dumb-which was typical of him-since his research into each man he took on was nothing short of phenomenal. Somehow he figured I wouldn’t mind Boyd, whereas some- body else would. He was right. Boyd could sleep with sheep if he had a mind to, so long as he didn’t fuck me or the job.

From the first I had suspicions about that side of him, and they must’ve showed, because before long Boyd came right out and told me. But he said not to worry, though, said he was “married” and didn’t do any playing around. Out of bits and pieces of what he said over the years, I came to know that his “wife” was a gay hairdresser he lived with somewhere back east.

Boyd was a pro, and his sex life he didn’t let interfere with business. Sure, I had thoughts about the sexual implications of his being in this line of work; the idea of a bullet entering a man’s body being a kind of symbol for penetration, sexually speaking I mean. Which is Freudian bullshit. For one thing, Boyd was as cold as I was about the actual carrying out of an assignment; he took no pleasure from his work, or at least revealed no overt signs of emotion. For another thing, he preferred back-up position, which generally entailed no actual violence whatsoever. The back-up does the watching, gets the mark’s schedule down pat and then covers while somebody like me does the actual job. Every fourth assignment, Boyd would take the active role as hitman and I’d take over in the passive back-up position, so he could keep his hand in, should our team get split and he have to go with another partner.

The funny thing is you’d never know from looking at him he was that way. You couldn’t tell from his personality, either, unless you paid real close attention. He was a little guy, five-six or so, but broad-shouldered and solid-built, his features on the rough side, including a nose that had been broken a couple times in this barroom brawl and that one, and a flat, scarred face that looked to have seen its share of problems. His hair was thick and brown and curly, and his mustache and eyebrows were bushy, his eyes a gunmetal black with a hard cast to them. His eyelashes were the only remotely feminine thing about him, being long and heavy, but they seemed to add to an overall darkly handsome, rugged-hewn quality that made broads want to climb in his pants.

Which is one of the ways I got tipped to realizing he was that way. Several times we were in bars and good-looking chicks’d snuggle up to him-not hard-faced hookers, either, but nice stuff. He’d act cold. Not just cold, but repulsed. And this was back when Broker first got the two of us together, so we could talk and get to know each other and discuss how we’d handle the team-up, should we agree to it. So these were almost social occasions, when he was turning his nose up at this playmate material. Had he acted that way later on, on the job, I’d have thought nothing of it; some guys could very naturally want to stay away from sex on a job. I’m not one of them, but I can understand it. Boxers have been known to make like priests for a month or two before a big fight. Personally I find a piece of ass, while I’m waiting in some town to do my number, helps drain off some of the tension that builds up in me, below the surface.

Boyd and I got along well. He was easy to get along with, very undemanding. Really was kind of a bland guy, ordinary in every way. The kind of guy who follows his favorite team and gets upset when they lose a game. The kind of guy who always asks for Budweiser. The kind of guy who wears a lumpy brown suit from off the rack and then tries to jazz it up a little with a colorful tie, in last year’s width.

But I respected him because he did his job well. He felt the same about me. He was a very good lookout, because he seemed to have a natural streak of Peeping Tom in him that I just don’t have. I get bored in the back-up position. Stake-out shit puts me to sleep, and consequently I tend to miss things, which is dangerous. And Boyd could tail a man, even in a small town like Port City, without having his presence felt one iota. I guess it’s his size, since his looks would seem distinctive enough to attract attention. Of course I’m not particularly big, either, but then tailing somebody is a job for a sneak, which I’m not, and a patient man, which I’m also not. Boyd was not only patient, but a born sneak. It was a pleasure working with him.

However.

On our last job, a couple months back, he’d been way below par. I had a hunch his “marriage” was on the rocks, from little between-the-lines things I could read in what he said. He drank while on lookout, for one thing. He didn’t get plastered or anything, but even sipping along a beer, especially beer after beer, can dull your senses. And your senses got to be keen when you’re working back-up, for Christ’s sake.

I didn’t like it. I wasn’t afraid he was going to make a pass at me or something-it wasn’t that. I was afraid he was going to make a mistake. Some half-ass mistake that would kill us both.

When I came up to my room after my swim and got dressed, I was thinking about Boyd, and how he’d been acting. He sounded normal enough on the phone, but that half-ass edge was in his voice. Somehow I knew this would have to be my last job with Boyd.

But first I’d have to get this job-whatever the hell it was-out of the way. And right now I had to go out and pick up some fucking tacos.

I climbed the wooden steps and stopped on the second floor landing to glance inside: nothing, the apartment below Boyd was vacant. That was good. I went on up to the next landing and tried Boyd’s door. Unlocked. That was not so good. I locked the door behind me and walked easily, quietly through the dark apartment, which was three large rooms laid out in a row, like a boxcar: kitchen, bedroom, living room. The place was furnished modestly but well, with a distinctly feminine flair in the colors and even the faintly perfumy smell everything had, especially the bedroom. The walls were pink stucco and the floors were carpeted. A nice, well-above-average apartment, that looked lived in.

I found Boyd in the living room sitting to the side of double windows that looked out onto the street. The neons and such out there kept the room semilit. He was leaned against the wall, the trunk of his body twisted so it faced me, his head turned so he could peer from out the corner of the window; if I sat that way I’d get a crick in my neck that would take that chiro downstairs a month to rid me of, but Boyd always sat that way when he was watching, one pillow between his back and the wall, another snuggled under his butt. At his feet was a paperback folded open, cover-side up, next to a can of beer; the paperback was called Twilight Love and the beer was Budweiser. He was wearing floppy brown slacks and a yellow short-sleeve shirt with a green tie and he needed a haircut. I tossed the sack of tacos at him.