Макс Коллинз - Killing Quarry

I was sitting up now.

I shrugged. Said, “Okay. You’re right. I have no desire to be a goddamn booking agent for professional killers. But as far as being exposed? Everybody who knows about me is dead — Simmons, Vanhorn and friend Poole, over there... I think he’s dead now, anyway. Not making noise anymore.”

The wide mouth twisted in a small but distinct sneer. “I wish it had taken him longer.”

“Me, too. And the only other person who knows what I’ve been up to, Lu, is you.”

Her eyes bore in on me. “Would you kill me?”

I gazed right back at her. “Would you kill me?”

The gun lowered just a hair and she sighed and I hooked my foot under her ankle, and rolled to the left and took her down. She didn’t land very hard, but the surprise of it made her grip loosen and I was right there to snatch the nine mil out of her fingers.

Then it was me standing, looming, and she was looking up in a pile, the Asian eyes now as wide as they were beautiful, dark blue with gold flecks, like Swiss schnapps.

She swallowed, head lowered but eyes aimed up, and said, “I wouldn’t have killed you, Jack. I really wouldn’t have.”

“I’d like to think that.”

She was shaking her head, just a little. “But if you intend to keep using that list... can you really afford to have me out there somewhere, knowing what I know? Particularly if I go back to taking contracts?”

I frowned at her. “Do you want me to kill you?”

“Not particularly.” Her chin came up. “Let’s talk about it.

Like civilized people. See if we can come to some reasonable... understanding. Doesn’t have to be like this.”

“You started it,” I reminded her, one child to another.

The wide mouth worked up a smile. “Let’s call it our first lovers’ quarrel... Why don’t you let me sit down somewhere that isn’t the floor?”

I shook my head. “I have no way to know how many little pop guns you’ve spirited around the room, under this pillow and between what cushions. No. I’ll sit down.”

I did so, on a sectional piece that was close enough to her down there to maintain control of her, but not so close as to risk her making a move on me.

She did sit up, though, and hugged her legs to herself. There was something youthful about it. Which was maybe calculated.

“So we talk,” I said.

“You first,” she said.

I took air in and let air out. “All right. I think I instinctively knew, despite my liking for you, never to allow myself to get close to you again. That’s why ten years passed before we reconnected... and it took you being the instigator.” I nodded back at the dead man. “You and Poole set this whole thing in motion, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“How you two got together, I don’t know. But he and your late Envoy were tight, so that’s probably part of it. You were the one who put the pieces together about what I’d been up to — you were there, ten years ago, on my first time using the list. Your partner on that job went down, and the client who took out the contract also met an unfortunate end. That got you thinking from the very start.”

“Did it?”

“You knew all along that I was the target on your latest job. You played me like a cheap kazoo, didn’t you? You would save me, killing your partner Simmons, and draw me into attending that seminar. When we went to Wilmette, to beard the Envoy in his den, you’d already killed him and his two security guards. You or Poole had. Meanwhile, you helped me. Fucked me, in several senses, and knew damn well that Poole would get rid of his rival brokers at the chalet and then I would be set up for the fall. But it didn’t quite work out that way, did it?”

She covered her face with a hand. Emotion finally breaking loose. Couldn’t blame her. I had some of that showing in my voice, too, with nothing I could do about it, because I had come to care for this woman. Or anyway for the woman she pretended to be.

“And finally, just now,” I said, “you get rid of Poole. Leaving you in a position to take over the Midwest as the most beautiful businesswoman who ever ran a Murder, Incorporated set-up. Maybe the first. Now all you have to do is get the list out of me, and then — of course — tie off the one last loose end that I’ve become.”

She lowered her hand from those striking features, which I’d figured would be streaked with tears. But she was smiling. Wide and big, and laughing too. Her eyes were tearing up. I had got that much right, sort of.

“Jack! Do you really believe that shit? If you weren’t dead-on-your-feet tired, would you even come up with such overcomplicated drivel?”

She stood.

Still seated, I trained the nine mil on her. “What are you doing? Sit the hell back down!”

But she didn’t listen. She came over, a beautiful woman, so tall and tanned in the bright orange bikini undies, and she put a hand on my shoulder like she was bestowing a blessing, as if oblivious to the Browning automatic I still pointed at her, its nose just inches from her supple flesh.

“Here is the one thing,” she said, gesturing with an upraised forefinger, “that I held back from you. I was suspicious of Simmons and Vanhorn — I could tell they were up to something. And when I got here, to your little pine-cone-covered corner of the world, and discovered you were the target? I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of it. That first night, I was standing—” She bobbed her head toward the front of the room and the sliding doors. “—just out there, on your deck, listening. I heard everything Bruce told you, about how he and the Envoy had figured out what you’ve been up to these past ten years, and the business proposition he made to you, if you would just hand over the list. Then you two got into it, with it looking like he might cap you, and those sliding doors were open... and I made my choice. I saved your ass, lover, and killed my longtime partner for you. I didn’t like him much, anyway.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You expect me to buy that the rest of it... from the trip to Wilmette on through the seminar stay...”

She shrugged. “Was all legit. I was just your trusty sidekick. Tonto and the Lone Ranger, only with bedroom privileges. No more, no less.”

She moved away from me, in her bare feet, and returned to that ottoman by the fire, which was still going, maybe not as strong, but snapping and crackling and popping, just like Rice Krispies when the milk hits. She perched there, on a piece of furniture where there’d been no way for her to conceal one of her little .25s or .22s, and I came over and sat opposite her.

Her hands were on her knees, rather primly, but part of that was to show she wasn’t playing any tricks.

“I apologize,” she said.

“What for?” I asked. Still training the automatic on her, but not so... intensely.

She made an embarrassed face. “Holding you at gunpoint. Wasn’t right. I should have had more faith in you.”

“Should you?”

She nodded. “Look. We shared some lovely pipe dreams about going off together, you maybe joining me in St. Paul, me maybe even staying here with you, or possibly something completely different, like the Pythons say. Something new. After all, who besides you and me could understand the life we’ve been leading for so long? We wouldn’t have to keep anything from each other. No apologies. It’s nice, to think of that.”

“Is it?”

“You know it is, Jack. But here’s the thing. Here’s why I thought it would take a gun to make you listen. To cooperate. I do want that list . I want out of the killing game, sure, but in a way it’s all I know. My antiques business, much as I love it, is just a front. A money laundry. I don’t have much put away, really. I live fairly high on the hog, you might say. I like nice things. Sue me.”