Макс Коллинз - Quarry in the Black

Who was he?

My first thought was that this was somehow a result of the other night. That Becky and her Nazi boyfriends had called in help to settle the score. But I felt I’d had a meeting of the minds with Commander Starkweather — he certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned this. And, anyway, the questions the blond good-old-boy had been asking Boyd, in a decidedly pointed way, indicated he wanted to know who we were. What we were up to.

Hell, Starkweather already knew. He’d hired us, hadn’t he?

Hadn’t he?

But the Broker hadn’t really confirmed that. And something was glimmering in the back of my head.

Before long Boyd came back in. He’d spruced up for our caller — the bloody t-shirt replaced by a blue sportshirt, pajama bottoms by navy slacks, bare feet shod now in navy sneakers. I wondered if I’d tidy up like that, if somebody rescued me from a Mamie Van Doren blonde who was torturing my ass, and I wanted to look good when I questioned her. Maybe.

Of course, my partner’s face was a puffy horror, his eyes slitted and swollen, like the ref should have stopped the fight a lot of rounds ago. But the blood was washed off, and his left hand held some ice wrapped in a washcloth that he moved around to sore places on his face.

Without a word, we pitched in and lifted the lumberjack up by the arms and flopped him into the chair. It wasn’t any harder than moving a roadkill buck off the highway. I left the additional duct-taping to Boyd — we wanted him secured to the chair — and, without my asking, Boyd filled me in.

“He was just suddenly in the room with me,” Boyd said. “I was watching the game, and it was pretty dull and I fell asleep. And then there the son of a bitch was, big as a redwood.”

Four beer cans were beside the recliner Boyd pulled up to watch TV.

“You got yourself a back-door man,” I said. “He had lockpicks. How long was this going on, before I showed up?”

“Felt like hours. Probably ten minutes.”

“You got lucky on the timing. Is the gist that he spotted us keeping tabs on the Reverend?”

He nodded, getting to his feet, starting in with the tape around the guy’s chest. “I never said jack shit to the mother-fucker. He just kept hitting me. I’m surprised he didn’t bust his damn hand.”

“Does he figure us for cops?”

“Ask him .”

Boyd nodded to our guest, who was coming around in his chair, wincing, licking his lips, raising his eyebrows, like that’s what it would take to get his eyes open.

“You... you’re the other one,” he said, looking at me, his upper lip curled back.

“Am I?”

“Who the fuckin’ hell are you bastards, anyhow?”

“Well, I’m the guy with your gun.” I showed him the .22, which was in my right hand, the silenced nine mil in my left at my side.

He looked at the .22, almost crossing his eyes to do so, and I laughed a little and slapped him with it. A cut on his cheek opened, two inches or so, and blood dripped out. It was like he’d cut himself shaving. With a Bowie knife.

He gave me some more curled upper lip. “You think I’m afraid of you?”

“As long as I have the guns, I don’t care. As it sits... as you sit... your odds for survival are about one in ten. And that’s a generous estimate.”

“All right,” he said, and let air out of his big chest. “I admit it. You fellas got the upper hand at present.”

“Think so?”

His chin came up, his wound crying little ruby tears. “Let’s back ’er up a step. Who are you boys anyhow? You ain’t cops or feds or we wouldn’t be havin’ this party.”

“Right. You’d be arrested. Nobody official would do this.”

I slapped him with his .22 again. Other cheek. Opened another cut. Really sloppy shaver, this boy.

His eyes, which were a dark blue, blazed. “You better hope I don’t make it outa this chair, you little punk-ass prick.”

“Yeah. Obviously. Let’s back ’er up a step. To where the guy with the guns gets to ask the questions. Oh, and my friend here, who you beat the piss out of earlier? He’s also got a gun now.”

Our captor flicked his eyes toward Boyd, off to the side, pointing the long-barrel .38 at him.

“So I see,” the lumberjack said. “What if I took that gun away from him and stuck it up his fuckin’ ass?”

“You’d have to ask him,” I said. “Now let’s start with a name.”

“Eat me,” he said, through a wide smile.

“For a guy who’s obviously been in his share of brawls, you have good teeth. Or did you pay for those? Either way, you probably wouldn’t want me to break them.”

He stopped smiling. “I ain’t gonna give you my name. Who cares what my teeth is like if I’m dead?”

That made more sense than I’d have guessed he was capable of.

“I don’t need a last name,” I said. “Just a first.”

“Bite me.”

“I’m Jack.”

He glanced at Boyd. “Jack, huh? And who’s he?”

“Not Jill. This conversation is just you and me. Never mind him. What’s your name, friend?”

“...Delmont.”

“I said first name.”

“That is my first name.”

“Okay. You’ll recognize these questions. They’re the ones you were asking when I came in.”

He frowned, not following.

“Who are you?” I asked. “I don’t mean your name. Why are you here? What’s your function?”

“Function? What the fuck—”

“Your job. You came here to do a job, right?”

He said nothing.

“Delmont, you came here to a job. Right?”

He sucked in breath. Let it out. Nodded.

I knew. Or anyway I thought I knew. At least one way that this, and some other things, would make anything close to sense had just occurred to me.

“Delmont, you don’t have to tell me why you came north. You don’t have to tell me what job you came to St. Louis to do.”

Boyd was frowning at me, not getting it.

I said, “You came to town to kill the nigger across the street. You’re here to whack the Reverend Raymond Wesley Lloyd.”

His bloody-cheeked astonishment was priceless. He had the same expression as a magician’s volunteer from the audience hearing, “Is this your card?”

Boyd was just slightly astonished himself. He said, “Jack... what the hell?” At least he’d had the presence of mind not to call me Quarry.

I gave him a look that said stay out of it.

Then I said to Delmont, “You know, some pretty strange coincidences happen from time to time.”

“Huh?” Now he was squinting at me. The blood from where I’d whacked him had dried and gone black and looked like a lace cap on his head. A lace cap sewn by a blind, brain-damaged seamstress. The blood on his cheeks wasn’t flowing anymore but the scarlet streaks that had been left still glistened.

“You see,” I said, “my friend and I are watching Reverend Lloyd because we’ve been hired to kill him.”

“What? But I... uh... uh...” Then he clammed up. His brain was overloading. In a cartoon, steam whistle sounds and engine gears grinding would have accompanied smoke coming out his ears.

“Jack!” Boyd said, and he came over and took me by the arm. Walked me to the doorway to his bedroom, and then pulled me in there. Delmont, tied to his chair, was trying very hard to think.

“What the hell’s the idea?” Boyd whispered. “Now we have to kill this guy.”

“ Before we had to,” I said. “Now, maybe not. Look, it’ll be my responsibility either way. Just go along with me.”

Boyd swallowed hard. His face looked like he’d stuck his head in a beehive and it hadn’t gone well. But he nodded.

Back in front of our guest, his gun in my right hand, mine in my left, I said, “We were hired to kill the black bastard. Now I want to hear why you’re here.”