Макс Коллинз - Quarry in the Black

And then everybody but me was running away, those that were on fire trailing flames like the ass of a jet engine, while those who had somehow avoided catching fire were making sure they stayed that way. They ran in seemingly every possible direction and it was like seeing roaches scatter when you turned on a kitchen light. Roaches that were on fire. That were screaming.

Screaming loudest of all was the Grand Dragon, who was flat on his back, on the grass, which had caught fire around him, creating a flickering orange body outline. The green silk was black now, his hood a crackling charcoal like a roasted marshmallow that stayed too long on the stick — or was that just his skin with the cloth burned away? Either way, he was staring up at me with Jolson eyes, trying to roll on his side but not able to, his nerve endings just not able to send the right signals anymore.

The prick deserved a long, slow, miserable death. But he was wailing in such agony that there was nothing to do but shoot him in the head. Maybe I was getting soft at that.

Then I was alone in the clearing. The wind was gradually putting the fires out, the short dead grass not able to really get going. Two extra crispy corpses were the only real damage done — one of them Starkweather himself, the other the bearer of the rebel flag, who’d made it about fifteen yards, dying on his stomach and even now sending up smoke signals that would not be answered.

I did for Starkweather what he couldn’t do for himself. Using my foot, I rolled him over and over, until the fire was out. The silk robe was all but gone, but the smouldering remnants of his tan Nazi-esque uniform gave up his car keys.

By the time I started walking toward the hill, the night had turned very quiet, the Hunter’s Moon painting everything a vivid ivory. After all the hubbub, the sudden solitude was nice. Soothing.

At the top of the hill, through the cluster of trees, I could see only two cars remaining. All those Krazy Klansters had jumped in their cars and scrambled back to their real lives. The only sign that they’d ever been here was a handful of scorched white robes and hoods.

One of the two remaining cars was the white Lincoln with rebel flag decal and the WALLACE FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker — down at the bottom of the hill, mirroring the Dodge Charger parked on the other side.

I unlocked the Lincoln trunk and easily found the plump envelope of cash tucked behind the spare tire. Hundreds, as crisp as the man who’d brought them. One-hundred hundreds — ten grand. Having collected my windbreaker, I stuffed the envelope in a pocket.

I walked up the hill. The night was quiet. If there was a God, maybe He’d noticed the fuss down in the clearing. But nobody else seemed to have. I walked down the hill.

Unlocked the Charger trunk.

Delmont looked cramped yet strangely comfy. You can get used to an indignity after a while.

“Jesus fuck, Jack!” He looked up at me the way a dog in its cage does its overdue master. “What the shit-fuck-hell was goin’ on out there? Uh... is something burnin’?”

I helped him out. He moaned and groaned a little. I could hear bones pop. It’s tough being ten pounds of meat in a five-pound can.

He was damn near babbling. “I mean, I could hear screams and guys rushin’ around and swearin’ and even bawlin’! Car doors openin’, slammin’, more engines startin’ than Indy, drivin’ off, kickin’ gravel... what the hell did you do down there, man?”

“I got your money,” I said.

That brightened him.

I handed him the fat envelope and he grinned as he thumbed through the new bills. When he looked up, I was pointing the silenced nine mil at him.

“Jack — what’s the idea, man? We’re partners!”

I put out a palm. “Hand it over.”

“Jesus fuck! That ain’t fuckin’ fair , Jack!”

I snatched the envelope back, slipped it in the windbreaker pocket.

He looked like he might cry. “What do you need my money for? You said I’d be in the black !”

“You will be,” I said, and the nine mil hiccuped.

Boyd and I sat in our underwear at the kitchen table at the lookout pad. It was a little after eleven P.M. and the end of a very long day, much of it spent on a bus getting from one out-of-town campus rally to another, only to return to find a lumberjack beating Boyd to shit, followed by a moonlit KKK meeting. Little man, you’ve had a busy day.

Ten thousand dollars — all in crisp new C-notes — rose in two equal stacks on the Formica tabletop, like we were in a high-stakes poker game and somebody forgot the cards.

I had taken a shower and my t-shirt and jockey shorts were fresh. Against the kitchen wall behind me, next to a wastebasket, was a garbage bag in which all the clothes I’d worn this evening were stuffed. They had to be disposed of. One must assume that forensics had come to Missouri.

I will be straight with you and admit I considered keeping the entire ten grand. Hadn’t I been the one on hazardous duty? Going from the boonies to the St. Louis suburbs, behind the wheel of the Dodge Charger, I’d decided to keep seven and give Boyd three. By the time I got back to the Central West End, I’d decided to give him twenty-five hundred and say it was half. That Delmont had been paid five grand and it was an even split.

Then when I came in the kitchen way and Boyd greeted me in his underwear, all contused and puffy-eyed and worried, I said, “We’ve got ten grand to split.”

What his grin did to that battered face must have hurt. Anyway, it hurt to look at.

I tossed him the bulging envelope and said, “Here, you split it. I’m a walking crime scene. I need to get out of these clothes and into the shower.”

When I returned in my skivvies, with the smoke smell scrubbed off at least, I sat across from Boyd, who had his stack of green neatly before him, with mine waiting at my chair, like he was waiting to say grace. Reading an expression on that grotesque mug was tough, but I could tell he was troubled.

“Where’s Delmont?” he asked.

“In the trunk of his Dodge Charger.”

“...Is he alive?”

“What do you think?”

“Aw. Kind of a shame. He was a sweet kid.”

“Want me to get you a mirror? Maybe if I smash you in the face with it, you’ll call me sweet.”

“Guess you had to do it.”

“Not really, but it was prudent. And we each have five grand we wouldn’t have, which is a good thing, since this job is almost certainly off.”

His face made something that might have been a frown. “Why do you say that?”

I gave him an account of my evening in southwest Missouri under the Hunter’s Moon. Several times he tried to open his puffy eyes wide and damn near succeeded.

“These were separate contracts,” Boyd said, when I’d finished. He was thinking aloud. Each word carefully parceled out. “Delmont was hired by the Nazi. Our contract comes courtesy of parties unknown. Just a crazy coincidence.”

“Yeah, I don’t like it either.”

I got up and opened the refrigerator door. I reached for a Coke, remembered the caffeine, and grabbed one of his Budweisers instead. Nasty fucking beer, but maybe the alcohol content would help me sleep. Exhausted as I was, I was still kind of keyed up.

Sitting back down, I said, “The only way this could be one contract is if somebody really fucked up.”

Boyd nodded. “Like maybe Delmont was on hand waiting for the go-ahead, should we screw up or bail.”

“Right. Only Delmont didn’t seem to have any sense of that.”

“None,” Boyd agreed. He was drinking Bud, too. He sipped like that was worth doing, and said, “What if it’s not such a big coincidence?”