Макс Коллинз - Quarry in the Black

He was reading a paperback called Gay Safari . Both his hands were showing, which was a relief.

“Just passing through,” I said. “Too wired to sleep.”

“No problem,” he said, still looking like the victim of a beekeeping accident, and returned to bettering his mind through literature.

I shut the door to his bedroom and crossed to the recliner that faced the television. It was after two A.M., and not much was on, but I found an old Charlie Chan movie. It was terrible, and just what I was looking for — something that would put me to sleep. Thing was, Mantan Moreland was so damn funny, I never did get drowsy, though I was well aware that my Coalition friends across the street probably wouldn’t find this wonderful black comedian at all amusing. Their loss.

Every time Mantan said something that made me laugh (“Murder’s okay, Mr. Chan, but you wholesale it!”), I would look over at the nearby window toward the Coalition HQ, sort of reflexively. I was finally just getting drowsy when Mantan said, “Move over troubles, here we come again!” and I glanced over and there were lights on over there.

I got up and went to the windows. Knelt and looked out and lights were on in the rear of the place. At close to three A.M. on a Sunday night or anyway Monday morning, lights going. I used the binoculars but saw no one moving inside, though a storeroom door seemed to be partway open at the rear by the restrooms, between the two glassed-in offices. The light was coming from back there.

I knocked at Boyd’s bedroom door and said, “Me,” and found him still reading.

I said, “Something’s going on across the street.”

He blinked swollen eyes at me. He looked like a fish you’d throw back. “At Lloyd’s headquarters?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell for?”

“Well, that’s what I’m going to check out. Do you have anything I could take that isn’t that .38 of yours? It’s louder than an elephant fart.”

“What’s wrong with your Browning?”

“I’d need to switch out barrels and I don’t want to take the time.”

He nodded and got into a drawer of his nightstand and handed me a six-inch item with an ebony handle and metal trim.

“A switchblade? What are you, Boyd — James fucking Dean?”

“Do you want it or not?”

“I want it.”

“Just be careful with it — cutting edge is razor sharp. Don’t hurt yourself. Try the switch.”

The stiletto blade popped out with a snap. Like a robot erection.

“Okay, thanks. Can I ask you one thing, Boyd?”

“Sure.”

“Are you a Shark or a Jet?”

I quickly climbed into a dark sweatshirt and black jeans and black sneakers and went out the back way, coming around the building. The street was dead. No traffic at all, stoplights in flashing mode; pavement was wet and shiny from street cleaning, reflecting the now lower-hanging Hunter’s Moon.

I crossed to the HQ side of the street, but didn’t bother trying the front door, going around to the alley instead. Parked back there along the building was a late-model Oldsmobile Toronado, army-green with a black vinyl top. Powerful ride, not inexpensive.

Nobody behind the wheel.

Nobody in the alley, either. With the unopened switchblade tight in my fist, I moved down to and around the parked Olds. Near the rear door to Coalition HQ, I paused. The door was closed, but its edges were bleeding light. I could hear muffled male voices. I drew closer and plastered my ear to the wood, but the door was thick and heavy and all I got for my effort was louder muffled talk.

But then the talk got even louder, and closer, and I darted away, slipping into the recess of a doorway behind the adjacent building.

Peeking carefully around the corner of my hiding place, I saw two white men emerge, one big in width and height both, the other slender and not tall but not small either. They wore topcoats and hats like it was 1952 but had a timeless gangster look — the big man had a face plump from pasta and hard from hurting people; and the slender one was mustached with a narrow face that was intelligent in a racetrack tout way. They might have looked corny to me if I couldn’t read how fucking dangerous they were. The slender one was counting money in an envelope, quickly, just giving it a second check, having no doubt already done so inside. The bigger guy was just watching. He liked money. Well, we had that in common.

The big guy opened the driver’s door and climbed behind the wheel, the slender one got in on the rider’s side, and the Toronado started up with a powerful engine throb and rolled by me. I had plastered myself against the door within my recess, enveloping myself in darkness. Or anyway I hoped I had. That big guy could take my switchblade away and hand it to the slender guy, who would pick his teeth with it while the big guy beat me to fucking death with an arm he tore off me.

I wasn’t unhappy to see them go.

Then I heard something that sounded like a key chain rattling, which is exactly what it was. André was locking up Coalition HQ’s rear door after his wee-hours meeting with business associates. He was in a black sharp-collared jumpsuit with red trim and no jacket, but his sleeves were long, so he should be okay in the chill.

Tucked under an arm — right out in the open — was a paper bag, its top folded over, just about the right size for a couple loaves of bread. Of course that wasn’t bread he was carrying away.

He was heading out of the alley when I called out, “André! Wait up.”

He swiveled and I was right there, a few yards from him, the switchblade hidden in my fist, blade still sleeping. If he ran or tried anything, it would wake up.

“Hey, it’s me. Jack. From work. We haven’t had a chance to rap yet.” Sarcastic but lightly so.

“White boy,” he said, voice like sandpaper, eyes diamond hard and rhinestone glittery, “what you wanna do is, walk away now. You wanna jus’ forget what you think you see. Those men? They nasty-ass men. You be very goddamn dead without tryin’.”

“The Reverend himself couldn’t have made a better speech, André. Stay cool. This is no hijacking. I’m not after whatever’s in that paper bag. Coke? Horse? Just don’t care.”

Nostrils flared in the pockmarked, sunken-cheeked puss. “Then why the fuck you standin’ there starin’ at me with that stupid face in the middle of the night?”

“Doesn’t matter what time of day it is, André, you got the same face. Like your face is always there, telling people like me that you’re still using.”

His eyes narrowed, losing none of their hardness. He was sorting through his options. I had no idea whether he had a weapon or not, but chances were he did.

“All I want to know is,” I said, “are you the top of the food chain? Are you cracking the whip or just another mule?”

Why did I want to know? I guessed there must be some part of me that wanted Reverend Lloyd not to be dirty. Some part of me that wanted to walk away from a job that didn’t suit my requirements. I wasn’t soft. Just fussy.

“Why, you think your white ass gettin’ a cut ? Ain’t no way.”

“Did I say I wanted a cut of your end? Just tell me. Do you answer to somebody, or is this campus distribution scheme your own brainchild?”

He must not have had a weapon after all, because he flung the paper bag at me and its hard-packed contents hit me in the chest, startling me. That freed his hands, gave him the half-second he needed to rush me, putting a spiky shoulder into my belly and he took me down, hard, on my back.

Now I was looking up at him and damned if he didn’t have a knife, not a switchblade but a fucking combat knife, held in his fist in time-honored stabbing position.