Макс Коллинз - Quarry in the Black

“Quarry,” he said, a smile in his voice as well as on his face. “Missed you, man.”

We hadn’t done a job in several months.

“Swordfish,” I said.

“Huh?”

“That’s the password. Let me the fuck in. I been driving all day.”

“Sure, sure, sure,” the slice of his face said, and he unlatched the door and opened it for me.

I stepped inside and put my suitcase down and found myself in a decent apartment.

This was a spacious living room, furnished — Sears or Montgomery Ward stuff, dating to the early ’60s — with a row of windows on the street that made a perfect lookout post. A cushion appropriated from the couch made a seat for him by the window at farthest right, like a sultan might sit on, with a bedroom pillow propped against the wall, so he could lean back there and stare out sideways.

Near the cushion were binoculars, for closer looks at those coming and going. A .38 long-barreled Smith and Wesson Model 29 revolver was on the floor near his cushion — a good weapon, but you can’t silence revolvers, so I stick to nine millimeters, despite occasional jamming.

A console TV ( Kung Fu on screen now, sound low) was against the wall at left, near the windows, so he could have it on while he worked, if he kept his eyes on the street. Probably he didn’t turn it on while he was on the job, though, as he’d placed a portable radio near his post. He’d have the radio on an easy-listening station, no doubt — he was a good ten years older than me, though his age never came up.

I had a look around. The layout was boxcar — a bedroom, another bedroom, and a small kitchen, each opening onto the other. Boyd had taken the first bedroom — the bed unmade, a paperback on the nightstand called Midtown Queen with a bodybuilder on the cover (your job is to figure out Boyd’s sexual preference and then get back to me) — which left the adjacent bedroom for me. Each bedroom had a dresser and a double bed. Nothing fancy, but relatively speaking the Ritz, since more commonly we got stuck with unfurnished shitholes and had to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags, like fucking Boy Scouts.

I tossed my suitcase on the bed and went on into the kitchen.

“Jesus,” I said, looking in the refrigerator, which was stocked with cold cuts, sliced cheese and Budweiser, “this really isn’t bad.”

Boyd had tagged after. He was in his undershirt and brown bellbottoms and bare feet, a solidly built guy who could take care of himself in a brawl. But his dark eyes had long lashes that were almost pretty and made women love him. For what good it did them.

“We can cook here,” he said.

I gestured to the Wonder Bread on the counter. “Stick with sandwiches. Please don’t stink the place with your cooking. This place has the ventilation of a coffin.”

“Okay. Plenty of places around here to grab a bite, starting with that bar-and-grill next-door below. And all my stakeout work is by day.”

He’d been nice enough to buy some cans of Coke. I took one and popped the top. I shut the fridge door and asked him, “You’re not staking out the mark’s residence?”

He shook his head. “No. Broker said don’t bother. We’re talking a colored neighborhood. Pretty nice. But my white mug would stand out.”

I gave him a look. “Boyd, they don’t say ‘colored’ anymore.”

A shrug. “Okay, then. Negro.”

“Welcome to 1956.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

I sat at the Formica-topped table. It dated at least to the year I’d just mentioned, though the appliances had come in with the furniture a decade or so ago. He joined me, sitting across, leaning forward eagerly. He had been working this job for three weeks and he was starved for human company. Technically I qualified.

I asked, “You’re just working days, then?”

He nodded toward the front of the apartment. “Sometimes they come back in the evenings. So I keep a loose watch on the place. No pattern, though, other than they come in around eight A.M. and stay till six.”

“What about lunch?”

“They mostly brown-bag it. I’m not sure about Lloyd himself.”

I sipped my Coke. “Does he ever leave by the front?”

“Sure. Lots of times. But, again — no pattern, not even where lunch is concerned. Sometimes a cab pulls up, sometimes one of his people pulls up in one car or another. Nothing helpful.”

“Bodyguards?”

“Oh yeah. Always. Big and Negro and tougher-lookin’ than Joe Frazier.”

“Not Negro. Black.”

“Quarry, that’s racist.”

“ Black is racist?”

“Right. You better get with it.”

I rubbed my forehead. He lived out east with his hairdresser “wife,” for Christ’s sake. Didn’t he have what they called an alternate lifestyle? Yet he was about as hip as a dockworker.

“I’ll watch it,” I assured him.

“You damn well better. I mean, you’re going undercover with those people, right?”

I nodded. Those people.

“You don’t want to get on their bad side.” He shook his head. “Undercover like a damn cop. That’s a new one.”

“I did it before, just not with you.”

He gave a little shudder. “Doesn’t it make you nervous?”

“The money’s better, so I’ll get a grip.”

Boyd gulped some Bud. “We don’t wanna blow this one, Quarry. I mean, ten grand is one sweet haul.”

I didn’t know if he meant ten grand that we were splitting or if that was his end, and I didn’t ask.

I just said, “Very damn sweet.”

Normally it was an equal split. But the Broker obviously knew my end was higher risk and that it would take real bread to convince me to take on the job. Anyway, Boyd didn’t need to know what I was taking home.

I asked him, “What do you have so far?”

Boyd said that he’d played pedestrian several days to witness Lloyd arriving at the HQ alley door via a black Grand Prix complete with driver and paired bodyguards. His exit varied depending on how late they worked, but the Grand Prix pulled in at five-fifty P.M., ready to pick him up whenever.

“Not very useful,” I said.

“Not very. Mornings, they drop him right at the door and evenings he comes out, climbs in and he’s gone.”

“What about meals?”

“There are half a dozen restaurants where he takes lunch. I followed him to another half a dozen where he occasionally takes supper. Two soul food joints and several Italian places on the Hill, where he gets dirty looks but served. Plenty of white people in this town don’t like Negroes, let me tell you.”

“Nothing useful there.”

“No. I can see why the Broker is sending you in to get close and cuddly, but I don’t envy you.”

“Don’t you like Negroes, Boyd?”

Another shudder. “I don’t like them when they weigh two-fifty and pack guns in shoulder holsters, no, sir.”

“Don’t be a bigot. They say once you go black you never go back.”

“Fuck you, Quarry. What’s your in with these people?”

I told him I had I.D. that made me John Blake, a Vietnam War veteran who won a Bronze Star. Seems I’d been active with a number of Nam Vets against the war, and was anxious to help get a peace candidate like George McGovern elected.

“That gets you in,” Boyd said, nodding. “What gets you in the inner circle?”

I sipped Coke. “My charm.”

Teeth blossomed under the dark shaggy mustache. “Well, you are one winning son of a bitch.”

“Thank you.”

“But you won’t have your nine millimeter with you. I mean, you’re going in looking like a college kid, right? Jeans and shit.”

“Right. But I brought a suit along. Two in fact. And a few ties and white shirts. And both are cut to conceal a shoulder holster.”