The Mustang took the choppy old road badly, its suspension system outclassed by this patchwork quilt of concrete chunks. When things would get less bumpy, when a smooth stretch would show out of nowhere, the wetness of the pavement made driving all the more treacherous. Up ahead Vince fishtailed the Ford a couple times hitting slick spots like that, and he wasn’t doing over fifty-five. I felt myself start to slide once or twice. Just when the road would seem to be evening out for good, up would come a water-filled pothole big enough to do the backstroke in.
I glanced down and saw the odometer had clocked twenty-one miles since leaving Port City. The quarry would be coming round soon. I crouched over the steering wheel and peered out through the windshield as the wipers swished back-and-forth.
The half dozen buildings were huddled together like conspirators. Three of the buildings were cylindrical, resembling silos, and made of cement; the rest were gray ribbed-steel obelisks with smokestacks pouring out pure white smoke, puffy clouds as white as innocence, dissipating as the rain got to them. A black shaft slanted across the highway from one of the obelisks to a Quonset hut, the shaft housing the conveyer that brought the limestone from the quarry to the cement processing plant.
The quarry itself was immense. Even in the darkness of the rainy night, partially-lit as I passed through the compound of buildings, I could see across to the other side and the damn thing looked like the Grand Canyon, only older, its limestone ledges having a barren, dead beauty. The depth of it varied from probably fifty feet in places to one-hundred and fifty. It covered acres, hundreds of acres, and it was long, extending a mile past the smoke-exuding plant, where a skeleton crew was continuing through the night, transforming the cold, brittle rock into sacks of cement.
Broker had said two cars would be waiting for me, one of them to take me back to Port City. There was only one car, a dark blue Dodge Charger, its motor running. That was no surprise, but it was a solid confirmation: any slight doubt of Broker’s intentions dissolved like the smoke rising into the rain. I watched Vince pull the Ford over and, after hanging back for a minute, I drove on past both cars, like somebody who was just happening along. Half a mile later I cut my lights and U-turned and came back slow. When I got within an eighth of a mile I let the car crawl quietly off to the side of the road and got out. There were some bushes lining the fence that edged the quarry, and they hid me as I moved quickly along, careful not to brush against them.
I had told Vince to sit in the car and wait for three minutes, to give me a chance to do what I had just done. The nine-millimeter was tight in my gloved hand and I was close by when Vince got out of the Ford and began to approach the dark blue Charger.
Visibility was very low, but I saw what happened clearly, as I was only a few feet away.
The two cars were parked parallel to each other, forming right angles with the road, but there was half a block distance between the two cars and Vince walked so slowly it seemed it would take him forever to near the Charger. Hands deep in the pockets of my raincoat, Vince baby-stepped toward the car and had cut the distance in half when the window on the driver’s side of the Charger rolled down. An arm extended from the open window. Vince stopped. He saw the gun pointed directly at him and he turned to move and the thud of a silenced automatic made a barely perceptible addition to the sounds of the wet night. Vince clutched his side. He fell to his knees. I couldn’t tell how bad the wound was, but my guess was it wasn’t fatal; he was moving too good, very good for a man crawling on his knees.
The door flew open on the Charger. A slender figure in a dark coat jumped from the car, limped frantically toward Vince, who was clawing through the mud and gravel toward the Ford. The slender man caught up with Vince without much trouble. He bent over, saying, “All right, Quarry, you bastard, this is going to be a goddamn pleasure,” and he turned Vince over and lifted him up by the raincoat lapels and realized it wasn’t me.
He dropped Vince back to the muddy wet ground. “Christ!” Carl said, and I hit him behind the left ear with the barrel of the nine-millimeter.
Carl went down face first, splashing into a puddle. He landed just to Vince’s left.
I took the silenced automatic from Carl’s limp fingertips and stuck the gun in my belt. Vince sat there and watched me with his mouth open, his face a mixture of pain and incredulity and stupidity, the rain running down his forehead and over his face like a combination of tears and slobber. He looked at me hard, squinching his eyes, and then he got mad. But before he said anything, he scooched back on his ass toward the Ford, till he was leaning safely against the fender of the car, which gave him a little, not much, but a little breathing room from the unconscious Carl.
Vince sputtered, his mouth full of rain, and perhaps blood. He said, “You, you fucking son of a bitch, you, you goddamn son of a fucking bitch… I’m shot, Jesus I’m shot, that shit shot me… no trouble, you said, easiest money I ever made you said…”
“Shut up,” I said.
The narrowed eyes went suddenly wide, and wild, and he said, “What are you gonna do, what are you gonna do for me? You gotta do something for me… you’re not going to leave me bleed? Huh? Huh? I’m hurt, Christ Jesus I’m hurt, but I know I can make it if you just help me-you’re gonna help me aren’t you?”
“You be quiet. You be quiet and maybe I’ll help you.”
“But…”
“Sit there and relax. Don’t panic or shock’ll set in. Don’t waste your energy or you’ll go unconscious. Just sit there and stay cool.”
‘‘But…’’
I raised the automatic and he shut up. Or almost shut up. He was whimpering, but not loud enough to be annoying.
Carl was starting to rouse. I helped him. I poked his ribs with my foot.
“Up,” I said.
Carl groaned. He rolled around in the puddle and got his nose deep down in the water and he started choking and coughing and flapping his arms. He pushed up on his hands and made wedges in the soft ground and hobbled onto his feet. Or foot. There was mud hanging on his face like melting gelatin.
“How’s it going, Carl?”
Carl swallowed and it didn’t taste good. He said, “You double-crossing son of a bitch!” His voice was strained, and almost shrill.
“I’d laugh at that,” I said, “if I thought we had time to be funny.”
“You’re dead, Quarry. You’re a dead man.”
“No. Not the case. Had Broker sent somebody competent out here to kill me, somebody with two legs and a brain, I might be dead. But I’m not.”
“The Broker…”
“The Broker is home cozy and warm in his bed. He wouldn’t bother coming out here. He doesn’t dirty himself with this sort of thing.”
Carl wiped off his face and stood very still. Like he was at attention, or facing a firing squad or something. He said, “Go ahead, Quarry. Get it over with.”
“Get what over with? You think I’m going to kill you? You aren’t worth killing, you gimpy asshole.”
“What… what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to send you home to Broker. I’m going to let you limp back over to your shiny new Dodge Charger and roar into the sunset.”
He was frozen with disbelief.
I said, “Go back to Broker. Shoo.”
“What’s this… what’s this all about?”
“Go back to Broker, Carl. But one thing… bring him back here.”
“What? You’re crazy.”
“Get him up and bring him out here and let him get his ass wet like the rest of us.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“You got forty minutes. Broker doesn’t live all that far from here. I’ll wait forty minutes. Now go.”
“Go?”
“Go.”
“Sure,” Carl said, humoring me, “fine. I’ll bring him back in forty minutes.”
“I know you will. Just tell him one thing for me. You tell him I only gave him half that load of heroin from the airpor
t job. You tell him I kept back a bag. Tell him I got it hid safely away, and if he wants the key to where I hid it, he should come back here within forty minutes and bring twenty thousand in hundreds with him.”
Carl didn’t argue with me. He didn’t try to tell me Broker wouldn’t be able to raise the money or other similar lies. Twenty thousand was a low figure for the stuff, very low, and I only picked that figure because I knew Broker would have that much on hand at home.
Carl said, “I’ll be back in forty minutes with the Broker.” Carl knew the Broker would come; for the heroin, Broker would come.
“Go, Carl.”
Carl nodded. Very carefully, very slowly, he sloshed back to the Charger, its motor still running. He waited at the door for any last instructions I might have I said, “You come back with him, Carl. Don’t bring anyone else. Come unarmed.”
Carl nodded again, got in the car and pulled out. I watched the Charger disappear into the rain and seconds later the road was deserted again.
Behind me, Vince said, weakly, “What… what’s this about? Who
… who the hell are you?”
I turned and looked at him. He looked pitiful. A skinny shot-up kid in my raincoat, leaning against the Ford and clutching his side. His long hair was hanging in thick wet streaks across his forehead, making a stark contrast with his pale white face. His mouth was slack open, the chipped tooth giving him a look of naive idiocy.
I said, “You don’t know, do you?”
Vince said nothing.
I said nothing.
We waited.
Vince said, “In Christ’s name, do something… help me… I’ll fucking bleed to death if you don’t do something…”
I just looked at him.
He said, “You got to, got to… please… oh, please, please, do something…”
He was right. It was time to do something.
I said, “All right. I got a first-aid kit in the trunk of my car. I’ll go get it.”
He made a strange sound, a cross between a whimper and a sigh. He whispered, “Thanks… thanks, Jack.”
I walked the eighth of a mile back to the Mustang and opened the trunk.
I got out the wrench.
29
“Shit,” Carl said. He paced awkwardly back and forth, like he was trying to make fun of himself. He’d been fifty minutes bringing Broker out here and I’d told him forty. He’d come back and found the area deserted and for a full minute now he’d been pacing and saying shit. He didn’t know I’d moved the two cars to where they couldn’t be seen. The rental Ford was at the mouth of the gravel access road to the quarry, the car just barely out of view, where I could get to it quick if I had to. Boyd’s Mustang was down in the quarry itself, not far from what was left of Vince.
Carl looked at Broker, whose face was visible in the back side window of the car. Carl held out the palms of his hands as if to say, “What can I do?” Broker pursed his lips and shrugged with his eyebrows. Carl shook his head as if to say, “I’m sorry.” Broker eased the irritation from his face and nodded forgiveness.
Just the same, Carl went back to his pacing alongside the car, which this trip was not the shiny dark blue Charger, but a big brown Buick with a vinyl top. Broker’s car, obviously. An executive’s car.
“Shit,” Carl said again, “shit, shit, shit.”
“Oh stop crying,” I said. I stepped out from the bushes and let Carl see I was still keeping company with the nine-millimeter.
Relief flooded Carl’s face, and then anger. Carl spoke and his voice dripped venom, but his words were contrite: “I’m… I’m sorry I was late.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Open your coat.”
He unbuttoned the black raincoat and held it open. I walked over to him and gave him a quick, one-handed frisk. He was unarmed. “Good boy,” I said. “That fake leg of yours isn’t hollowed out and full of firecrackers, now is it?”
Carl pouted. His eyes told me to go to hell. But he said nothing.
“You can close your coat now,” I said.
“Where’s your friend,” Carl asked.
He meant Vince.
At the bottom of this limestone pit, Carl, where he landed when I shoved his remains over the edge.
“I patched him up,” I said, “and he’s doing fine. Walking up and down the road here, keeping his eyes open. Making sure you and Broker didn’t bring any of your friends along.”
Carl said, “Broker wants you to get in the car and talk with him in there.”
I waved the gun toward Broker, whose face in the window of the Buick was bland and emotionless and practically bored. “Broker,” I said, loud, “get your ass out here!”
The back door opened. Broker didn’t come out, but his voice did. He said, “Climb in here with me, Quarry. No need to stand out in the rain and catch pneumonia.”
“Why don’t you come out here and join me, Broker. I been in the rain so long it’s gotten to be my natural state.”
“Please,” the Broker said. With solemn patience.
“Why not,” I said. I looked at Carl and said, “You get in the front. Sit on the rider’s side and don’t cause any trouble.”
Carl did as he was told.
Broker was wearing a charcoal double-knit suit and a dark blue shirt and a wide tie colored robin’s egg blue. He moved over to make room for me, which put him directly behind Carl. There was plenty of room in the Buick’s back seat-headroom, legroom, everything. I laid the nine- millimeter on my lap and folded my gloved hands. It was cold in the car. The damn airconditioner was on, which was stupid on a rainy and not particularly warm night like this one, and between its coldness and size, that Buick could’ve been used as a meat locker.
“Excuse the delay,” Broker said. “My wife and I were entertaining a houseful of guests, and it was most difficult getting away.”
“Having a party, huh, Broker? Well that’s one way to establish an alibi.”
“Please, Quarry.” His mustache quivered.
“You and your pretty wife are eating caviar and sipping cocktails and I’m out here in the rain getting my nuts shot off by a cripple.”
I could see Carl in the rearview mirror. I could see his face get tense. But he didn’t say anything.
I said, “You might be interested to know that my business in Port City has been settled, and without rousing the police or causing J. Edgar Hoover to rise from the dead.”
Broker’s expression turned grim. He nodded slowly and said, “I received a call from the party who contracted your services…”
“Mrs. Springborn, you mean.”
Broker couldn’t keep back the sharp look this time. But it passed quickly. He said, “The party informed me of your visit, and that you had promised to leave Port City.”
“That’s right.”
“And that you demanded and were paid an additional four thousand dollars. How do you think that makes me look? I’m not a blackmailer, Quarry, I won’t condone extortion.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh at the bastard or strangle him. I told him so.
“Quarry, please!” The Broker patted his hands at the air. “Please. I shouldn’t have brought up the subject.” He cleared his throat. “My friend, we could drag this out forever, shouting at each other, accusing each other of all sorts of things. You could tell me again of your distaste for that job at the airport, and reexpress your general displeasure with my management of your affairs these past several months. And I could remind you again of your unpardonable behavior in Port City, and, successful or not, could you really refute the insanity of staying on the scene after a job and, in the name of God, investigating? I think not. This is unfortunate, this is all most unfortunate, and rehashing all of our grievances will get us nowhere. I’m sorry our mutually beneficial working arrangement must be dissolved in so disagreeable a way, after so long a period of time. It’s obvious reconciliation is impossible. I’m fond of you, I really am, and you’ve done good work for me. But in recent
days we’ve treated each other badly and have left our relationship in a state of damage beyond repair. Tonight, and I admit my judgment was faulty, tonight I tried to have you killed. Just as you, while working for me, betrayed our trust and kept for yourself valuable property belonging to me. Well, one hand washes the other, as they say, and I say let us dispense with past differences and get on with the business at hand.”
If he’d been running for something, I would’ve voted for him. The rain beat on the roof of the car like applause.
“Well, Quarry?”
“Okay,” I said.
The Broker nodded gravely and withdrew from his inside suitcoat pocket a thick, sealed envelope. He ripped the envelope open with a great sense of the dramatic, and displayed the thickness of green bills.
I dug into my pants pocket for the key. I handed it to him.
He said, “The airport? A locker at the airport?”
I nodded.
“Reckless,” the Broker said, softly, “most reckless.”
He handed me the envelope, without ceremony this time. I spread it open, ran my thumb across the edges of the bills. The bills were new and crisp; they even smelled new. I started to count the money, and from the corner of my eye I saw the Broker make a movement of his head and in the rearview mirror I saw Carl nod back.
And I saw that the glove compartment was open.
Sometime during Broker’s pompous speech, Carl had quietly opened the glove compartment.
Carl was watching me in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t watching him. I waited until his hand was inside the glove compartment and on the revolver and then I grabbed Broker by the arm and yanked him over hard and plastered myself against the door and Carl fired.
Carl fired and his bullet caught Broker in the right eye and the back of Broker’s head flew off and sprayed-splattered a surrealistic, mostly scarlet design across the back window.
There was a moment when it could have been over for me. Broker had fallen on me, a thousand pounds of dead Broker had fallen on my lap and I couldn’t get to the automatic, but somehow I shoved Broker over toward the other door and got my hands on the gun and brought it up to return fire.
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