Quarry's vote q-5

by Maxallan Collins

  His smile faded, and he shrugged facially. “I know that you were a hero. That you served your country honorably and well.”

  “Yeah, right. Is there more?”

  “I known that you were married once before. You returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam to discover your wife had been untrue.”

  “Untrue? I found her in bed sitting on a guy’s dick.”

  “You killed him.”

  I shrugged. “Not on the spot. I came back the next day, after I cooled off, and he was under his sporty little car, making some minor repairs. I made one, too.”

  “You kicked the jack out.”

  I shrugged again. “He called me a ‘bunghole.’ What would you do?”

  “You were arrested.”

  “But not tried, except in the papers.”

  “The unwritten law.”

  “There are two times society puts up with murder.”

  “War is one,” he said, nodding.

  “Finding somebody fucking your wife is the other.”

  He gestured with cigarette in hand. “Nonetheless, you were looked down upon in certain quarters.”

  “I had trouble finding work. I was a Vietnam vet, remember? We were all assumed to be unreliable dope addicts. And I was a ‘disturbed Viet vet’ before it was fashionable. Before it was a cliche even.”

  I killed a guy, after all. Nobody minded the numerous yellow people I killed for no good reason. The one white asshole I killed for a good reason got people bent out of shape.

  “Shortly after that,” he said, carefully, quietly, the gray eyes studying me but pretending not to, through a haze of cigarette smoke, “you met the Broker.”

  “Did I?”

  “I don’t know the circumstances, but you began taking contracts. Working as part of a team.”

  Did I mention I had brought the axe up on the porch with me? Well, I had. It was leaned up against the front of the house, near the door. Not far away at all.

  “Are you sure,” I said, with a gentle smile, “that you want to keep this line of conversation going?”

  “I just want you to know that I’m familiar with your background.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have a contract for you.”

  “I’m not in that line of work anymore.”

  “Mr. Quarry, you are an assassin. It’s not something you can leave behind.”

  I nodded. “Well, I’m willing to kill again, under certain circumstances.”

  “Such as?”

  “Assholes coming around fucking in my life.”

  He smiled again, another tight nervous twitch, and he said, “I’m not here to make trouble in your life. I’m here to improve your life.”

  “Say it. Whatever it is you’ve got to say, say it.”

  “Mr. Quarry, this isn’t something one can…”

  “Say it. I sat through ‘This Is Your Life’ patiently enough, but now the show’s over. Cut to the commercial.”

  He cleared his throat, as if about to make a speech. Maybe he was. “You are said to have been the best at what you do. But you dropped out.”

  “I dropped out. My partner bought it, the Broker bought it, and I dropped out. Say what you came to say.”

  He let the cigarette fall to the deck and ground it out with his heel.

  Then he said: “One million dollars.”

  There’s only one thing you can say when somebody says that, and I said it: “What?”

  “One million dollars,” he repeated.

  “In regard to what?” I asked, dumbfounded and a little annoyed.

  “One contract.”

  “A million-dollar contract.”

  He nodded, his smile confident now, not nervous at all. “One hundred thousand down. In cash. Unmarked twenties. It can be delivered to you in twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m… retired.”

  “I noticed you hesitate before saying so.”

  “Anybody would hesitate, offered a million bucks.”

  “You could go anywhere in the world. You and your wife. Nothing could touch you.”

  “Don’t mention my wife again.”

  “No offense meant.”

  “Don’t mention her. Don’t speak of her. Or I’ll cut your fucking heart out.”

  He swallowed and nodded. He’d noticed the axe.

  “I just wanted to emphasize what a rosy future you could paint for yourself with that kind of money.”

  “I don’t believe in the future, and I don’t give a fuck about the past. And my present is rosy as fucking hell. So why don’t you just go away.”

  “Mr. Quarry, it’s a million dollars.”

  “I know it is. But… I’m retired. What do I need with it?”

  “One job. One simple job.”

  “I doubt it would be simple.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  I stood. I walked to the edge of the deck and looked out at the lake. The sun was still under a cloud and a light breeze was blowing in. The water looked gray. I was going to have a son, or a daughter, before long. With my past, maybe it would be a good thing to get out of this country. With a million bucks you could live like a king in Mexico or South America. Maybe on a beach, the ocean your front yard. A protected life. A safe life for me and mine. In a year, I would be forty years old.

  I turned and looked at him. “What’s the contract?”

  “Have you heard of Preston Freed?”

  “I’ve heard the name… he’s some sort of right-wing loon, isn’t he?”

  His face cracked with the first of his many smiles to reveal teeth; too white and too perfect to be real.

  He rose and walked over to me. “That’s exactly what he is,” he said, folding his arms, seeming at ease with me for the first time. I’d have to do something about that. “He is the founder and leader of the Democratic Action party.”

  I made a sound in my throat that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Just another one of these homegrown would-be Hitlers.”

  He shook his head no. “He’s not a Nazi. His politics are a grab-bag mixture of extreme right and extreme left, but he’s relatively young and genuinely charismatic, a Kennedy of the lunatic fringe if you will… and he’s gathering real momentum for his movement. Do you follow the political scene in the papers?”

  “I catch it on TV. But, look…”

  He raised a hand in a gentle stop motion. “Freed has several key issues that have rallied conservatives around him-he’s strongly anti-abortion and pro-school prayer, for instance. That’s all some people need to hear.”

  “I suppose, but…”

  “You don’t have to know much about politics to understand that the coming presidential election will be a volatile one. We have a once popular, now somewhat tarnished president ending his two terms in office. Supposedly a conservative, this man has raised the national debt to a record high.”

  “Politics don’t interest me.”

  “Even so, we are coming into a fascinating election year. The two parties-depending upon whom they choose as their standard bearers of course-should be in for a real battle. Think of it: the highest office in the land up for grabs… we could have a true conservative in the White House, or our most liberal president in years…”

  “What does this have to do with anything? If this contract is political, you can really forget it.”

  His gray eyes pleaded with me, his brow knitting a goddamn sock. “Mr. Quarry, Preston Freed is a presidential ‘spoiler’ in the truest sense. The way his movement, his ‘party,’ is gathering steam, he will throw the entire election off kilter.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. I don’t know much about it, and I don’t want to, either.”

  “At this point, it is hard to say whether the Democrats or the Republicans would suffer the most, but…”

  “I think you should leave. This is a civics lesson that I just don’t want to hear.”

  “I represent a certain group of private citizens, responsible, powerful, patriotic citizens, wh
o want Preston Freed stopped. Who want the natural order of our political system restored, and this madman-this potential American Hitler, as you aptly described him-destroyed like the rabid animal he is.”

  “That’s very colorful, but I don’t do politicals. I don’t do any contracts anymore, as I tried to make clear… and I shouldn’t have let you get into this at all.”

  “Mr. Quarry…”

  “I don’t do windows, and I don’t do politicals.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can offer me two million and I’d turn you down.”

  He was astounded; shaking his head. “Why, do you think it would be difficult to get near the candidate? True, Freed is somewhat reclusive, but with the first primary in January, there’ll be plenty of opportunities, starting with a major press conference next month, which…”

  “Stop. It’s not hard to kill a politician. It’s the easiest thing there is. You got a public figure, an egomaniac who thinks he’s immortal, going out kissing babies and shaking hands and it’s the easiest hit in the world.”

  “Then what is your objection?”

  “I wouldn’t live to spend the money.”

  “Are you implying that…”

  “That you would have me killed? Why, I don’t know what got into me. You and your concerned patriotic citizens wouldn’t think of being party to murder, now would you?”

  “Mr. Quarry, we are men of honor.”

  “Sure. I’d be an instant loose end, pal. You don’t get away with shooting presidents or even would-be presidents. Oh, the guys who hire you can get away with it. In fact they always do. That’s ’cause the poor bastard who squeezed the trigger is either dead, or locked in a cell and written off as a madman.”

  “I assure you…”

  “I’m retired. I don’t want to get back in the business, not even once, not even for your big bucks. This is a real good place to call a halt to this conversation… I still don’t know your name, and that’s how I like it.”

  “You won’t reconsider?”

  “No. And I don’t want to see you again. You know far too much about me. I ought to kill you on general principles.”

  He sucked breath in, hard; till now, talk of death had seemed abstract to him, I’m sure. “But… but you won’t.”

  “Not unless I see you again.”

  He nodded, sighed, extended his hand for me to shake. I ignored it.

  Withdrawing the hand, he smiled gently and said, “No hard feelings, Mr. Quarry. It’s too bad. I think you’d have been the right man for the job.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  His smile disappeared and, shortly, so did he, in a cloud of gravel dust; the BMW’s back license plate was covered with mud as well.

  I went inside and started a fire.

  I sat before the glow of it, by the metal conical fireplace in one corner of the A-frame’s living room, and waited for Linda, wondering if I should’ve killed the son-of-a-bitch.

  3

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a mistake. A week crawled by, my every moment filled with a sense I’d fucked up. No way I should’ve let that guy walk away from my place. He knew too much about me: where I lived, who I was, who I used to be. I should’ve followed the old instinct and iced him on the spot and dumped him in a gravel pit.

  But my caller in the London Fog raincoat didn’t exist in a vacuum, and he wouldn’t die in one, either: he was clearly just a messenger, a fancy one maybe, but a messenger. Which meant somebody else-your classic person or persons unknown-had sent him; knew as much, or more about me, as he did.

  So killing him would still have left somebody out there knowing more about me than was healthy.

  There were options. I could’ve dropped everything and followed the messenger home, and done what needed doing, to all concerned.

  But I didn’t.

  I could pack up and disappear. Walk out of Linda’s life and leave her and the child inside her and the Welcome Inn and the comfortable life I’d somehow managed to contrive for myself forever behind me. Go and start over somewhere. I had money stashed under several names, including my real one back in Ohio; I had buffers built in to allow this sort of contingency.

  Or I might risk taking Linda with me. She loved me. She was as loyal as Tonto, or anyway Pocahontas. And, with the exception of her brother, she had no ties, family or otherwise, to prevent her from disappearing with me, the two of us starting up and over somewhere, under new names.

  She would probably go along with that. It wouldn’t even be necessary to tell her the truth about my past; she would, most likely, accept it when I told her that something in my past required it. Something “bad” that she didn’t need to know.

  So why hadn’t I sprung it on her?

  Because, goddamnit, I liked my life. I liked it just fine the way it was. I was fat and comfortable and, fuck! I didn’t want to start over. Why should I start over if I didn’t want to?

  I had turned these people down. They knew I wasn’t interested, and if I wasn’t interested, what was I to them? Certainly no threat-what could I say to anybody about what they were up to? Nothing, without risking seriously screwing up my own life.

  They would simply go elsewhere for their hired help. I was retired, they asked me to come out of retirement, I declined, their messenger in the London Fog tipped his figurative hat and went. No hard feelings, he’d said.

  So why shouldn’t I go on about my business, go on with my life?

  And, so, I had, but I still couldn’t shake the thought, the feeling, I’d made the wrong decision. The visit, from the man’s smooth but nervous manner to his muddy license plate, lingered like a bad dream, leaving a mental aftertaste and not a pleasant one.

  The days themselves had been ordinary enough-I divided my time at the Inn between the garage, where for the hell of it I helped work on cars from time to time, and making sure the restaurant and hotel operation was operating smoothly. That was slightly weird, because half the time I’d been in greasy coveralls, the other neatly attired in suit and tie, an executive with a wrench in his back pocket.

  I’d spent some time with Linda, quiet evenings, watching the tube, curled by the fire. We were both readers-I stuck with my westerns, while she read these dismal sappy romance novels, sitting there lost in them, smiling dreamily. The girl saw the world through rose-colored glasses- prescription rose-colored glasses, at that.

  Another week passed, and the unsettling feeling that I’d fucked up began to fade. It didn’t disappear; but it did fade. Nonetheless, I took precautions. I owned three nine-millimeter automatics, and was carrying one, a Browning, with me everywhere I went now, instead of just in the glove compartment of our sporty blue Mazda, and the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed.

  Early on, Linda had wondered about why I owned so many guns, particularly handguns, keeping them stashed about.

  “I’m just a little paranoid,” I said. “Both my parents were killed by an armed robber.”

  Her eyes had gone wide and round; that, added to their light blue color, made her look impossibly innocent. “Jack… I knew your parents were… gone… but I never…”

  “They ran a little neighborhood market,” I said. “You know, mom-and-pop kind of deal. And they were both killed.”

  “Oh, Jack,” she’d said, eyes full of tears, holding me tenderly.

  It was all lies of course, but it led to some immediate great sex and some long-term understanding. She never asked me about the guns again, until just recently, when I started carrying the nine-millimeter around with me.

  “Why are you wearing that?” she asked, concerned, as I was slipping my sportcoat over the shoulder holster, on my way up to the Inn.

  “There’ve been a few robberies in the area,” I said. “It’s been in the papers.”

  And there had been, but so what? That was almost always true.

  “I understand,” she said, nodding sagely, and came over and hugged me, gun and all.

&nb
sp; The girl’s new insight into me apparently came from her adding the truth that I’d been in combat to the lie about my sainted mom and pop being shot down in their grocery store. I was just a poor, sensitive, traumatized soul, wasn’t I?

  I wasn’t packing the gun when we drove down to Chicago for the day, however, though one of the three automatics was in the glove compartment. We were picking up her brother Chris at O’Hare early that evening-he was coming in from Atlanta, Georgia-and Linda suggested we go in early, spend a day in the city Christmas shopping. Even mid-week, the city was jammed with traffic, sidewalks packed with people, and was a good reminder of why I lived on a quiet lake.

  She shopped at Water Tower Place, six floors of trendy expensive nonsense, equal parts marble, glass, plants and people; it was the sort of shopping center where women in mink coats rode escalators. I quickly found my way to the theater complex and parked my butt in a fairly comfortable seat and watched Clint Eastwood pretend to be a marine for a couple of hours. I met Linda for lunch at a cafe next to the theater-where two people could have pie and coffee and get just enough change back from a twenty to leave a tip-and she was bubbling over about the things she’d bought, including several hundred bucks worth (using the word “worth” loosely) of metal signs, replicas of vintage advertisements for Coca Cola, Crackerjacks, Heinz pickles and so on, for decoration in the Welcome Inn’s rustic dining room. She’d also bought some presents for me, which she was dying to tell me about but managed to contain herself. She was a sweet kid. I didn’t deserve her, but then who does deserve what they get in this life, good or bad?

  We walked to Gino’s East a few blocks over and shared a medium pepperoni pizza, the best deep dish pizza (so they said) in a town famous for deep dish pizzas. The walls were carved up with graffiti (it was encouraged-it gave the place atmosphere, and having your customers provide the decoration made more sense than buying little tin advertising signs yourself) and she coaxed me into carving our names there. Too many romance novels. What the hell, I did it, using the serrated part of a table knife, a heart with Jack and Linda in it, squeezed between THE BOSS FOREVER and BON JOVI SUCKS.

  I never met her brother before, and when he showed up-his flight an hour late, his only bag a tan leather carry-on-I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He was very blond, very tan, and prettier than Linda. He wore a loose-fitting pastel blue shirt and off-white, baggy, pleated linen pants; he also wore huaraches and no socks.