The First Quarry (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback))

by Max Allan Collins

  I was supposed to be in control. Last night, or early this morning I guess would be more accurate, I had considered wild scenarios that had me behaving like a lunatic in carrying out a job that required cautious planning and detached professionalism. What the fuck was wrong with me?

  The bubbling water and the kiddie shrieks played like dissonant modern music as I sat there with my arms winged on the concrete lip of the whirlpool, smiling at the redheaded mom, whose posture mirrored mine.

  “Have a nice Christmas?” she asked.

  “You bet.”

  “Get everything you wanted?”

  She couldn’t see my erection, could she? I had boxer-type trunks on that billowed with the water, so I should be safe, though when the bubbles turned off, I could be sitting here with a tent in my lap.

  I said, “I guess no kid gets everything he wants.”

  “Oh, so you’re a kid, huh?”

  “Overgrown.”

  “Like all men,” she said, and she grinned, nice white teeth, kind of big, a very real smile that wasn’t at all practiced.

  “Which of these kids are yours?”

  “What? None of them.”

  “Oh.” Actually, more like: “Oh!” Not out of surprise (though everything I’d assumed about her had just gone poof), but the need to talk above the frothing hot tub and the screaming brats. Pretty much everything we were saying rated an exclamation point, only you’ll have to fill that in yourself.

  She said, “So aren’t you going to ask me what a nice girl like me is doing in a place like this?”

  “I didn’t want to pry.”

  She slid around and sat next to me. Not right next to me, but a more intimate arrangement for sure, though still requiring shouted conversation.

  “My name’s Dorrie,” she said, and she offered a hand with red-painted nails.

  I froze for a second, wondering if I was supposed to kiss it; not being a fucking Frenchman, I just shook it. I was really nervous, because my erection had grown a heartbeat of its own by now and here she was right next to me, her considerable cleavage on display above the orange wet cloth at which her nipples were poking not helping any, either.

  “Jack,” I said, with a nod. “I’m here on business.”

  She arched an eyebrow, a dark, plucked thing that already had an arch. “Funny time of year to do business.”

  “I won’t dig in till next week,” I said. I didn’t feel like going into my lingerie salesman routine.

  “What do you sell?”

  Shit.

  “Things you’d look good in,” I said.

  “Such as?”

  “Lingerie.”

  “Really? You don’t mean that Frederick’s of Hollywood type jazz?”

  “Not that obvious. But sexy enough to get your husband’s attention.”

  She looked toward the pool and the kids who weren’t hers. “What makes you think I have a husband?”

  “The diamond ring.”

  She turned to me sharply and her laugh was sharp, too. “I guess that is a dead giveaway....You’ll be around all this coming week, then?”

  “Some of it.”

  “Maybe we’ll run into each other. I’m sometimes in the bar in the evenings.”

  “You’ll be here a while, too?”

  “Maybe. It’s kind of...open-ended. Trying to work something out.”

  That was when I noticed that though her eyes were smiling, they had a sadness. No, that wasn’t it: weariness. I’d seen that look before, just not on a good-looking woman. Guys who’d been in the jungle on one too many a tour, they got that kind of weariness in their eyes.

  For a moment there, I thought maybe she’d slip her hand under the water and inside my trunks and help me out. Instead I had to wait for her to go and then do my best to get up and out of the whirlpool with my back to the other guests and those impressionable kiddies and wrap a towel around my waist and disguise my condition until I could get back to my motel room and do something about it.

  About time I got a grip on myself.

  Pretty soon I was climbing back into my long underwear (a real turn-on for dolls like Dorrie you picked up at a bar) and wondered how stupid it would be to indulge with this sad-eyed curvy older woman. I was on a job. Relieving tension was a good thing, when you had a job to do. But what if she somehow figured out who I was, or why I was here?

  That was stupid. Nothing wrong with picking up some chick (was a thirty-five-year-old woman still a chick, I wondered?) and getting your rocks off. Might help me not go around getting raging erections in public, which is the kind of attention grabber a guy trying to stay invisible generally tries to avoid.

  As I reflected on the little whirlpool mini-encounter, I realized the redhead probably hadn’t been hitting on me or anything, just indulging in some gentle flirting, maybe checking to make sure she still had what it takes to get a younger guy’s attention.

  And how had I reacted? I’d gone off on another wild-ass mental scenario, this time involving some housewife from Who-the-Fuck-Cares Junction, probably because the professor was getting some and I wasn’t.

  Shit, I should cut the old boy some slack. Why shouldn’t he enjoy himself a little in his last days? I was young. I had plenty of time ahead of me to get my ashes hauled. Give the dead guy a break.

  Before long I was back at my window in the split-level, in my corduroy jacket over my clothes and long johns under them, with the space heater making its electrical whine. I had another thermos of hot chocolate, and a six-pack of canned Cokes and a gourmet selection of beef jerky and Slim Jims and a package of those yellow Hostess Cupcakes with the orange frosting that they don’t sell year-round.

  The overcast day threw soft blue shadows on the wintry landscape. The cottage looked homey and quaint; the Corvette parked out front, already white, took on a lumpy, surrealistic look with the layering of snow. After two and a half hours, I was starting to wonder if Annette had moved in with the prof for the rest of winter break, which would make my job much harder. I would have to wait for her to leave on some errand of shopping or a doctor’s appointment or whatever-the-fuck, and run across the street and get the job done with no notion of when she might be back.

  Also, the lack of activity over there was numbing. I began to think I was looking at a photograph, and would squint until I could see some movement from the light wind, branches rustling, snow blowing, anything to convince me otherwise. The radio station I was listening to was on its second pass through its play list—“Spill the Wine” had come around again and, if memory served, would be followed by “War,” which apparently was worth absolutely nothing, as if I needed a fucking song to tell me.

  That was when the dark green Pontiac GTO rolled up in front of my split-level and I ducked down, even though from where I was sitting I probably couldn’t be seen, anyway. Like a kid peeking over a fence, checking if the coast was clear before sneaking into a ball game, I edged my eyes up to where I could see who the hell my visitor was.

  Nobody was getting out of the GTO, which was a nice set of wheels, by the way. I could make out a figure with brown hair (Beatles ‘64 length), mutton chops and a trim mustache behind the wheel, just sitting there with the motor going and the windows up. No snow was on the car, either, so he’d either cleaned it off or had just arrived from enough of a drive to completely melt it off.

  He was in a tan cowhide jacket with fleece lining. Had sunglasses on, even though the sun was M.I.A. He began pounding on the steering wheel with the heel of a hand. And “War” was indeed playing on my radio and this guy was keeping time to it, which kind of freaked me out.

  Then I figured it was either a coincidence or he was listening to the same station. Nonetheless, I picked up the nine millimeter automatic from where it lay by my thermos of hot chocolate and I held onto it tight. I felt colder all of a sudden and leaned over and drew the space heater closer; it hummed but not in tune with “War.”

  When “War” ended, and “Get Ready” began, t
he guy was still sitting there. He wasn’t watching my split-level, that was for sure. His eyes hadn’t turned my way even once, not a casual quick check on his surroundings. He was glued to the cobblestone cottage.

  This guy was staking out the same fucking house as me! Not very damn subtly, I grant you, though his ass-hanging-out method did validate my own more careful approach. As I resumed my normal position at the window—normal except for the gun being in my hand and resting in my lap—I frowned at the mustached kid (and that’s what he was, a kid, even younger than me) who was suddenly smack dab in the middle of my surveillance.

  Okay, I thought, this is really getting fucked up.

  If this was what my new career was going to be like, I might want to consider signing on with Air America instead: there was always room for another mercenary in this shithole of a world.

  Here’s the thing: this little prick in sunglasses, with a cool ride that made my Opel GT back home look like a kiddy car, did not match up with any of the surveillance info the Broker had given me. I had a list of names and descriptions that included four guys who were staying in Iowa City over winter break, who the prof was the advisor of or some shit, and who might stop by his pad for an hour or two of legitimate college work, as opposed to coeds stopping by to polish his professorial knob. I had cars and license plates on this quartet (none of whom had shown as yet) and addresses and even goddamn phone numbers, like that would come in handy.

  “Hi. My name’s Quarry. I’m in town to blow your favorite professor’s brains out. Can you tell me whether you’re planning to stop by his place this afternoon, so I can pick a time when I wouldn’t have to spray your fucking brains against the wall, too? Thanks!”

  So who the hell was this little bastard?

  “Let It Be” was on the radio now, doing its endless thing; apparently the DJ had to take a dump. I watched the GTO. Here I was, supposedly keeping an eye on the cobblestone cottage, and now I had this green machine on my mind. Further, he was seated in front of my split-level, inadvertently calling attention to me, or anyway my post.

  The front door of the cottage opened.

  For a moment, I thought the brunette was finally leaving, and doing so coincidental to the GTO’s arrival; but I’d been right before, when I figured the sleek Pontiac on this quiet street would attract attention. She appeared on the porch, breath pluming, holding her arms to herself in the cold—she did not have the fur-collar coat on, just a black sweater and the same black-and-white geometric-pattern bell bottoms as yesterday.

  She trotted down the sidewalk, long legs pumping, and was heading across the street as the kid in the GTO got out, his breath pluming, too. He was of medium height and on the slight side.

  “Tom!” Her teeth were bared and her eyes large. She loomed, at least an inch taller than the kid. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Then it’s true?”

  She stood there, hugging her arms to her body, shivering. “Then what is true?”

  “You are shacked with that creep!”

  Even at this distance, from the meager crack of my window, I could hear her sharp, indignant draw of breath.

  “Professor Byron is my advisor! I told you I couldn’t see you over break. We are working on a very, very important project.”

  “I bet you are! I just bet you are!”

  This guy sure had some snappy responses.

  She was shaking her head, the brunette locks bouncing every which way. “I told you. I told you he was helping me with my book. It’s the most important thing in my life right now.”

  “More important than me?”

  “Yes! Right now, yes. I don’t have time to see you right now, and you know yourself things aren’t the same, anyway, not with the distance between us.”

  He was waving his arms a little, not in a threatening way. Just desperate. “We could see each other probably twice a month, if you wanted to. If you weren’t so intent on this stupid project of yours....”

  “That’s what you think of me, isn’t it?”

  “What...?”

  “I’m nothing to you but your ‘girl’—I’m not a serious writer doing serious work!”

  I wondered if a serious writer would use the word “serious” twice in the same sentence. But what did I know about it?

  Her arm went out straight from her side and she pointed toward the main drag that Country Vista bisected—the gesture of a parent ordering a child to its room.

  “Go, Tom! Go back to your frat brothers. Or go home to Mommy and Daddy, I don’t give a damn. Maybe you can work at the bank over break!”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Annette, please—come with me. Spend the afternoon with me.

  You’ll freeze out here. Your teeth are chattering. Come on, baby, give me a chance. Give us a chance.”

  I wish I could tell you the radio was playing “Give Peace a Chance,” but I can’t. Actually, “Let It Be” was still going, though I’d turned it down very low, to hear this little soap opera.

  She shook off his hands from her shoulders. “Go! Tommy—go! Right now. And don’t bother us.”

  “Us?”

  “We are working, K.J. and me.”

  “K.J.” The kid shook his head. “First name basis now, you and the prof.”

  Actually, initials aren’t really a first name, but I got his point.

  “Tommy...”

  “Listen, babe, I asked around about him. I talked to people.”

  “You don’t even go to Iowa. How would you know?”

  “I have friends. I know people. He was at Columbia two years ago, and—”

  She shoved him against his car. The sound was loud enough to really carry, a substantial whump.

  “Get the fuck out of my life,” she said, teeth bared again, and she turned and strode toward the cottage.

  Tom went right after her, and that was when, finally, the prof came out. He was in a beige sweater and tan chinos and sandals, but he charged right out into the winter weather and caught Tom by the arm and hauled him across the street and flung him against the car again. Byron, his dark yellow hair a straw-like tangle, had a wild-eyed look as he leaned in to Tom, whose back was to me, pushed up against the GTO.

  “You are leaving now,” Byron said, some oratory in the baritone. “Of your own volition. Otherwise, get back in your car and wait for the police to arrive, because that’s the call I’m making when I get back inside, if your vehicle is still here. Do I make myself clear?”

  Tom scrambled into the car and got behind the wheel and drove off in a cloud of exhaust fumes. Byron walked back and positioned himself, arms folded, about halfway up the walk and watched as his unwanted guest had to go through the humiliation of pulling into the no-name lane the split-levels were on, backing out, and turning around. Poor little bastard couldn’t even make a quick getaway.

  But I could.

  I headed to the back of the house where I could exit unseen and scrambled like hell to get my rental Ford out of the split-level-next-door’s garage. I was moving fast, damn near running, because if I didn’t shake it, Tom would be long gone.

  And I needed to follow Tom. He was a new player in this game and, unlike the blonde yesterday, might turn back up in the middle of things and at a very inconvenient time. If the Broker’s trusty surveillance expert wasn’t going to give me all the dope I needed, and I don’t mean hash, I had to do the job myself.

  By the time I came out of the lane and turned onto Country Vista, the professor was back in his cottage, but Tom was visible up ahead three blocks or so. I thought the kid might go tearing out of there, but instead he was crawling. We were almost to the main drag when he pulled over, and gave me a real start.

  I had to go on by him and glimpsed him, hunkered over the wheel, crying.

  Poor bastard.

  I waited for an opening, then cut across the main drag into the parking lot of a medical clinic and waited there for the green GTO to appear at the mouth of Country Vista. W
ithin minutes, it did, Tommy getting himself under control enough to drive, and I fell in behind him. His car had Illinois license plates; interesting. Also, a PEACE NOW bumper sticker, the O of NOW the familiar peace symbol; a second sticker said, REMEMBER KENT STATE.

  They didn’t make frat boys like they used to.

  Before long I had followed Tom into the Iowa City business district, a ghost town on this Sunday afternoon; parking places were usually at a premium, but neither Tom nor I had trouble finding one. This was Clinton Street and the buildings of the university sprawled to my right, as I sat in my rental, and a street of bookstores, boutiques and bars was at my left. I watched Tom angle across to the Airliner, a long-in-the-tooth brick-fronted establishment whose sign bragged about its 1944 origin. Customers were sitting in a big front window eating slices of pizza and drinking beer and looking across at the snowy campus as if something were going on.

  After five minutes, I cut across the barely existent traffic and entered the bar, which didn’t seem to have been remodeled since 1944, either. The pizza smell was inviting, though, and I would have taken a booth and burrowed in with a small pie if I hadn’t noticed Tom sitting at the bar in his fleece-lined jacket. Most of the stools were open, so plopping down next to him and getting friendly might have been read wrong.

  So I left a stool between us and ordered a beer and asked the bartender if I could eat at the bar and he said sure. I ordered a small pepperoni and, my beer not here yet, turned toward Tom and said, “I hope the pizza is as good as it smells.”

  Slouched over the bar, Tom gave me a “huh” look—he already had his beer, and most of it was gone—and then forced a smile and said, “It is good.”

  “You’re from here?”

  He shook his head. I was getting a better look at him now but he was just another of these semi-longhaired college kids with mustaches and fetus faces. “I go to Northwestern,” he said. “Evanston?”