The last quarry q-6

by Max Allan Collins

  I lowered her to the floor, and I drew open the robe and she was almost afraid, looking up at me, and her throat was red, her face white, her breasts full and staring at me.

  Then my pants were around my ankles and I was fucking her. Her knees were up and she was saying, “Oh, oh, oh,” really liking it; but halfway through I slowed it down and kissed her neck and breasts and ears and shoulders and face, and she was crying, and maybe I was crying, what the fuck are you going to do about it?

  The finish was slow and gentle and, again, I don’t remember going there, but we were in bed, Janet sleeping contentedly next to me, snuggling to me. Killing her in her sleep would have been so easy. Not the accident Green had requested, but painless and she would never know a thing.

  But I wasn’t about to kill her.

  She was coming alive, this woman, she’d been sleepwalking through a coma of a life, and now she was alive, and killing her would have been a goddamn crime. I had a new agenda I was working on, but a wonderful tiredness had me suddenly, and then I was asleep, too.

  The next thing I felt was a hand gently caressing my neck, and then I heard Janet, saying, “Hey, Samson-wake up a second.”

  My eyes somehow opened, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, in a white blouse and dark skirt, smelling great, but ready for work, not for me.

  I sat bolt upright, startling her a little, though she laughed.

  “Hey! Hey, relax…I’m leaving for the library. Thought I’d better see if you have anywhere to be.”

  I tasted my mouth; it wasn’t worth the effort. “No. No appointments…Can I just crash here?”

  “Sure.” She stood, smoothed herself, looking professional and adult, whereas I felt like a kid sleeping in instead of going to school. “I’ll leave the extra key on the kitchen table, if you wanna go in or out.”

  “When’ll you be home?”

  “I get off at five, today. Don’t you fix supper-I will!”

  “Listen-Janet…”

  She was poised at the door to the kitchen, and turned to me, eyebrows arched. “Yes?”

  “Tonight…We have to talk.”

  Her mouth twitched with amusement. “Isn’t that usually the woman’s line?…Or maybe you just want to explain why a guy selling veterinary medicine carries a gun.”

  That sucker-punched me, and I glanced over at the chair where my corduroy jacket was draped and saw the nine mil’s butt sticking up out of the pocket.

  When I turned back to Janet, she’d gone.

  I ran after her, bare-ass, but she was already out the kitchen door and on her way across the alley to the lot were she parked her Geo.

  Over the next hour or so, I showered and made myself a little breakfast, and tried to get my thoughts together. How much did she know about me? When had she noticed the nine millimeter-just now? She sure didn’t seem worked up about it…

  All the days of surveillance, and being on top of her in more ways than one, I still had no idea why anyone on the planet, much less a mogul like Jonah fucking Green, would want this sexy little librarian wasted. The only thing she was guilty of was shitty taste in men.

  By late morning, I was pacing in her living room, the nine stuffed in my waistband. I’d come to a decision-I would tell Janet some kind of story that stopped well short of the truth, but would be enough to motivate her; and I would grab her and haul her ass out of here, to safety somewhere.

  And I would deal with Jonah Green, and everything that meant. Killing the guy who hired you is a non-starter in my business, but then I was ready to retire again, anyway, so what the fuck.

  But why wait?

  The sooner I got Janet out of Homewood, the better. I would go yank her out of that library, run her back here to pick up a few things, and we’d be on the road. That was the plan. That was the new plan…

  And I was just about to go out the door and head down to the street, where my rental was parked, when somebody on the other side of that door began to work a key in it.

  I took a step back, and the door swung rudely open, and standing framed there, key in hand, was a young woman who was not Janet, but an attractive enough example of the female sex, even though her ragged jeans and a jean jacket and a black hip-hop t-shirt didn’t do much for me.

  I knew this woman, this girl. And so do you-she was, after all, the kidnap victim who started it all.

  Jonah Green’s daughter-Julie.

  Eleven

  I grabbed the little bitch by the arm extending the key and yanked her into the living room and hurled her across the room. Her jean jacket came off in my hand, and I discarded it like a used tissue as she did a half spin and landed rudely on the couch, opposite, breasts bobbling under the black t-shirt. A little suitcase was out in the hall, and I grabbed it and tossed it inside the apartment, and slammed the door and turned to glare at her.

  But she didn’t scare easy, scrambling back off the cushions to get right in my face, holding the keys in her upraised fist like a blade. Eyes and nostrils flaring, white little feral teeth bared, she all but screamed: “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  The petite dark-haired beauty had a little ring in her nose now; she was packing enough piercings to set off an airport metal detector.

  As would my nine millimeter automatic, the snout of which I stuck under her defiant chin as I slapped the keys rattlingly from her fist.

  “You first,” I said.

  That took some of the fearlessness out of her. Her eyelids were quivering and she swallowed, or tried to. “Get…get that fucking thing out of my throat, you prick.”

  I did, shoving her back onto the couch with my free hand. Looming over her, keeping the nine trained on her, I paced a little area near where she sat, her arms folded tight as she looked up at me, face blank but for a crinkly chin.

  “Explain yourself,” I said.

  “Fuck you!..I’m visiting my sister.”

  I frowned down at her. “Where?”

  “Here!” Her eyes widened and tightened. “Where the hell else? She lives here!”

  My eyes narrowed and tightened. “In this apartment…?”

  “No, in a dumpster out back.” She unfolded her arms, leaning forward on the heels of her hands. “What the hell are you doing here, Quarry?”

  I was still pointing the gun at her, but suddenly I felt way off my game. “What’s your sister’s name?”

  “You’re in her apartment and you don’t know? Janet Fucking Wright!”

  I squinted at her, hoping that would help; it didn’t. I could see neither a resemblance in her face, nor any sense in this situation.

  “Your name is Green,” I said.

  “Aren’t you the observant son of a bitch?” She sighed impatiently. “Jan doesn’t use Daddy’s name-she fucking hates Daddy, which is the one thing we have in common…Wright’s our mom’s maiden name. Late mom…”

  Suddenly her face whitened, as if she’d finally noticed an asshole was pointing a gun at her.

  “Oh shit,” she said, pointing a gun-like finger back at me, for nobody’s benefit in particular. “Oh hell. Oh no…”

  “What?”

  She was shaking her head, almost frantically. “You’re not ‘him,’ are you? You couldn’t be him…” She rolled her eyes and laughed harshly. “Oh fuck me…Jack? You’re Jack? Jack Ryan…?”

  I lowered the nine a hair. “She told you about me?”

  Still shaking her head, she said, “Oh Christ- you’re her white knight? Kill me. Kill me now.”

  “It’s an option,” I said.

  Not knowing how much trouble she was potentially in, Julie sneered up at me. “I answered your question, now you owe me a fucking answer-what the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

  She had a point.

  I put the gun in my waistband. I could see no reason not to level with her. More or less.

  I sat next to her and said, “Your father hired me.”

  She gave me a frowning sideways look, not so much disapproving as curio
us. “What’d he hire you for? Oh fuck…tell me it wasn’t to rough up that abusive boyfriend of hers! That prick Rick?”

  I shook my head. “That was my bright idea.”

  She grunted a non-laugh. “Not that Daddy would do anything that thoughtful.” Confusion colored her features. “Then why — ”

  “Your father hired me to watch your sister. He didn’t say why.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Just watch her-like a P.I. or something?”

  “Or something.”

  A little half-hearted laugh made the cupcake breasts bounce; you could see the nipple rings outlined against the black t-shirt. “Well, I can’t say it surprises me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you know?” She leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Sis is about to come into a good share of the family fortune.”

  I said nothing.

  My expression must have been talkative, though, because a faintly amused Julie Green said, “Huh…You look shocked, Quarry…I didn’t know you were the fuck shockable.”

  Normally I wasn’t.

  “I liked you better with the beard, by the way,” she said. She got up and collected her jeans jacket and laid it over a chair, and picked up her little suitcase and put it next to the same chair.

  “It was your sister’s idea,” I said. “She shaved me.”

  She glanced at me, smirky but not unfriendly. “I bet she did…You okay?”

  “Peachy.”

  Over the years, in my business, I’d run into lots of things, many of them disgusting or creepy or downright evil. A father hiring a hitman to take out his own daughter had just rocketed to the top of my personal chart.

  With a bullet.

  Twelve

  Julie Green and I sat in her sister’s tiny kitchen where the girl had a turkey sandwich and chips and a Diet Coke; I just had a Diet Coke, my appetite dulled somehow. She filled me in, chapter and verse, on the Green family fortune and how it impacted Daddy and his daughters.

  Seemed Green’s media empire had started when he married money-that money belonging to the late mother of Janet and Julie.

  “It’s a trust fund deal,” Julie was saying, nibbling at the white bread and white turkey meat. She could wear hip-hop clothes all she wanted-this kid was Caucasian. “Jan’s gonna be thirty next month, and she’ll get a pile.”

  “What about you?”

  She grinned as she chewed. “Oh, I will, too, when I’m her age…I still got a few years of youthful abandon left.”

  I was squinting again, but this time things were coming into focus. “And if something bad happened to Janet-before the trust fund money came available to her-your father inherits…?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Who else?”

  One aspect remained fuzzy, however, so I asked, “But why would that matter to a mogul like Jonah Green? He’s loaded…”

  She snorted a laugh, and the nose ring jiggled. “He was, before his second wife’s settlement…and before he invested in fucking Enron. He’s riding on fumes, my clean-shaven friend. Hope you enjoyed your hundred K for rescuing me, ’cause the bastard made me give him an I.O.U. for it!”

  I leaned back in the hard kitchen chair. Sipped my Coke and mulled this new information.

  Julie sat forward. “Okay, what wheels are turning in that fucked-up skull of yours?…Quarry, are you trying figure out a way to make a buck again? Squeeze Daddy over Janet?”

  I flicked her a little frown.

  Her eyes went big and her smile was big, too. “Don’t tell me…don’t tell me you really fell for my dowdy ol’ big sis…? The degenerate hardass and the maiden librarian…Didn’t I see that on Lifetime?”

  “I’m going to help her,” I said.

  She didn’t seem to be sure whether to be amused by that or not, and just asked, “Help her where Daddy’s concerned? How the fuck?”

  “Will you help me do it?”

  She smirked. “Sure. Do what? ”

  “ Will…you…help? ”

  She shrugged magnanimously. “Sure-why the fuck not? My sister is the only relative on the planet that I give two shits about, and anything that gives Daddy a bad day is my idea of a good time.”

  “Swell.” I rose. “I’m going to call her at the library.”

  “Okay.” She watched me go to the kitchen’s wall phone. “You want privacy?”

  “No.”

  The library was on a short list of numbers posted by the phone (Rick’s had a line through it; mine at the motel was added on) and I dialed.

  “Homewood Public Library,” Janet’s voice said pleasantly. “Help Desk, this is Ms. Wright, how may I help you?”

  “Like you did last night,” I said, “is just fine.”

  Her voice warmed up. “Hi, Jack.”

  “Listen,” I said lightly. “Your sister dropped by the apartment, and we’re getting along famously.”

  “Oh! Completely forgot about Jules! I should’ve mentioned her, Jack, sorry…but she didn’t say when exactly she was coming. She’s kind of a…you know, free spirit.”

  I glanced over at Julie. She was standing next to the kitchen table, now, slipping out of the t-shirt. She tossed it on the table and stood there grinning at me, fists Superman-style on her hips, the nice little pierced-nippled breasts bare and perky and proud.

  My dick twitched.

  “Free spirit, huh?” I said to the girl’s sister. “I noticed…How about after work the three of us meet for a drink, grab a bite together?”

  “Great! I’ll go straight to Sneaky Pete’s, unless you’re sick of it.”

  “No, that’s fine. See you there.”

  We exchanged ’byes, I hung up, and the little topless punkette was right there, right on me, wrapping her arms around me, pushing me to the wall, cornering me like she had at Harry and Louis’s cabin.

  “I’m not on the rag now,” she said with a wicked smile and a single arched eyebrow. “You finally ready for that reward?”

  I put my hands on her hips, held her away from me at arm’s length, and took a long, leering look at her and she grinned, pleased with herself.

  Then I pushed her away. “Get your shirt on before your nipple rings rust.”

  She backed off and appraised me, frowning; now I finally could see the resemblance between the sisters-the tips of Julie’s breasts were long, too.

  “Turning me down again, Quarry?”

  “I seem to be.”

  I wasn’t sure if that had been a test or if she was just a little cockhound.

  Maybe the former, because after she slipped the black t-shirt on, she winked at me and said, “Okay. Okay. Maybe you really do like my big sis.”

  Thirteen

  Monday night at Sneaky Pete’s was slow, the singles crowd modest and the laughter and conversation lessened, which only made the country western schlock on the jukebox all the more noticeable. I did my best to control the situation by plowing quarters in and selecting the Patsy Cline, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson numbers, trying to hold the crap at bay.

  I had thought Janet chose the bar because it had somehow become “our” place; but I soon realized she’d made the choice to accommodate her sister, who drank more than she ate. Our burgers hadn’t even arrived yet, and Julie was already on her second Scotch rocks.

  Janet was on my side of the booth, looking fondly at her sister and me and back again, working a little too hard to get a family vibe going.

  “So,” she asked, “you two already know each other? How is that possible?”

  Julie shrugged, glugged Scotch, and said, “He got me out of a jam, a while back.”

  Janet cocked her head, eyes flicking from her sister to me to her sister. “What kind of jam, Jules?”

  Julie shrugged again. “Some assholes kidnapped me.”

  At that Janet laughed. Then, studying the dark-haired, nose-pierced girl, asked, “You’re…not kidding, are you?”

  Julie shook her head. “No. Some assholes grabbed me to squeeze ransom money out of Daddy. Our
, uh, mutual friend Jack, here, got me away from the bad guys. You, uh…probably don’t want to hear the details. Wasn’t strictly legal. Jack, she doesn’t want to hear the details, does she?”

  “No,” I said.

  Janet looked from Julie to me. Her expression tried for trusting and came off wary. “Jack…you don’t…you don’t work for my father, do you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  The wary expression turned withering, and her nostrils flared, and her teeth were bared when she said, “Let me out,” and tried to rise and push by me.

  But she was sitting on the inside of the booth and I wouldn’t let her, gripping her wrist, making her eyes meet mine.

  “Hear me out,” I said.

  “Why should I?”

  “So you’ll know what’s going on, and can make an informed decision.”

  Her upper lip curled back. “Don’t patronize me!”

  Across the way Julie was chewing ice from her drink, faintly disgusted. “Oh, brother, Sis…”

  “Hear me out,” I said, “and I’ll let you out.”

  Still half up, Janet drew in a deep breath, exhaled melodramatically, and settled back in the booth, getting as far away from me as she could, short of knocking a hole through the wall.

  Janet folded her arms and looked straight ahead. “My father is a monster. Anybody who does his bidding-”

  Julie laughed and said, “Does his bidding! Jesus, library lady, cut the guy a break.”

  The older sister-without looking at me-said, “All right. I’ll give you one minute, Jack, and then you either let me out of this booth or I start screaming.”

  Julie craned her neck out of the booth. “Can I get another Scotch rocks, please? Thank you…”

  I said to Janet, “Your father hired me to keep an eye on you.”

  She couldn’t help herself; she had to look at me. “Why, in heaven’s name?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Is that why…you…with Rick…?”

  I was halfway turned in the booth, to face her, and I did my best to keep my words simple, my tone earnest. “I was just supposed to keep track of you. But when that asshole got physical, I-”