The last quarry q-6

by Max Allan Collins

  “I need to finish packing,” he said, doing his best to sound casual, gesturing to the bag. “You got a problem with that?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all-but why don’t you pack after your shower?”

  “My what?”

  “When’s your plane, DeWayne?”

  Various vague gestures accompanied his reply: “Two hours from now, but I got to drive over to-”

  “You got plenty of time for a quick shower.”

  He stared at me like I was a raving madman, even though I was not raving. “What the fuck…?”

  Slowly but steadily, I removed the nine from my waistband and pointed it at him. “Take your clothes off, DeWayne.”

  His eyes and nostrils flared, the short blond hair damn near bristling. “The hell! ”

  I gestured a little with the gun, not vaguely. “Go on and strip…I’m locking you in the bathroom so you don’t follow me.”

  He shook his head, wild-eyed, blurting, “I’m not gonna fucking follow your ass!”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Because I’m locking your ass in the can, and taking your clothes. That’ll give me the lead I need, to get out of this podunk.”

  DeWayne sighed. Shook his head. Opened his palms placatingly. “ Please, buddy. Come on, will ya? What the hell’d I ever do to-”

  “Skivvies and all, DeWayne. All the way.”

  “…Christ.” His eyes popped with alarm. “Oh, Christ, you fell for her!”

  “ Now, DeWayne…”

  Frantic, pawing the air, he said, “Look, you can’t blame me for this. It was Mr. Green. Once a guy like Mr. Green decides you’re dead, you’re fucking dead! You know that! She was a dead man walkin’-I was just the means to an end, and if it wasn’t me, it coulda been any-”

  “Spare me the horseshit, DeWayne, and strip the fuck down.”

  DeWayne slumped in defeat.

  Moving in slow motion, he began unbuttoning the pale yellow shirt, then-and this was admirable, he didn’t telegraph it all-swept a curving martial-arts kick around that popped the nine millimeter right out of my grasp.

  The gun slid across the carpet and hid under a chest of drawers, as if wanting nothing to do with any of what was about to come.

  Shaking my head and smiling, I said, “This isn’t really necessary, DeWayne.”

  He went into a karate-school stance that I wish I could say looked hokey, but it didn’t-he was a muscular young ex-Marine who clearly knew his shit, and it hadn’t all come out of Black Belt magazine, either.

  “That’s my call, Pops!”

  It was my turn to sigh.

  “Go ahead, kid. Take your best shot.”

  And he did, kicking high and out, aiming at my head. If it had connected, I’d likely have been dead, my neck broken.

  So I ducked it.

  DeWayne reared back, confusion coloring his face, and paused for a moment.

  “Couldn’t we just skip this, son?”

  Teeth bared, he tried again, rushing me with a flurry of blows, bladed hands here, fists there, and I ducked and slipped and dodged.

  He followed me as I circled away, and when he high-kicked, I got out of the way, and his running-shod foot broke a mirror over the dresser, shards raining noisily. I circled back and he charged me and I stepped aside and he busted off the top half of a chair, making a stool out of it.

  Finally he began to lose his cool, which isn’t a part of any martial arts program I know of; but you couldn’t blame the poor bastard-I was frustrating the hell out of him, avoiding his every blow, never raising my hands. I didn’t even bother taunting him, ignoring anything he said to me (“Stand still, gramps!”) and, with the mini-suite half demolished, he went for broke with a flying kick that I stepped aside for, and he crashed to the floor with a whump.

  I just stood there, arms folded causually, not having broken a sweat, while he got to his feet, then bent over, exhausted, panting, pausing with his hands on his thighs.

  “ Je — sus,” he said, trying hard to catch his breath, still hunkered over, “ Je — sus…why don’t you…you… fuckin’…fuckin’ do something?”

  I slammed a fist into the side of his head, connecting with his ear and temple, and the big guy went down, in a pile.

  He wasn’t out, but he was out of it, and when he finally looked back up at me, pitifully-his face red and fully sweat-beaded, his ear bleeding from the side of his head where I’d hit him-the nine millimeter was back in my hand, its dark eye staring him down.

  “See, DeWayne? You do need a shower.”

  That made him slump some more, as if all the remaining energy just drained out of him, but he was still breathing hard. He sat there, kind of sideways, his legs sprawled, like a cripple whose faith-healing hadn’t taken.

  “Just,” he said, and heaved a couple breaths, and then tried again: “Just do it. Awright? Just…fucking… kill me.”

  I shook my head and my expression was fairly pleasant. “I’m not gonna kill you, kid. Strip.”

  Allowing himself the luxury of being reassured, DeWayne somehow got to his feet-it was kind of like watching one of those demolition-of-a-building film clips played backward, a structure reassembling itself-and once again, back to slow motion, he began to unbutton his shirt.

  No tricks.

  No attacks.

  No surprises.

  All he did was perform the least interesting striptease I have ever witnessed, discreetly turning his back to me at the finish, his arms-muscular, decorated with various USMC tattoos-hanging as slack as his muscular buttocks were taut.

  He glanced back at me for his orders.

  “The shitter,” I told him.

  And I marched the dejected DeWayne into the bathroom. The young soldier wasn’t looking for an escape route, or at least I didn’t think he was. He seemed relatively unafraid, probably figuring I’d have killed him by now, if that was the point.

  Just inside the cramped bathroom, he again looked over his shoulder and said, “You mind a little friendly advice? Don’t tangle asses with Mr. Green. I know you’re not happy about how this went down. But just…go your own way.”

  “Semper fi, Mac,” I said.

  There was no tub, just a shower stall with the familiar pebbled glass.

  He swallowed. “Now what?”

  “Get in.”

  This seemed to alarm him, and his head swivelled on the muscular neck. “What the fuck for?”

  Keeping it low-key, sticking the nine back in my waistband, I said, “I’m going to wedge something against the door, and lock you in. Buy me some time.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t-”

  “Right. Get in.”

  Compliantly, DeWayne opened the door and stepped in the stall, and stood there with a good-size dick hanging and an expression that was neither moronic nor intelligent-perfect makings for a Marine.

  “And?” he asked.

  “And,” I said, “be careful, DeWayne. You’d be surprised how many accidents happen in the bathroom.”

  He squinted at me, not getting that, and I used both hands to slam his head into the shower stall wall, with all the force I could muster.

  The sound of his skull cracking wasn’t loud but it was distinct, and perhaps DeWayne even had time to hear it; either way, he was already dead, wide-eyed and frozen in time, as he slid slowly down the wall, leaving a bloody snail-smear behind him.

  He sat there quietly, pretty blue eyes staring into eternity, his limbs like kindling, as I unwrapped a motel bar of soap and then flipped the thing to land near DeWayne’s big dead feet. I’d been careful to bash his head into the wall on the side where my fist had hit him earlier, the only blow I’d delivered in our hand-to-hand exercise.

  Then I turned on the shower, nice and hot (to make time of death a mystery), and let the steamy spray do its tapdance on the corpse.

  I hadn’t touched much in the room-the soap would be worn down by the needles of water-so I didn’t have much cleaning up to do.

  N
ot in Homewood I didn’t.

  Fifteen

  The massive ornate granite gravestone was a family affair, reading on top:

  MARY ANN GREEN

  (1940–1985)

  Beloved Wife and Mother

  JONAH ALLEN GREEN

  (1938-) and below:

  JANET ANN GREEN

  (1975–2005)

  JULIA SUSAN GREEN

  (1985-)

  Cherished Daughter

  From my post behind some rich man’s mausoleum, I couldn’t see that lettering; but I’d been at the cemetery since last night, and had taken in the inscription by moonlight. I’d been by far the first to get here for Janet Green’s farewell appearance.

  Her casket, on the other hand, I could easily see from here, my position elevated enough to view the copper capsule, which had already been deposited in the ground, the metallic tubes of the lowering device still in place. I’d skipped the funeral, not really feeling wanted, and the graveside ceremony was long since over.

  The morning was crisp and cold with moving clouds that sent phantom-like shadows gliding across the snow-brushed grounds of Oak Brook Memorial Cemetery. The mourners had drifted away, though a few lingered to pay their respects to the grieving father-Jonah Green, in his dark gray Saville Row topcoat, saying nothing, just nodding severe thanks with that square head with its square jaw, the shortcut bristly haircut giving him a vaguely military cast.

  And now Green was a solitary figure at his daughter’s graveside, standing with hands figleafed before him, head lowered, making a mournful picture that maybe, maybe not, had some real feeling in it.

  Who knows-could be there was some humanity left in this son of a bitch. Could be he felt a pang about killing his oldest daughter to gain more of his late wife’s money. He certainly seemed truly mournful as he bent to collect a handful of piled graveside dirt, then standing and tossing it in. Even from where I was tucked back watching, I could hear the soil shower the casket like hard, brief rain.

  The final cars drew away, leaving only the Cadillac hearse and a second vehicle, a BMW. The mourners, other than Green himself, were gone. The only company remaining was keeping a respectful distance, but staying alert: half a dozen scattered security men in dark raincoats and sunglasses, peppered here and there on the periphery, keeping in touch via headsets.

  Not that I’d give them high marks, since I’d easily kept out of their sight when they did their advance sweep of the cemetery, early this morning. Nor were they aware that the uniformed chauffeur assigned to drive the hearse was currently tossed in the back of the vehicle wrapped in more duct tape than a leaky drainpipe.

  Which was why-when the liveried “chauffeur” in cap and sunglasses approached Jonah Green at the graveside-neither the millionaire nor any of his six security boys thought anything of it.

  I stepped to Green’s side and, head still lowered, he said, “Just a few more minutes, Roger-I’m…I’m not ready just yet.”

  “My final payment hasn’t reached my off-shore account,” I said, removing the sunglasses and tucking them in a breast pocket. “Why the delay?”

  Green looked at me sharply with those money-color eyes, but he’d been to the rodeo a few times himself, so his surprise and alarm quickly faded to a weary bitter smile.

  “Quarry. Nice of you to come.”

  My cap was in hand now, respectfully. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  He turned back to the grave, looked down into it.

  “As for your payment, well…you didn’t do the work, did you?”

  “You interfered with the job. Or, anyway, that dope of yours did.”

  The square head swung toward me again, his forehead creased with a frown but his mouth a straight line. “Was that really necessary? What you did to DeWayne?”

  “Not as necessary as you killing your daughter…Nice turnout today.”

  He stared down into the grave again. “Not many of them knew Janet-they were kind to pay their respects.”

  “Where was her sister? Was Julie at the funeral? Didn’t spot her at the graveside service.”

  He was maintaining an admirable cool; on the other hand, he knew we had that security crew of his, all around us. Still, he was well aware what I was capable of, and a certain tension, even nervousness, flicked in and around his eyes.

  “I thought maybe you knew where Julie was,” he said. His tone was surface cordial, underlying contemptuous. “Hell, I thought I might get another phone call from you, wanting more unmarked money.”

  “That hurts.”

  He lifted his shoulders and set them down again. “All I know is, Julie’s dropped out of sight.”

  “Well, maybe she’s afraid Daddy might be thinking of doubling up on the trust fund action.”

  Green glared at me. “I would never harm that girl.”

  “Sorry. How could I ever think such a thing?”

  “I adore that child!”

  “I was just thinking maybe it was a set-up all along-that maybe you engineered that snatch… After all, you said yourself you had certain business connections, in those circles.”

  He sneered. “Don’t be an ass.”

  “Makes sense-the wild child dies, Daddy inherits. But I came along and screwed it up for you. So Plan B was daughter number one.”

  He was shaking his head, looking out past the gravestone, at the world beyond; mostly all you could see of that world was more gravestones, some trees, and the gray tombstones of suburban Oak Brook’s business buildings.

  “You’re wrong, Quarry-though why I should care what a creature like you thinks is beyond me.”

  “There I agree with you.”

  He swung toward me with his eyes slits, his face grooved grimly. “I was not responsible for that kidnapping-no. Julie has potential. She has fire. Spirit. She’s just…going through a phase.”

  I nodded toward the hole in the ground. “So is your other daughter-it’s called decomposition.”

  He leaned toward me, eyes furious, face otherwise blank; he’d been keeping his voice down, and his movements small, obviously not anxious to start a fracas between his boys and me, out here in front of God and everybody, with himself in the middle.

  “What the hell do you want, Quarry? The rest of your money?”

  “That would be a start.”

  He shook his head, quietly disgusted. “Well, I don’t want a scene, here. Can you understand that? Can you have a little respect for the dead?”

  “Did you really say that, or am I hallucinating?”

  “Fuck you. Just go. Go, and I’ll make your goddamn money happen.”

  I said nothing. Now I was the one looking down into that hole in the ground. “…You warned me that she didn’t deserve it.”

  He winced. “What-Janet?…No, she was a nice enough young woman. Harmless. Silly, naive, in how she viewed the world, but…anyway. She was lost to me. Lost to me long ago.”

  “Oh?”

  He had a distant expression now. For the first time I detected a genuine sense of loss in him, if edged with a bitter anger. “To her…to her I represented everything bad about this country.”

  I shrugged. “Kids.”

  He glared at me again. “She had a nothing life, Quarry-a librarian.”

  He said “librarian” the way another disappointed father might have said “shoplifter” or “prostitute.”

  He was saying, “I have a small empire to maintain- thousands of employees, with families, depending on me for their paychecks.”

  “Hey,” I said. “You sacrificed a child. Worked for God.”

  He winced again. Sighed grandly. Said, “Go-just fucking go. Do that, cause no more trouble, and there’ll be a nice bonus for you-not that you deserve shit.”

  “Oh,” I said, “I deserve shit…but your daughter didn’t. Mr. Green…Jonah? Okay I call you ‘Jonah’? I feel a certain closeness to you.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question? See, I always assumed the people I
killed were marked for death, anyway, and I was a means to a predetermined end.”

  Green-studying me now, clearly wondering where this was going-said, “I gathered as much.”

  “People I put down probably did deserve it…or anyway put themselves in the gunsights, one way or another. By something they’d done.”

  “Of course.”

  “But Janet…” I smiled at him, only it didn’t really have much to do with smiling. “…she was a good person. A decent person. She didn’t deserve to die.”

  He bit the words off acidly: “I told you that going in.”

  “Yeah. My bad.” I shook my head, laughed a little. “You know, Mr. Green, in a long and varied career in the killing business, I’ve never encountered anyone quite like you-ready to kill your own daughter for another chunk of the family fortune.”

  The security guys had started getting suspicious, taking notice of this unlikely long conversation between chauffeur and boss. From the corners of my eyes, I saw them talking into their headsets; it was like being stalked by air traffic controllers.

  “Walk away,” Green said softly. “Your money will be doubled, and-since we’ve come to find each other so distasteful-we don’t ever have to have contact again.”

  I raised a forefinger, gently, and nodded toward the names carved in granite. “One little thing-you’re going to need to revise that headstone.”

  “Really?”

  “That wasn’t Janet in that car.”

  He took it like a slap. Time stuttered, and his mouth dropped open, his eyes flaring; but despite this obvious alarm, the millionaire went into immediate denial, saying, “Well, certainly it was Janet.”

  “No. She’s alive and well and somewhere you can’t find her.”

  “You are insane…”

  “See, Jonah, your girls got a little tipsy, the night before,” I said, “and next morning Julie put on one of her sister’s coats…it was chilly…and went out to get the car, to bring it around to give her hungover sister a ride to work.”

  His face turned white, like the dead skin a blister leaves.

  I went on: “I liked Julie. You’re right-she did have fire. Particularly at the end, there.”