Quarry (2 page)

I went back downstairs without even glancing at the priest. I walked to the Hertz desk and asked the pretty blonde who did I see about luggage lockers. She said they’re just around the corner, sir, and I said, no, who’s in charge of them. She smiled and picked up her phone and dialed and a moment later a young guy in a blue blazer asked if he could help and I told him what I wanted and he said fine and took some money from me. We went to where two walls of bright steel luggage lockers faced each other tight and I put my briefcase in one of the compartments and he marked down the locker number and asked for a name and I gave him one. He said thanks and I said thanks and he went away.

With him gone, I reopened the locker, snapped the briefcase open and got out the pair of gray gloves and slipped them on. From the briefcase I took my folded raincoat, which I draped over my arm, and the nine-millimeter silenced automatic, which I gripped in my right hand, the draped raincoat covering my whole right forearm and hand. I shut the briefcase and sealed it back up in the locker.

Upstairs I walked over to the priest and sat next to him. He was looking out at the big silver jet, a 737 trimmed in United Airlines red-white-and-blue. The sky was slate-color with big brush-strokes of orange cloud. I wondered if he could see all that in those goddamn sunglasses.

“Father,” I said.

The priest turned and looked at me. He got a little smile going and nodded and looked away.

Oh, he was nobody’s dummy this one, a real college graduate. He was well aware that his role as priest called for acknowledging the respects of the faithful. Brother.

“Father,” I said, and I let him see I was wearing gloves in August. His eyes figured it out.

“Oh God,” he said. Prayer-soft.

“Let’s go to the can.”

“Oh God.”

“All I want’s what you have. Nothing else is going to happen.”

“Oh God.”

“Stay calm, now, don’t say anything . . . okay. Okay. You settled down?”

He shivered once. Then he nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll walk to the can and we’ll talk about it. Now get up. Now.”

He stood and I stood and I took his arm. We walked in front of the young couple and I said excuse me and smiled and they smiled back. I ushered him down the hall of empty offices and into the can.

I locked the door.

He ran ahead and opened up the stall and puked in the stool, with the speed and ease of a runner passing a baton in a relay.

When he was through, I said, “Flush it and come out here.”

He did.

The whole damn room stank, now. Like the job itself stank. All I could think was, this isn’t what I do, this isn’t my style. What am I, some kind of shakedown artist? That
goddamn Broker’s going to pay for this breach of contract. I work a certain kind of job, and shit like this
isn’t part of it.

I said, “Where?”

He was shaking; his cheeks were trying to crawl off his face.

I repeated myself.

He said nothing. He did nothing. He looked at me out of glazed eyes and just stood there.

“Look,” I said. “Nobody’s going to do anything to you if you’re sensible. You took something from some people and they want it back. Return what you took, and you can catch your plane as long as from now on you stay away from these people and theirs. It’s that simple. Hell, you’ll just be out a job you’re out anyway.”

He said, “Please.”

“Stay cool, now. Look at it this way: you’re in possession of a valuable commodity. Hand that commodity over to me and you can walk out of here. An even swap.”

He patted his cheeks and tried to coax them to stay. His face over the clerical collar turned from ash gray to reddish gray. He was thinking about crying.

Shit.

“Look,” I said, “I don’t like to hurt people. I’m not into that at all. Why don’t you just cooperate?”

“It’s in my baggage.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I tell you it’s in my baggage.”

“I don’t believe you, I don’t believe you’d let this off your person.”

“I don’t care what you believe, it’s in my baggage, I checked my baggage already and it’s already been taken out to the plane.”

“If you’re telling the truth . . .”

“I am!”

“If you’re telling the truth, get out your rosary.”

“You said . . .”

“I said I’m not into hurting people. I’m not. It won’t hurt, Father, it’ll just be black. All of a sudden. Real black.”

“But, please, please, listen to me, I checked the bags . . . the stuff’s in my bags and that’s the truth, I’m sorry, Christ knows I’d give it to you and be done but I’m sorry.”

I let the automatic peek out from under the draped raincoat. “Is that still the truth?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head no.

“Where?” I said.

He started to take off his coat.

I brought the gun up and said, “Watch it, Father!”

“No, no! Wait!” He eased out of the coat and handed it toward me. Offered it. “It’s the coat. The lining. In the lining.”

“Get it out of the lining.”

“You, you said you’d let me catch my plane. I’m gonna miss my plane.”

“Maybe. Get it out the lining.”

“It’s sown in, uh, under, I mean . . .”

“Rip it out.”

He did. He tugged free the lining and reached inside the gutted coat and pulled out two plastic bags, stapled at their tops, a lump of white powder in each.

Inside my head, I shit my pants.

Okay, Broker. Is this what you got me into? Okay. He gave me the bags and I slipped them in my suitcoat pocket.

“What now?” he said.

“Throw that lining away,” I said.

He balled it up and shoved it into the canister for used paper towels. I motioned to him to put the coat back on and he did.

“Well?” he said.

“You can go,” I said. “But not till I’m gone. I’m going to have to knock you out.”

“My, my plane! You said . . . but now I’ll miss my plane . . .”

“You’re under the gun and you worry about your plane. Christ. Just be thankful you’re getting out of this with your ass in one piece.”

“Please, I’ll wait in here, I can wait ten minutes and still make it.”

I rubbed my chin. “Suppose I could tie you up and by the time you got loose I’d be gone . . .”

“Sure, sure, you could do that! Here, I’ll untie my shoelaces, you can use that to tie me.”

“No, never mind,” I said. “I got some rope in my pocket.”

“Oh. Oh well, fine.”

“First you get in that stall there.”

“In there?”

“In there.’’

“It stinks in there.”

“That’s because you puked.” Christ, this guy.

He opened the stall.

“Put the seat down,” I said.

He did.

“Now sit.’’ He did.

“Put your hands together.”

As he was doing that, I shot him in the chest.

2

THE WATER WAS
all around me and cold. I bobbed back up to the surface, grabbed a breath, and breast-stroked over to the side of the pool, pulled myself up and out, and then went to the board and dove back in.

Five minutes later I stood in the shallow and the water lapped up against my thighs and I heard a voice say, “So here you are.”

I looked up and she was in a black bikini. She was very tan, brown-black tan, and she was slender, with hardly any breasts and a ribby rib cage but if she’d been facing the other way I would’ve been reminded what a fine round little ass she had.

“Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again,” she said, “didn’t think you’d still be around.”

“Come on in,” I said.

“No. You come out. I’m not getting my hair wet, I just want some air.”

I climbed out and went after my towel. When I was dry I looked around and saw she’d taken a lounge chair well back from the pool’s edge to keep her from getting wet if some clown like me dove in. She leaned back, her longish black hair hanging away from her face, and it was like she was sunbathing only she was just sitting there staring up at the clouds and the moon. I joined her, pulling up another lounge chair and sitting.

“I fell asleep,” she said.

“You were asleep when I left,” I said.

“Were you coming back?”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t figure on seeing you. I thought it was hit and run.”

“No. I slept there with you a little, then came out for a swim.”

“Where’d you change?”

“Went up to my room for my trunks. When’s your husband going to be back?”

“Not till late. He’ll be interviewing all evening.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. I was trying to remember her name. Helen, I think she said it was.

“How’s the water?” she said.

“Cold. Fine.”

“You refreshed?”

“Sure. You rested up?”

“Sure. Want to go in and fuck?”

“Why not?”

I followed her from the swimming area across some grass to the little cement patio to her room and then in the sliding glass doors. My room was up on the second floor and didn’t have such convenient pool access. She slid shut the window-door behind us and drew the curtain. She undid the bikini bra-top and let it drop; her breasts were small and her nipples large and dark, so with all that tan only a small circle of white separated dark texture from dark. It was a sexy effect. She lowered her bikini bottoms and she was dark and hairy down there against white skin. All this made up for her skinniness. I got my trunks off and we lay on the bed.