Quarry's Choice (3 page)

He was unsteady on his feet.

The desk manager came rushing out and the Broker glanced back and shouted, “Nothing to see here! Children with cherry bombs. Franklin, keep everybody inside.”

Franklin, an efficient little guy in a vest and bow tie (more riverboat shit), rounded up the curious, handing out drink chits.

There was a stone bench near the double doors and I sat Broker down on it and plopped beside him.

“You okay?” I asked.

He looked blister pale. “My dignity is bruised.”

“Well, it doesn’t show in those pants. I killed the shooter.”

“Good. That should send a message.”

“Yeah, but who to? And if you correct me with ‘to whom,’ I’ll shoot you myself.”

He frowned at me, more confusion than displeasure. “Did you get the license?”

“Not the number. Mississippi plates, though.”

That seemed to pale him further. “Oh dear.”

Oh dear, huh? Must be bad.

“Somebody may call the cops,” I said. “Not everybody who heard that, and maybe saw it, is in having free drinks right now.”

He nodded. “You need to leave. Now.”

“No argument.” I had already put the gun away. They weren’t coming back, not with a guy shot twice in the face they weren’t. Anyway, by now “they” was one guy, driving a big buggy into a night that was just getting darker.

I patted him on the shoulder. That was about as friendly as we’d ever got. “Sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll handle this. Go.”

I went, and the night I was driving into was getting darker, too. But I had the nine millimeter on the rider’s seat to keep me company. That and my “Who’s Next” eight-track.

Early spring in my neck of the woods is a pleasure. “My neck of the woods” isn’t just a saying, it’s literal: I owned an A-frame cottage on Paradise Lake, a shimmering blue jewel nestled in a luxuriantly green setting. In a few weeks, Spring Break would fuck that up, sending college students swarming into nearby Lake Geneva. It’s a harbinger of summer to come, only with a nasty frantic edge that wouldn’t kick in again till late August. Girls in their late teens and early twenties in bikinis are fine by me, but not when they smell of beer puke.

This is not to say that I wouldn’t be taking advantage of the impending (how shall I delicately put it?) influx of sweet young pussy. I still looked like a college student myself, and had learned enough from books and TV to pass for one. So if I could connect with some cupcake looking to make a memory, why not help her out? Assuming, of course, I could manage that before she got shit-faced. Hey, I’m just that kind of guy.

But really the kind of guy I am is one who prefers hardly any people around. My circle of friends was limited to a few employees and regulars of Wilma’s Welcome Inn, a cheerfully ramshackle lodge with a tavern and convenience store, within walking distance; a handful of Lake Geneva residents—businessmen in my monthly poker game; regulars at the health club I frequented; and assorted waitresses from the Playboy Club.

Mine was a monastic existence, really, except for the balling Bunnies and college girls part; mostly I lived a solitary life in my A-frame, sitting on the deck out back, watching the lovely rippling lake, where I swam when the weather warmed. I even had a little motorboat and sometimes fished. During the fall and winter, I curled up by the fire reading paperback westerns or watching television—I had splurged on a very tall antenna that could pull in the Chicago stations.

With the generous advance I’d received before starting contract work, I’d been able to outright buy the cottage and my Opel GT—my two extravagances. No mortgage. No car payment. Who had a better life than mine? Particularly in the spring, when ski season was over and summer was just a threat. Superman had his Fortress of Solitude, and I had my A-frame on Paradise Lake.

So when the Broker showed up on my doorstep, it seemed like a violation. Worlds colliding. I hadn’t even known he knew where exactly I lived. The routine so far was that I called once a week from a pay phone for instructions, which were usually just “call back next week.” Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Only now, here he stood, tall and morose, in a peach-colored sport shirt, lighter peach slacks, white shoes. . .and no jacket! Imagine that. More casual than I’d ever seen him, but also rumpled, with sweat stains under his arms like a regular human. It was like he walked off the golf course in the middle of a round that was going for shit.

“Sorry to drop by unannounced like this,” he said. Barely audible, his manner distracted.

I was in a t-shirt and cut-off jeans and probably looked like a beachcomber to him. I hadn’t even carried a gun to the door with me. Never again.

A silver Lincoln with a vinyl top sat in my gravel drive behind my Opel GT, like an opulent tank about to fire away on the indigent. Behind the wheel of the Lincoln was a shrimpy guy named Roger who I’d met a couple of times. He was ex-military, too, but not one of the contract workers. More a bodyguard/valet.

The Broker saw me looking. “Roger will stay put, I assure you. I know you dislike him.”

“I don’t anything him. But you’re right I don’t want him in my house. Come in. Come in.”

He stepped inside and I shut the door behind him. He just stood there, looking a little dazed. It had been just under a week since the parking lot incident outside the Concort Inn. I had checked in once but got no answer. That happened sometimes, so I hadn’t been overly concerned.

Still, the shooting had been hanging over things, a gray cloud threatening rain if not getting around to it.

Well, here was some rain. A whole Broker downpour. I stepped around him and curled a finger for him to follow and walked him down the hall past bedrooms and bathroom into the big open living room with its steel fireplace in the middle and kitchenette at left. The interior decoration was Early Dorm Room.

“Nice,” he said, forcing a smile.

“It’s nothing, but it’s mine. Broker, what are you doing here?”

“. . .I need a word.”

When did a conversation ever go well that started that way?

I gestured toward the fridge. “Can I get you a beer or a Coke or something?”

“Beer would be fine.”

I pointed to the sliding glass doors onto the lake. “You go sit out on the deck. I’ll join you in a minute.”

“Fine. Uh, Quarry.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course I know where you live. Why would you doubt that?”

Just like he’d known Boyd was gay.

“It’s not that so much,” I said. “It’s just seeing you in. . .real life. . .that threw me.”

He glanced around the space under the open-beamed Aceiling. It was a landscape of throw pillows on the floor and one of the chairs was a bean bag. “Is that what this is? Real life?”

“Well, we don’t generally socialize, you and me. Not on my turf. But I’ll adjust.” I gestured to the glass doors again. “Go on out. I’ll get our drinks.”

I got myself a Coke and a Coors for the Broker. He was sitting in one of the wooden deck chairs, looking out at the afternoon sun sparkling on the lake like a goddamn postcard.

“Really lovely,” he said, as I settled in on a matching chair next to him. A little slatted wooden table between us took the drinks.

“I like it,” I said with a shrug, slipping on sunglasses that had been on the table.

He turned the spooky gray eyes on me, enough glare off the pretty lake to make him squint at me like Clint Eastwood, if Clint Eastwood were much older. “We’re not socializing, actually. Not that that would be unpleasant, but. . .this is business.”

“Business like a contract.”

His head angled to one side. “A contract, exactly. But not under the normal circumstances.” He shook a professorly finger at me. “And I want it understood you have my blessing. . .or let’s call it my ‘okay’. . .to pass on this, this. . . opportunity.”

“Opportunity, huh? How so?”

“It will pay fifty thousand dollars and all expenses.”

That was an opportunity, all right.

I shrugged, as if unimpressed. “Well, you said it wasn’t normal. So how else isn’t it normal?”

An eyebrow raised. “You’ll
know
who the client is.”

That got a blink out of me. “We’re breaking what-do-you-call-it, protocol, aren’t we?”

“Indeed we are.”

The Broker was one of the few people I ever knew who used that word in human speech. Not that there’s any other kind.

I had a sip of Coke. “So who
is
this client?”

He looked out at the lake. “Who do you think I’m talking about, young man? Me.”

* * *

That did make sense.

Somebody had tried to gun him down last week, and the Broker had been understandably shaken, and still was. I didn’t know enough about the inter-workings of his business—hell, the workings period—to know whether being on the firing line himself was something that the Broker expected to occur, from time to time. As part of the price of doing business.

But I would have to say such an occurrence must have been rare, because six days later, the Broker appeared still to be reeling and, more than that, was right here smack in the middle of my world. The devil looking out at Paradise Lake.

“Obviously,” I said, “this relates to last week’s fun and games.”

Slow single nod. “Obviously.”

“And in the days since, you’ve determined who was behind that attempt.”

Two nods, not so slow. “I have indeed. And I have your keen eyes to thank.”

“Yeah?”

“That Mississippi license plate told the tale.”

And then he told me one.

“For your own protection,” he began, after two sips of Coors, “for the protection of all of those who work for me, I keep things on a need-to-know basis. Most of those we eliminate are from the world of business or perhaps politics, although never on a rarefied scale—we leave that to the CIA. Usually we remove fairly important people, because important people are involved in the kinds of affairs that can get a person removed.”

“And not just business affairs,” I said.

“No. Affairs of the heart, as well.”

“Or the heart-on.”

He didn’t bother to wince at that, and simply went on: “You,
all
of you, are certainly aware that we do work for elements of organized crime—the so-called Mob. But your awareness is relatively vague. Again, you are provided intel on a need-to-know basis, while I protect you from interaction with those who have hired my. . .
our
. . .services.”

“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. I knew all this, but he was in a bad place, or anyway a strained one, and I wouldn’t be needling him today. Much.

“One of the criminal organizations we do a fair share of work for is known as the Dixie Mafia.” He looked from the lake to me. “Are you familiar with that term, Quarry?”

“No.”

“It’s not a phrase that indicates Italian or Sicilian ancestry. In fact, it’s not a term that those involved in the group coined themselves—rather some newspaperman came up with it, to lend a little glamour to a rather slipshod enterprise, and this rabble embraced it. You will find in the so-called Dixie Mafia, for example, no ‘don.’ No ‘boss of bosses.’ Their roots are not Capone and Luciano, but Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd.”

He explained that the Dixie Mafia comprised traveling criminals and roadhouse proprietors throughout the South—small-time thieves, bigger-time heist artists, car boosters, and con men; also, gambling- and whorehouse proprietors. Their only connection to the real Mafia was to pay a tax to the New Orleans mob, when on their turf.

“The Strip in Biloxi, Mississippi, has evolved into their base of operations,” the Broker said. “It was a natural enough thing. Just as the Dixie Mafia is a ragtag coterie of criminals, the Strip is a squalid patchwork of striptease clubs, shabby motels and sleazy bars. These provide the perfect surroundings for these migratory miscreants to meet, to plan their ‘capers.’ ”

“If there’s no ‘don,’ ” I asked, “who do we do contract work for?”

He held his palms up. “Well, in recent years, one of the club owners has risen to power—initially as a fence and a message service, later hiding men on the run, laundering their cash, even investing in their enterprises. . .underwriting more ambitious heists.”

“This is the man you’ve done business with.”

He squinted again, gazing out at the blue lake, his hands tented. He selected his words. Then: “Yes and no. I’ve dealt directly with him on just two occasions.”

His hands were clenched. Was that fear? Jesus, that was fear.

“Jack Killian,” he said, talking to the lake. “From a surprisingly upper-class background. Chose the Air Force over college. Became a car thief who graduated to bank robbery. Once just another of those traveling criminals, if a notably sadistic one, now the owner of every fleshpot on the Biloxi Strip. He is not the don, not in the traditional Mafia sense. More like a feudal lord.”

“But you don’t deal with him.”

He shook his head, paused for a sip of Coors. “Killian’s partner, Woodrow Colton—Mr. Woody, he is called—is the Dixie Mafia’s number two. The banker. The money launderer, the fixer, co-owner of Killian’s clubs.” He smiled, as if recalling a pleasant afternoon with a friend. “An amiable sort, Mr. Woody—who navigates through the political world of Biloxi, spreading joy. And cash.
He
has been my contact. And a pleasure with whom to do business.”

I was hearing things I was not supposed to know. That none of us who worked for the Broker were supposed to know.

“And it is through Mr. Colton,” the Broker went on, glancing at me with a faint smile flickering on the thin lips under the well-trimmed mustache, “that we have our avenue for. . .well, revenge is such an unpleasant word, and a concept for lessers. Let us call it retaliation. Let us call it self-protection.”

“Let us call it,” I said, “who do I kill?”

He resumed his contemplation of the lake. The sun had slipped behind some gently moving clouds that were making shadows in an afternoon suddenly turned a cool blue.

“Mr. Killian has ambitions,” he said. “Perhaps he does in fact see himself as the ‘don’ of the Dixie Mafia. He has been buying up roadhouses in the south, in particular the rather notorious State-line Strip between Tennessee and Mississippi. And, as I say, he owns virtually every striptease joint, shack-up motel and sleazy bar on the Biloxi Strip.”