Quarry's Choice (8 page)

“You know the drill,” the unibrow said.

I nodded, raised my hands, and the dishwater guy patted me down. I hadn’t come armed. He finished his frisk and nodded to his buddy, who went to the door, knocked, and another short-haired ex-military type in a dark suit cracked it open. He had a wide face with close-set eyes.

“Mr. Killian’s nine o’clock,” the unibrow said, with a head bob toward me.

The close-set eyes narrowed at me; then the guy nodded to the unibrow and opened up.

The vestibule watchdogs both gestured toward the threshold, an Alphonse and Gaston move that would have been comical if I hadn’t known they could kill my ass.

The door shut behind me, and I was led down a doorless hallway into a big high-ceilinged area that combined living room space with, at right, an up-to-date walk-in kitchen. Only a few lights were on, most of the illumination coming from a projection TV.

Nothing here indicated that this floor had once been a bunch of hotel rooms that got overhauled into living quarters for the current king of Biloxi, Mississippi.

The furnishings were contemporary, the colors not at all the standard Tropical pastel, more dark reds and dark blues and lots of masculine wood. Very bachelor pad, right down to the wide, vertical real-wood paneling, with framed abstractions in red and black and green and yellow. A big round captain’s table with matching chairs near the kitchen was the only nod to the beachfront that the living room’s wall of windows looked out upon.

Two more men in black suits were watching the big TV, one on a sofa, another in an easy chair—between them a leather Barcalounger had the best view of the screen but sat empty, apparently off-limits for anybody but the absent boss. The volume was down, but Jack Lord was barking at somebody. Not “Book ’em, Dano!”—too early in the show.

My black-suited guide with the eyes crowding his nose walked me down a hall off the living room to a closed door and raised a hand like a crossing guard to hold me back. Yeah, like I was surging forward.

“Your nine o’clock’s here, Mr. Killian!”

“
Send him in.
” The voice was deep and naturally loud enough not to require shouting through the closed door.

The door was opened for me, I went in, and the door closed behind me.

I was in an office.

Like Mr. Woody’s, only about five times the size, if vaguely similar. Framed pictures of famous strippers, color eight-by-tens, were interspersed with photos of pro ball players and dinner-theater show biz types, all personally inscribed. A brown leather couch rode the wall at right and a liquor cart no bigger than a Dodge Dart was parked opposite.

Behind a big mahogany desk, and between dark-wood filing cabinets, the wall space was consumed by a vertical color photo of the Biloxi Strip at night, likely taken from a boat in the Gulf far enough out to turn that ribbon of sin into a sparkling abstraction.

Behind that desk sat the man who had to be Jack Killian. No military crew cut for him: glistening black hair was combed back revealing the widow’s peak over the narrow oval of a face whose dark, lidded eyes had an almost Asian cast. He had a narrow, finely carved nose over a thin-lipped slash, as if he’d been born without a mouth and a doctor had to cut him one.

That suit was definitely not-off-the-rack: Italian, I’d guess, though I’m no expert. He wore gold-nugget cufflinks and a gold-nugget ring on his left hand.

Did he wear that suit every evening?
I wondered.
Or just when he had a business meeting?

Rising from his high-backed leather swivel chair, he didn’t offer a hand to shake—tough to reach across that aircraft carrier of a desk—merely gestured to two brown-leather visitors’ chairs. I picked one and gave him a tight smile and a nod.

“Mr. Quarry,” he said. He had a smooth baritone, like a radio announcer or maybe the golf pro at the country club who was fucking your wife.

“Mr. Killian.”

“Would you like a cigarette? Or maybe you prefer your own?” He indicated the smoke he had going in an ameba-shaped modern-art ashtray. Little else was on the glass-topped desk, just a multi-extension phone and a pencil/pen cup.

“I don’t smoke, sir.”

“Good to hear. Are you a drinking man?”

“Not really, sir.”

“ ‘Sir’ isn’t necessary. ‘Mr. Killian’ will do fine.”

“All right, Mr. Killian.” I shifted in the chair. “May I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Is this a job interview? I was under the impression I already had this position.”

A black eyebrow arched. “Do you know what that position is, Mr. Quarry?”

“Other than I’ll be working for you in some capacity, no.”

The slash in his face turned upward on one side. “Then you don’t already have the job, do you?”

I risked a small smile. “I guess I don’t.”

He had a drag on his cigarette. From the smell of the room, he didn’t stint on them. “Woodrow sometimes oversteps. But he’s a good man, our Mr. Woody, and I take his recommendation seriously. How much did he tell you?”

“Just that there’d been a fatality on your staff, and a slot needed filling.”

He nodded twice. “What’s your background, Mr. Quarry? Let’s start with military.”

“Marines. Vietnam. Three tours.”

“What did you do there?”

“Sniper mostly. I was in some fire fights.”

“Medals?”

“Yes.”

That I’d not been specific sent the slash upward on the other side of his face; counting the last time, that made one whole smile. “And post-Vietnam, where did you work?”

“Detroit.”

“Who did you work for and what did you do there?”

I shook my head. “With all due respect, sir. . .Mr. Killian. . . that’s all I’m going to say on that subject.”

His eyebrows tensed. “You think that’s wise?”

“Very. Someday I may not be working for you. And when somebody asks me who I worked for last, and what did I do for him? I’m not going to say. Because I don’t think your business is anybody else’s.”

The eyes were open almost all the way—he clearly liked that response. He took a few puffs from the cigarette, sent it back to the odd ashtray.

“How many people have you killed, Mr. Quarry?”

“Here or overseas?”

“Anywhere.”

“Under a hundred.”

He damn near blinked. “I would guess a sniper gets pretty cold-blooded about it.”

“Killing from a distance can get easy. I’ve done up close and personal, too. It’s messier. Mr. Killian, where is this going?”

He rocked a little in his swivel chair. He was looking past me, then he gestured in that direction. “You’ve noticed I’m well-insulated.”

“I picked up on that.”

“Can you make an educated guess why?”

“You’re a powerful man, and reading between the lines, I’d say you’re getting more powerful all the time. That makes enemies.”

“It does. It does.”

He got up so suddenly, it startled me and I damn near showed it.

“Come with me,” he said. “Let’s take a little walk.”

He moved swiftly past me and out the office door and I followed him, staying back some. He issued curt orders for the
Hawaii Five-O
watchers to spell the two watchdogs in the vestibule, who as he left his quarters he instructed to come with us.

That put all four of us in the elevator—me, Killian, the unibrow and the dishwater guy. Nobody said a word. There seemed to me a small chance that I might be in trouble. That the “walk” we were about to take might be the Biloxi equivalent of a Chicago ride.

I’d known I’d have to stand for a frisk, and so had left behind my nine millimeter and the knife I sometimes strapped to my leg, too. I was okay in hand-to-hand, but not exactly Bruce Lee.

And all three of these fuckers were armed. Anyway, the watchdogs were, and I assumed that tailored suit of Killian’s allowed room for a weapon, on a hip or under a shoulder.

We walked briskly through the lobby. The blazer blond at the desk said, “Good evening, Mr. Killian!” This did not rate even a nod, much less a response.

Before I knew it we were outside in the parking lot. The night was breezy and cool, cooler than I’d imagined Biloxi might be—maybe forty degrees. Enough to give me goose pimples. Right. The weather was doing that. Sure.

Without a word, Killian—tall, broad-shouldered but slender in the sharp black suit—knifed through the night and across the four lanes of highway. Traffic was light, but somehow I had the impression he’d do the same if it were fucking streaming. I was between him and the two watchdogs, who were trailing, giving me more space than I expected.

Once we were across the street, Killian deposited the watchdogs on the sidewalk and took me by the arm and walked me onto the white beach. He planted himself, crossed his arms, and stared straight ahead. I did the same. A small-craft harbor was off to our left, and the vastness of the Gulf lay straight ahead. Salty air twitched at my nostrils.

How many bodies has this bastard dumped out there?
I wondered.

“The man I lost,” Killian said, lighting up a fresh cigarette with a gold JJK-initialed lighter, “wasn’t just anybody.”

“Yeah?”

The sound of water lapping joined with that of a boat engine somewhere out there to creep me the fuck out.

“He did special jobs for me,” Killian said, exhaling smoke that the breeze carried away. “He took care of people. I don’t know if Woodrow made that clear to you.”

“Take care of people how?” Facetiously I added, “Like pick them up at the airport for you?”

Like shoot at the Broker and me in the Concort Inn parking lot?

He gave me a sideways grin. The teeth were wolfish and not as white as Mr. Woody’s, but they didn’t live in a glass at night. His black hair glistened in street- and moonlight.

“I’m going to guess you’re educated, Mr. Quarry.”

“Not really. Just high school.” I shrugged. “I read some.”

“Ah. Self-educated.” Dragon smoke drifted out his nostrils. “I dropped out of college my freshman year. I could have aced that shit but I preferred booze, drugs and girls.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Went into the service. I didn’t go overseas, but. . .” He gave me a quick look, then returned his gaze to the Gulf. “. . .I’ve seen combat of a sort.”

I said nothing.

He glanced behind him. “This Strip of mine has real potential, Mr. Quarry. We can rival Vegas. We can deserve that Riviera comparison some people make. The day will come when gambling is legal here, and until that time I will do business with those who are in a position to protect my present interests while paving the way for me to be a major part of that future. Politicians in Biloxi like their bread buttered on both sides, and my knife works both ways.”

There wasn’t a hint of Southern accent out of this guy. But then he was from Oklahoma. That was Midwest, sort of.

“Still, creating a cohesive whole out of this Strip is a challenge, and a difficult one. Expanding my reach beyond this backward state to our neighboring ones is an ongoing struggle. But I’m doing it. And I am up to it.”

I said nothing.

He let out smoke in a disgusted sigh. “This Dixie Mafia you hear about is, or at least
has
been, just an inedible jambalaya of small-time crooks, scrambling for dollars, eking out individual petty existences, fighting among themselves. There needs to be organization and central leadership for what we have started here in Biloxi to flourish beyond state lines. To enjoy real success.
Enduring
success.”

Killing this prick was going to be tricky. He was smooth and he was smart, and he had bodyguards hanging off the cypress trees like moss with guns.

If I’d had my nine millimeter on me, I could have taken him out here and now, and removed the unibrow and the dishwater dude as a lagniappe, as we say down South. But like I said, I wasn’t armed, and now that I’d seen Killian in his castle, with all those guns between me and him, I knew a frontal assault wasn’t going to make it. I had to get close to him and stay close to him and find my window.

“I need somebody like the man I lost,” he said, and his eyes moved from the Gulf to me and back again. “I need somebody who would like to make some
real
money.”

“I like real money.”

He nodded back to the bodyguards on the sidewalk. They were well out of earshot. “You can be one of my army, Mr. Quarry, and pull down a grand a week. It’ll be mostly tax free. You’ll be on the books working in some negligible capacity for one of the many clubs I own, and pay taxes on ten thousand a year. We both benefit that way.”

“Cool.”

“Not as cool as two grand a week and a five-grand bonus any time I have something special for you to do.” Now he looked right at me and gave me a smile turned up at both corners, even offering up a few wolf-like teeth. “Mr. Quarry, you are not from these parts.”

“You noticed that.”

“Understand that you are in a swamp. There are snakes and there are gators and there are inbred assholes who will fuck you and kill you and fuck you again. Can you handle yourself in such a place, among such creatures?”

“Give it a try.”

He pitched the cig a good distance, though not quite to the water or even its edge. “I have a job for you. It’s the kind of job that requires someone new. Someone that the people I need to deal with have never seen before. A fresh face.”

That was me all over. Everybody said so.

He settled a hand on my shoulder. “You pull this off, Mr. Quarry, and you will earn my thanks and a place at my side.”

That would be a good position to pop him from.

“Sounds great,” I said. “Details?”

He gave them to me, but not before asking me my size so he could arrange for some suits and ties for me.

But where he was sending me tomorrow would not require that kind of “professional attire.”

Overalls maybe?

Early the following afternoon, we flew to Memphis, Luann and I, where I rented a dark blue Mustang. By late afternoon, under a sky full of sunshine, we were following the rambling thing that was U.S. Highway 45 along the Mississippi/Tennessee state line.

It had been my idea to take Luann along, and I’d asked no one’s permission. She appeared to be in my temporary charge, and from what I understood about the job Jack Killian had assigned me, she might serve several useful purposes.