“And run?”
“Yes, damnit!”
“Take five minutes. Take one minute. But tell me.”
“No!”
“Then listen to me. I think I know what happened, or part of it.”
She was silent.
So I told her.
The way I had it figured, Albert Leroy had found out what was going on between Raymond Springborn and his girl friend in the apartment across the way. Maybe it had started out as a streak of the voyeur in Albert, maybe he had just come upon the two lovebirds by happy accident, who knew? But come upon them he had, and Albert found power in what he knew, power to come to Raymond Springborn and ask for money, more money than he’d gotten in his job as janitor, that was for sure, probably far beyond that. Maybe he’d asked to be on the goddamn board of directors, or some other sillyass thing he felt he had coming to him as right of birth. Whatever, he had used what he knew to twist Raymond Springborn’s arm, and had gotten killed for his trouble.
She remained silent till I was finished. Then she said, “Take the four thousand and go, Quarry.”
“I’m close, aren’t I?” I said through gritted teeth. “I thought I had it figured exactly right, I thought your husband had tried to keep his affair from you, to hide this little girl he was using to scratch his seven-year itch, that he’d hired your brother’s death and had done away with the threat of you finding out about his cheating, getting rid of the family deadwood to boot.”
She leaned forward and spoke with her lips peeled back, saying, “Do you think I care whether or not Raymond fucks that little whore? Do you think I give a good goddamn if he fucks every bitch-in-heat in the world? I don’t want his goddamn bed, I haven’t wanted it for years. I like the pressure off me!”
“Oh . . . wait,” I said, “wait a minute . . . no wonder. No wonder. Your husband has never known a thing about this, has he? Damn! Albert came to you with the story about Ray’s cheating, didn’t he? Albert came to you with the demands.”
“This is nonsense.”
“It sure is. No wonder your husband was so indignant when I made those implications about him killing Albert! And you, you didn’t really give a damn about that little girl he was screwing, did you?”
“I told you, I didn’t want to be a part of his damn sex life! Raymond and I, we have an understanding, a way of living together. Our life together is the business. The business is our relationship. We don’t have any children, couldn’t have any, our family is the business, and our relationship is the business, and why don’t you go fuck yourself!”
“You don’t want your husband to find out about Albert, do you? You don’t want him to know that you had your own brother killed.”
“Quarry . . .”
“And no wonder. A woman who’ll murder her brother might do most anything . . .”
“How much, Quarry? I have another four thousand in the house. Just wait here. I’ll get it. I’ll get it for you.”
“Why did you want him dead? What threat did Albert pose you? You didn’t give a damn about your husband’s cheating.”
She said, quietly, in defeat, “He said . . . he said he’d tell everyone about Raymond . . . he’d go to the press and he’d tell them about Raymond and the girl.”
And I laughed.
Because it all made sense; the motive was there at last.
Scandal.
An empire built on chicken soup and fudge recipes and family cannot endure a scandal. The rest of the world may accept adultery, the jet set and movie stars may be able to screw when and whom they please, but not in the Midwest, not when you’re Linda Sue and Ray Springborn, the Kitchen Korner couple.
And who knew how many ether Springborn skeletons- in-the-closet Albert would have been able to reveal, intended to reveal? Raymond Springborn’s mob connec- tions, perhaps? And what else did Linda Sue have to hide from her public? There had to be something. Perhaps any number of somethings. Whatever they were, the scandals would be fueled by their source: the broken-down, pitifully neglected member of the Kitchen Korner clan, Albert Leroy.
“So that’s why Albert Leroy had to die,” I said.
“He died a long time ago,” she said “He was a vegetable.”
“Yeah, I know, a potato, you told me before. What did he ask for?”
“He wanted to be vice-president of Springborn-Leroy Enterprises He wanted decision-making power. He wanted a fat salary, like you guessed.”
“He wanted too much.”
“Yes, he wanted too much! He was a lousy janitor, how could he expect to move into an executive position? He couldn’t’ve handled it, he would have been a public embarrassment to us, if he didn’t run us out of business first. He was enough of an embarrassment to us as he was.”
“What about that fabled treasure of his?”
“He did have around nine or ten thousand in the bank, left from his inheritance.”
“What of that?”
“It’s mine now. Or was. I’ve given you people the equivalent, now that you’ve been paid twice.”
“Shit, that was nice of your brother, wasn’t it? Paying you back what it cost to murder him.”
“What’s the purpose of this? What do you want, Quarry?”
“Nothing. This four thousand will do fine.”
“You’ll leave, then?”
“I want to know one thing more.”
“What?”
“Who is ‘Vince’?”
“I have no idea.”
“Now don’t bullshit me, Linda Sue. Maybe housewives all over middle America would believe you, but this is your brother’s killer you’re talking to.”
“I tell you, I have no idea! I heard Raymond mention the name just now, when you two were talking up in the tower room. I never heard the name mentioned before.”
“You realize, don’t you, that this ‘Vince’ is probably the guy who stole the four thousand and killed my partner?”
“What do you care? You have four thousand and you’re still alive.”
She was right.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be out of Port City before midnight.”
“Make it sooner if you can.”
“Don’t worry. I got no intention of settling down here.”
“Quarry . . .”
“What?”
“Why, uh . . . why . . .?”
“Why aren’t I twisting your arm for any more than just this four thousand? Because your brother tried the same thing, didn’t he? And you murdered him for it. Hell, I’m not even your brother. I’d hate to think what you’d have done to me.”
Her eyes and mouth were tight in the plastic surgeon’s mask. “You pompous ass . . . where do you get off with that condescending tone? You keep saying that I murdered my brother. Let me remind you, you smug smart-ass bastard . . . you murdered Albert Leroy.”
“No,” I said. “I killed him. You murdered him.”
And I left her to think about it. I hoped she’d think about it a long time. But I doubted it.
26
* * *
* * *
I WOKE WITH a start. I looked at my watch. Eight-thirty. I’d slept fifteen minutes. After two hours of staring at the ceiling, thinking more thoughts than is healthy, I’d dropped off to sleep, which wasn’t healthy either. When Port City was just another unpleasant memory, then I could sleep. Not now. Not yet.
Peg was beside me, asleep for an hour and a half, an arm draped loose across my midsection, her head snuggled under my shoulder, one breast crushed casually against my side. We’d had supper in the kitchenette and dessert in the bedroom and spent the rest of our time drinking the one third of a bottle of Scotch which constituted the remainder of her liquor supply and mindlessly chit-chatting, finding out as much about each other as we cared to know.
She gave me an uneasy feeling. All day, being around her had provided a pleasant but nagging sensation, like a dream not quite remembered. It was as though she were a thought in the corner of my mind trying
to make itself known, a barely defined reminder of something my mind had long before blocked out. I didn’t want to admit what it was, who she indirectly reminded me of. I didn’t want those feelings to crawl up out of my subconscious and onto a rock of awareness where they could wriggle and tease and bathe in my understanding of them. I didn’t want to face the realization that I hadn’t felt like this since I was young, a young man who believed in certain absurd abstract notions, a young man who married before he should have, feeling emotions he defined as profound and should have seen for the animal instincts they were.
But Peg, this sexpot centerfold blonde right out of a wet dream, this gracefully aging beauty who liked one-night stands with greasy-haired potheads ten years her junior, this hard, delicate little broad who screwed me right after she saw me, she was getting dangerously close. She was getting dangerously close to being a person in my life. Women hadn’t been persons in my life for a long time. Women were pretty receptacles for pent-up biological and psychological waste material. An extension of self-abuse, nothing more.
But why then was I thinking crazy thoughts about her? Wild thoughts, like thinking of asking her if she could use a business partner, someone who could add a fat bundle of cash to what she’d saved, to aid her in her attempt to either possess or escape from Bunny’s. Why was I entertaining the fantasy-insanity of wanting to ask her to go partners with me, to find a bar or club or restaurant or diner or anything somewhere, out west maybe, and run a quiet, legitimate business with days and nights and maybe years of breathing and eating and screwing and doing all those things that make life tolerable, maybe even grow old together, or at least older. Of course I didn’t have much saved up, but I did have that plastic bag of white powder that was worth a lot of money, and . . .
Bullshit.
I was used to being alone. I liked it. People annoyed me. Sometimes companionship got necessary, sure, so you would play some cards with people you could abide, you’d find some good-natured, well-bodied woman and take care of your needs.
But my needs now were shifting. This business of killing, for one thing; this making a life out of death. You can only do that as long as your stomach and head are hard; mine were getting soft in places. I was losing my edge. Otherwise why else would I stick in town after a hit? Detachment, never get personally involved in a job, the fundamental rule, and here I was hip-deep, Boyd’s death eating at the back of my head, Albert Leroy less a shadowy target in my mind and more a real person I’d shot in the chest this morning. And the one constant in my life for some years now, the Broker, long-time business associate, had become a person to be distrusted, perhaps feared, at the very least the umbilical cord of our working relationship was soon to be severed, in fact I was . . .
Goddamnit!
Thinking, I had to stop this goddamn fucking thinking!
I slipped out of bed. Peg moaned and reached for me in her sleep but I was too quick for her. I wandered out into the other room, moving through the museum her mother had left behind, went to the window and drew back the curtain. It was raining again.
On the chair by the window was my raincoat and in the raincoat was the nine-millimeter. I’d retrieved the automatic from the trunk of the car since I felt that until I was safely away from Port City it would be best to have gun close at hand. I patted the pocket which held the gun. It was a deep pocket, sewn in special for this purpose. I wished I could put on the coat and go out and find the goddamn man with the goddamn wrench and use the gun on him and leave Port City. There was only one part of this fucking town I’d want to remember, and she was asleep in the other room.
I looked out at the rain. It was coming down damn near straight, coming down heavy, hard, enough so that the gutters of the street were flooding. I looked out at the rain and wondered if I should leave now, while she was still sleeping.
“What are you doing, Quarry?”
I turned and looked at her. She was wearing lacy blue panties and that was all. She was stretching her arms above her head and yawning, her dark nippled breasts flattening as she reached her arms up, blooming full again as she lowered them.
“Nothing,” I said.
Outside the thunder rumbled, cracked. She joined me at the window and looked out. The gray streaking rain reflected on her pink flesh, as though someone were projecting a film and using her as a screen. She leaned a knee against the chair and touched the window sill and said, “I like the rain.” She was smiling, but just a little. “I wish I could run out there just like this and jump around in it. Rain like that depresses some people. Not me. It’s a release, a gush, like crying, or coming.” She leaned over and picked the raincoat up off the chair so she could sit down. The gun fell out of the pocket and dropped to the floor. It was like another crack of thunder. “Christ!” she said, and sat down. She stared at the gun, as though she’d never seen one before and was trying to figure out what it was. Her eyes were very round, very white, like the plates in her mother’s china cabinet nearby. Then she looked at me with the blankness that precedes terror, and when her lower lip started to tremble she bit it.
“Easy, Peg,” I said. “Now don’t get upset.”
“Who . . . who the hell are you, Quarry? Who are you, for Christ’s sake?”
“Now Peg.”
“Quarry? Who . . . what are you doing here?”
“I can explain.” I went over and picked the gun up off the floor, shoved it in my belt. “Just take it easy.”
I took her by the arm and guided her over to the table in the kitchenette. I held her hand and she said in a soft, frightened but firm little voice, “Just what the hell kind of man are you, anyway?”
I patted her hand and said, conversationally, “What was that man’s name? The one in Chicago, the gangster, you called him.”
“What . . . what does that have to do with anything?”
“What was his name?”
“ . . . his name was Frank.”
“Frank. Peg, I’m the kind of man your Frank was, I would guess. You can call it what you want . . . gangster, mob person, whatever . . . the label doesn’t really matter.”
She blinked. Just once. “What are you doing in Port City,” she said quickly, almost defiantly. “What are you doing here with me?”
“You really want to know?”
“You tell me, Quarry. You tell me now.”
I paused, gathered my thoughts. I said, “I was brought to Port City to carry out a certain task, never mind what. The people I work for have a policy of not telling me why I’m performing a function, or who exactly that function’s being performed for. I just do as I’m told, and I’m given money, like any other working stiff. But this time, after the task was carried out, bad things started happening. For openers, almost four thousand dollars that belonged to my partner and me was stolen, and that was the nicest thing that happened to us. Then somebody murdered my partner and hung around and tried to murder me. You’ve noticed the bruised area on my chest and shoulder?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her face had turned bloodless white when I mentioned murder, but after a moment she managed to nod her head yes.
“That was from where somebody tried to do me in with a wrench. Damn near succeeded, too. So I been nosing around, asking questions, looking under beds. I’m at a dead end right now. I wanted to find the guy who worked the wrench on my partner, and then on me, but I’m at a dead end. So now I’m going to throw in my cards, cash in my chips and look for another game.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Springborns?”
“I’d rather not say. The less you know about the specifics, the safer you are. All I can tell you is I was looking to find the man responsible for killing my partner and stealing my money.”
“And if you would have found the . . . man responsible?”
“Let’s just say he would’ve paid what he owes me. You wouldn’t want to know the details.”
She shuddered slightly. “No. I wouldn’t.” She paused for a moment, pu
lled her hand out from under mine. “What about us. Quarry? What about you and me?”
“I won’t pretend our meeting was accidental. You knew about some people I wanted to get at. I managed to find out in an underhanded way some of the things I needed to know.”
The color came back to her cheeks. “And getting into my pants was sort of a bonus for you, then, wasn’t it?”
“Peg.”
“I’m a tour guide providing sex on the side, right? That’s what I am to you, that’s all I am to you.”
I said, “It could’ve been that way. Things worked out different.”
“Did they?” Her face was emotionless—motionless—but I thought I could see something starting to melt in her eyes.
“Peg,” I said, “remember what you said this morning? Remember what you said about being able to tell somebody in twenty years all about what we did together, making love together? Well so could I. Twenty years from now I’ll remember every detail of being with you. You just look me up in twenty years and try me.”
She gave me a tentative smile. She said, “Will you, Quarry?”
“Yes I will,” I said.
She was quiet for a moment; she was thinking. Then she made her decision. She said, “Okay. So you’re a bastard. You’re a son of a bitch and a bastard but I can live with it.” She grinned. “Who knows? Maybe I just got a thing for men with guns.”
“Maybe so.”
“Quarry?”
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