Quarry's vote q-5

by Maxallan Collins

  I moved into the house; the floor was slate-a stone waterfall, lit from below with amber lights, gurgled under a winding, open staircase. Off to the right was an office area, a secretarial post apparently, several photocopy machines, three desks with small computers, counters and cupboards for storage and work areas, the wall space decorated with framed posters from Freed’s various campaigns, all of them showing his white-haired, tanned, blue-eyed, boyishly smiling countenance. As much as ten years separated some of the posters, yet he seemed the same in them all; plastic surgery, or a portrait aging in the attic, maybe.

  The secretarial room opened doorless onto what was apparently a conference room, although it had a fireplace (unlit) over which reigned a framed oil painting of Freed, dressed as a riverboat captain, and a small but well-stocked bar was in one corner. This room was hung with wildlife paintings and prints and glassed-in displays of frontier weaponry, rifles, bowie knives, the like. Attached to this warm, open-beamed room, with no doorway separating it, was a small office/study, with a desk and many phones and a wall of photos of Freed with celebrities (including Angela Jordan’s soap opera star), and two walls of books-political ones exclusively, authors ranging from Adolf Hitler to Robert F. Kennedy, from Karl Marx to Eugene McCarthy.

  “Have you seen Dick?” somebody behind me asked.

  I picked up a paperweight from the desk-a heavy brass replica of the Presidential seal, about as big around as a glazed doughnut-and turned and hurled it into the stomach of the approaching bodyguard, another brute, the missing link from the kitchen table, this one with thinning blond hair and a light blue workshirt and jeans and, on his hip, the ever-present. 357 mag.

  Which he was going for, incidentally, when I reached out and shoved the stun gun in his belly and pressed the button; he let a yelp out, but not much of one, because the paperweight I had tossed into him, like a discus, had knocked the wind out of him and he hadn’t recovered. And now he was busy doing the electrical dance. I kept my hand over his mouth till he was under, and eased him down. He didn’t pee. Maybe that’s where he’d been: the john.

  I did take the time to flex-cuff this guy, hands and ankles both, and slap some tape on his mouth, and went back the way I’d come-past the winding staircase and waterfall, past the front entryway, and into a living room with the breathtaking picture-window view I’d expected. There was another fireplace, also unlit; over it was another oil portrait of Freed-this time dressed in buckskins, like a frontier hero. The furnishings were modern and expensive but looked comfortable; modular stuff, earth tones. A big 27-inch console TV was perched in one corner. Glass sliding doors opened onto a patio, or did in nicer weather, anyway.

  I back-tracked again, and went up the winding staircase. I found myself in a round room, a circular bar with more political posters and Freed memorabilia on display, a few more antique frontier weapons hanging, and windows on the world. Chairs were gathered around the edges of the circle, as if someone (gee, I wonder who) might have occasion to stand centerstage and pontificate in the round.

  Off to the right, I could hear muffled sound; then laughter, also muffled. I moved closer to it. From behind a door, to the left of a well-stocked, leather-fronted bar. Talking, laughter, very muffled.

  Sitcom.

  Somebody was watching TV in there. But who, and how many of them were there? Well, sometimes one is reduced to the obvious. I looked through the keyhole.

  Another large bodyguard type was sitting in a chair, and he was smiling; the chair was comfortable, he had a can of beer in one hand, and Bill Cosby was on the TV screen. What more could a man ask for?

  I was on top of him putting the stun gun in his belly as he slouched there before he could do anything but try to scream into my hand and the adhesive strip, and pee his pants. Beer’ll do it to you.

  I cuffed him, hands in back, and secured his ankles, too, then looked around what seemed to be the quarters for the security staff. Though not much more than a cubicle, there was a TV, a small refrigerator, a couple of couches, several stacks of men’s magazines and paperbacks and a private bathroom. Then I explored the room beyond: a simple guest room, double bed, empty dresser.

  Moving back into the circular bar, I tried another doorway, found myself in a hallway; past a closed side door, at the end of the hall, was light. Muted light, but light, like the first glow of dawn over the horizon. If you get up that early.

  I rounded the corner and there, on a waterbed the size of New Jersey, on black silk sheets, a mirror overhead, was the Democratic Action party’s candidate, with his dick in the mouth of an attractive young woman. Or at least what I could see of her was attractive: her ass was to me.

  That’s where I hit her with the stun gun.

  Right above the crack of it, actually, and fortunately for Freed, she opened her mouth wide, rather than clamp down, and I slipped the tape over her mouth and gave her a three-second jolt, which did the trick. Freed recoiled, his icy blue eyes damn near as shocked as the unconscious girl, who I noticed with certain amusement was the redhead from his campaign headquarters. He’d been feeding her the party line, but now he plastered his naked self against the fancy western-carved headboard of the waterbed, withering.

  “W-What do you w-want?” he said. Even stuttering, his voice was melodious, like a radio announcer’s.

  “Sorry about your silk sheets,” I said, making a tch-tch sound, noting the dampness the girl had caused.

  “If you’re going to kill me,” he said, suddenly brave, “then get it over with.”

  “If I’d have agreed to kill you,” I said, “my life wouldn’t be so fucked up now. And you’d already be dead.”

  The blue eyes narrowed. “The Soviets?” he asked.

  “Put some clothes on,” I sighed. “I don’t talk business with naked politicians.”

  12

  He slipped into a dark blue silk robe while I cuffed the girl’s hands and ankles. I moved her off the area of the bed she’d made wet-it was the least I could do-carrying her in my arms like a big baby. She was a nice looking woman, despite the circumstances.

  He stood nearby, while I did that, nervous but hiding it pretty well. He was taller than me, and had considerable bearing, the mane of white hair, the china-blue eyes, the dark tan, a striking human being; feeling no humiliation at all, it would seem, despite being caught with his pants down.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” His baritone, melodious or not, did have an edge of irritation. Not that I blamed him. Nobody likes to get interrupted in the middle of a blow job.

  “We have to get a couple things straight first,” I said, and the nine-millimeter was in my gloved right hand now, the stun gun tucked away in a jacket pocket, his sentry’s. 357 on my hip.

  “Such as?” he said. He had winced, just slightly, upon sight of the automatic; otherwise he maintained an admirable cool.

  “Do we have it understood,” I said, “that if I were here to kill you, you’d be dead by now? That if I were here to steal from you, you’d be trussed up and we wouldn’t be talking at all? That if this were a kidnapping, I’d have hauled your ass out of here already? Do we understand all that?”

  He nodded very slowly. The light blue eyes bored into me like soothing lasers. Their color reminded me of Linda’s eyes. I tried not to think about that.

  “I came in here the way I did for a couple of reasons,” I said, “all of them good. First, you’re not an easy man to see. I tried finding you at your campaign headquarters, and heard all about how reclusive you are. Second, I wanted to show you that if somebody did want to see you bad enough, they could get it done, reclusive or not.”

  His mouth twitched in a half-smile. “I thought I had excellent security.”

  “Your security is pretty half-assed. But even if it were great, you could be gotten to. Anybody can be gotten to.”

  “If you’re not here to kill me or steal from me or kidnap me,” he said, “why are you here?”

  “To make you a bu
siness offer, for one thing. For another, to save your life.”

  An eyebrow arched. “Why don’t we go out in the bar and talk.”

  “Fine. But if any of your staff should show up- somebody I don’t know about, or the one guy I didn’t take time to bind up, or anybody else with a gun or something — you’re going to make ’em back off. Otherwise, people are going to get hurt. And I can just about guarantee you, you’ll be one of them.”

  He nodded, as if to say, fair enough.

  “Could I use the bathroom first?” he asked. There was one off the bedroom.

  “Sure,” I said. “Leave the door open.”

  He frowned at that, but said nothing. He went in there but didn’t use the john. He ran water, washed his hands. Then he bent over the counter, like he was almost kissing it. I didn’t know what he was up to, until he turned and was wiping a little white powder off his nose. The small mirror on the bathroom counter reflected the overhead light.

  Then I followed him out into the circular bar.

  “Would you care for something to drink?” he asked.

  “No. But help yourself.”

  He went to the bar and poured himself several fingers of Scotch. Not one to deny himself anything, he withdrew a long fat cigar from a box on the bar and lit it with a wooden match; then he sat in a captain’s chair, which he had dragged to the center of the circle, and motioned for me to sit nearby. I chose instead to take a chair that put my back to the wall and gave me a view of several doors and the open stairway. I kept the gun in my hand and in my lap.

  “And what do I call you?” he asked. Half the room between us.

  “You can call me Quarry. It’s not my name, exactly, but it’ll do.”

  “All right, Mr. Quarry. Perhaps you can explain why you’ve invaded my home-and, apparently, put my entire security staff out of commission.”

  “Let me ask you something first. If someone, this afternoon, had told you that one man would enter your compound and put you in the position you’re in right now, what would you have said?”

  “I would have found it impossible. Unbelievable.”

  “Fine. Keep that in mind when you consider the story I’m about to tell.”

  And I told Preston Freed, self-styled presidential candidate, the story. That I was a retired professional assassin who had been offered a million-dollar contract; that he was the target of said contract; that I had refused the contract; that an attempt on my life had subsequently been made. I did not mention the loss of my wife, my life at Paradise Lake. That was none of his fucking business.

  Freed listened with rapt attention, eyebrows arching, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowing, widening, as one might expect. But disbelief was something I did not sense. Perhaps in a way I was making a dream come true for him: his paranoia was finally being substantiated, even if the Soviets weren’t involved.

  “Now,” I said, “it would seem to me we have some mutual interest in this matter. For my part, I’d like to respond in kind to those who tried to have me killed.”

  “Understandable,” Freed said, nodding.

  “And you, I would think, would like to identify those who are trying to have you killed.”

  “Frankly,” he said, drawing on the thick cigar, “I’d like to do more than just identify them.”

  “I thought you might. You need to consider exactly what this situation is: I turned the contract down. That made me a loose end-in a political assassination, involving a national figure, a presidential candidate, one does not leave loose ends. But that speaks only to my situation. What about yours?”

  “Mine?”

  “Someone else-someone like me-was approached with that million-dollar contract. Someone who accepted it.”

  “Is this a conclusion you’ve drawn, or…?”

  “It’s more. It’s direct knowledge. I understand you fear retaliation from what you describe as the ‘Drug Conspiracy’-the banks and the mob.”

  “The Sicilian/Hebrew Connection,” he said, nodding.

  “Spare me. But I will give you this much: somebody with mob connections who died recently gave me that information.”

  The icy blue eyes narrowed to slits in the tanned face. “Victor Werner? You killed Victor Werner?”

  “I didn’t say that. Did you know him?”

  “I never met the man, but I knew of him.” Then, with contempt: “Knew of his ‘family’ ties. He told you of a second assassin?”

  “Yes, Werner gave me a name. It’s a name I’m familiar with. Which is one reason why I think I can head this thing off.”

  “Head it off?”

  “I can stop the hit from going down. Because I know who it was that came to see me, the upstanding citizen who tried to hire me. And I know who he hired in my place.”

  “I have to do something about this!”

  “No kidding. Look, we can go about this a couple of ways. I can just tell you who these people are, and fade away. You have men on your staff; you might be able to deal with this in-house.”

  I knew he wouldn’t want that; but saying this gave me leverage.

  “What’s the other way?” he asked, sitting forward.

  “I could handle it all. I can take out the other hitter. I can take out those who hired it done, as well.”

  “There… there might be more than one person behind this?”

  “The man who tried to hire me said he was representing a group of patriotic private citizens.”

  He laughed mirthlessly at that. “And you said, this individual spoke of me as a ‘spoiler’-meaning this threat might have come from the right or the left?”

  I nodded.

  “If I… were to turn you loose on this, to handle it as you wish… what would be in it for you, besides a certain satisfaction?”

  I shrugged. “Well, the revenge factor is going to work in your favor. That ‘certain satisfaction’ you mentioned is going to make a hell of a perk. So all I need is ten grand. And you don’t owe me anything unless I deliver.”

  Those spooky blues studied me suspiciously. “You said you were offered a million dollars.”

  “Ten grand for the assassin. Ten more for whoever hired him.”

  “That’s still only twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Feel free to tip.”

  “Will they… look like accidents?”

  “Not necessarily. No frills. Dead is dead.”

  He blew out a stream of smoke and raised his eyebrows and considered the ceiling’s open beams. “You know the name of the man who came to see you,” he said.

  “That’s right. I did some snooping today.”

  “Are you a detective, or an assassin, Mr. Quarry?”

  “Necessity has turned me into a little of both, Mr. Freed. Now do you want my help? Or do you want to handle this yourself, in which case I’ll have to ask a finder’s fee of five grand, if you want the names I know.”

  He was thinking.

  “Or,” I said, “I can just walk out of here, fade into the forest and out of your life. You can choose to not believe me. Or try to deal with this yourself, without the names.”

  He was shaking his head no. “I would like, Mr. Quarry, for you to handle this. But I wish to know none of the… messier details.”

  “That’s best for all concerned.”

  “I would, however, like to know the name of the man who came to see you. Who tried to hire you.”

  “You agree to my terms? Ten grand with a ten grand bonus?”

  “Yes.”

  I drew my upper lip back across my teeth; it was my very worst smile. “Guess what I do if somebody reneges on me.”

  “I think I can guess that quite easily, Mr. Quarry.”

  “His name is George Ridge.”

  He sat up. Turned ashen.

  “George Ridge,” he intoned. “George…”

  “You were friends once.”

  “Yes… yes, we were. He was one of my staunchest supporters..”

  “And something went wrong.” />
  He stood, began slowly to wander amidst the framed political posters and memorabilia. “How much do you know about me-that is, about my party?”

  “I’m not political, Mr. Freed. I just don’t care.”

  He ignored that. “You must understand-I am thought of, in most quarters, these days, as right-wing. That is a gross simplification. It is an attempt by the powers-that-be, of both major political camps, in league with the media, to defuse my efforts; the Illuminati understand that a third political party, not beholden to the bankers and the mobsters, with a real candidate, not some rehearsed synthetic one, threatens their stranglehold on America, on the world.”

  “Mr. Freed…”

  “I have a ten-year plan, Mr. Quarry,” he said, and his voice, his presence, added up to something persuasive, despite the loony tunes text. “I must keep it, or humanity is doomed. It is unlikely-though not impossible-that I will secure the Presidency this year; but in the following election, I can and must win-and global alliances are but a step away.”

  “Yeah, right. Look…”

  “I’m keeping this simple, Mr. Quarry, because you say you are not political. But you live in a world, a society, controlled by politics. What is politics but human relationships? Make love not war, we once said; but both are politics!”

  “Right. What about George Ridge?”

  He looked out the window into darkness. “We were great friends. You must understand that my political adventure began in the sixties-in Far Left groups; you may recall the SDS, where both George and I were quite active, where George and I met, in fact. But the SDS seemed to us not to be accomplishing its stated goals, and we broke away. This was at Berkeley, where we formed Strikeforce Freedom, to weed out the leftist groups who were only paying lip service to the cause.”