Stone’s other quirk? He liked to swim. He would invariably stay at a hotel or motel with a pool, an indoor one this time of year; the relaxation, the soothing, meditative qualities of it were something Stone craved. I had, in fact, picked up the same habit. It wasn’t the only thing Stone had taught me, but in a way it was the most important. Swimming was a constant in my life: in Lake Paradise in the summer months, at the Y in Lake Geneva other months. And like Stone, I would tend to seek out an indoor pool wherever I was staying on a job.
I had swum last night, and today, at the Blackhawk’s pool, relaxing and staking the place out at the same time, my nine-millimeter wrapped in a towel, poolside.
No Stone.
I had also spent some of my time hanging around the non-video arcade below the lobby of the Blackhawk; a shoe shine stand with four seats was unattended and I plopped myself down and watched the world go by. It was a world Stone wasn’t part of.
And I wasn’t surprised, really. Not much by way of recon was necessary on this gig. It would take Stone about five minutes to map it all out, the Bix Beiderbecke Room right next to the steps up to the parking garage, Christ. It was too easy.
By now it was eight-thirty and George Ridge had not been on any of the four flights that arrived so far. The next one would be in at nine-fifteen. I stood and stretched, bones popping in my back. I folded the paper under my arm and walked a bit.
Speaking of video arcades, the airport had its own small one next to the gift shop. I peeked in, and Stone wasn’t there, either. I let out a short laugh at my own expense. As a detective, I made a good hitter. I fed some quarters into several of the machines; there was a Ms. Pac Man that I did pretty well on, but couldn’t make the scoreboard. I checked my watch. Not quite nine. I put some quarters into a game based on the cartoon character Popeye. It was pretty good-Bluto and Olive Oyl were on hand, behaving in character, namely Olive Oyl was a whiney bitch and Bluto was a brutal cheat. I got the hang of it quickly, and on my third quarter made it to the hardest level, a pirate ship. On my fourth quarter I made the scoreboard.
Hot damn, I said to myself, as I punched in three letters (all you were allowed): RYN, for Ryan. I was number two on the scoreboard.
Number one was STO.
I stared at it, wondering if it were some guy’s initials or… no, it couldn’t be Stone… could it?
I went back to my seat and hid behind the Times, waiting, the gun rubbing under my shoulder. People came and went. So did the nine-fifteen flight, which did not get in till nine-thirty. No Ridge.
Shortly before ten something disturbing happened: reporters began showing up. Print guys and TV teams from three stations, with minicams in tow. I began wondering what they were here for, and when the ten o’clock flight arrived, Ridge was on it, and they were on him.
My mouth went dry, seeing him again. The same handsome if slightly heavy-set man who’d come calling at my A-frame, every salt-and-pepper hair in place, though he looked tired, drained, even though he was moving quickly.
He had to. The press was swarming him. Ridge was accompanied by two men, who (like him) were dressed in London Fog raincoats over business suits; nonetheless, they had the rough-around-the-edges look of bodyguards, in other words cut from the same cloth as Jordan and Crawford. The bodyguards went to get the luggage while Ridge cut quickly through the reporters, smiling somberly, answering a few questions but not lingering.
He hadn’t noticed me, which was one small blessing. I hadn’t figured on the reporters. If I’d been thinking I would have known that the Quad Cities was just small enough an area, and Ridge large enough a local celebrity, for the “boating accident” of the day before to have attracted regional media attention. It had already gotten big play in the local papers, after all.
I followed on the heels of the reporters through automatic doors out into the chilly night and watched, with a sick sinking feeling, as Ridge climbed into a chauffeured limo, a sleek black stretch Lincoln. The bastard wasn’t even waiting for his luggage!
Weaving between cars and taxis, I ran across the several lanes that separated the airport from its vast parking lot, hurtled a low cement fence and was soon in the Sunbird, behind several cars in line, waiting to pay the parking fee. I kept an eye on that limo, saw it caught behind some traffic in the exit lane nearby. Another small favor.
I was able to slide in behind the limo at the stoplight, planning to keep at least one car between us for the ride to wherever we were going. Then, oddly, the limo turned almost immediately, wheeling into the airport Howard Johnson’s. We weren’t going far at all. George Ridge lived in a big, Frank Lloyd Wrightish home on the so-called Heights in Davenport, up above where Werner had lived, with a magnificent view of the Mississippi. He had not been home for several days, but rather than retire to his modernistic castle, he was being dropped off at a room at a Howard Johnson’s.
Interesting.
I moved along by, while Ridge got out of the limo, shooing it on its way. He stood there in his London Fog, on the sidewalk by the first-floor rooms on the west side of the motel. He withdrew something from an inside pocket; light glinted off it. Soon he was smoking. Then he put the flat silver cigarette case away. He was watching and waiting. Possibly he was watching to see if any of the media people had followed him.
I had pulled into one of the motel stalls and sat in darkness with the nine-millimeter in my lap. I was down a ways from him, but I could see him. I felt myself tightening like a fist, and made myself relax. It was hard to do. I’ve killed people before, as you may have gathered; and usually with utter dispassion. But George Ridge was someone I would enjoy killing. I was sorry only that I was limited to killing him once.
He was nervous. I hoped that was because he knew I was out here somewhere. He just didn’t know how close. That made me smile. He checked his watch. Then, quickly, he slid open one of the glass doors of the room just behind him and stepped in and slid it shut again.
I thought about that. I knew he wasn’t meeting a woman for an affair in there, at least it was unlikely; he was divorced, although I supposed a married woman might be meeting him here. More likely-much more likely-he was meeting with someone about tomorrow’s press conference. Where he’d cast his vote by way of a bullet delivered by a surrogate, putting an end to the candidacy of Preston Freed. Isn’t democracy grand?
The question was, when to go in? If he was meeting with, say, Stone, and I went in, the shooting could start before any questions got asked and answered. And in the motel setting, I’d have to use the suppressor, and that meant the relative slowness of working the gun’s action by hand after every shot. Well, I’d have to make the best of it.
I was about to get out of the car when a figure walked quickly by, in front of my parked Sunbird, heading in the direction of the room Ridge had slipped into. The man was heavy-set and balding but moved with an athlete’s grace. He was about six feet one and was wearing a long black leather topcoat and black slacks. He looked like something out of an Italian western.
He was Stone.
Older. Less hair, and what there was of it grayed, the widow’s peak a casualty of time; and heavier. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I was heavier myself, although not that much heavier. I had given the hotel desk clerks descriptions of Stone as I had known him perhaps a dozen years ago. I had not allowed for-and, in fairness to myself, could not foresee the exact nature of-the effect of time.
Stone’s hands slid open one sliding door. That meant he was expected: otherwise those doors would be locked. He ducked in there.
I crouched between two cars, nine-millimeter in hand, watching the glass doors, draped, shut, possibly locked now, perhaps ten feet away. I was trying to decide how to go in-the room number was no problem, it was posted above the glass doors, 114-when Stone came back out, moving quickly.
His face was white. Stone was naturally pale, but not that pale; and his eyes were round and wild.
He ran back the way he came, not past where I was now cr
ouching, not seeing me, and moments later I heard a car start up and tires squealed and I glanced back and saw a sporty little cinnamon car-a Dodge, maybe-flash by, and he was gone.
The glass doors were not only unlocked, one remained open, the cold breeze making the blue drape flap like a ghost.
I stepped in quickly, fanning the nine-millimeter around, easing the door shut behind me with a gloved hand. Other than Ridge, the room was empty, but I checked the bathroom, including shower stall, and closet. Nobody there.
Just Ridge.
Ridge, who was on the floor next to the bed on his back, still in his London Fog raincoat, which was appropriate, because his throat was raining blood. He’d been cut from ear to ear, an obscene scarlet grin below the sorrowful frown and empty open eyes of the late George Ridge. The only real estate in his future would be a cemetery plot.
And there’d be no talking to him now; no questions, no answers.
Shit!
I wouldn’t even get to kill the fucker once.
17
I dove into the pool, into the deep; no diving board, just off the edge. Sign said NO DIVING but another said NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY, and I’d broken rules before. A nice clean dive, and I stayed under, swam the length of the pool that way and came up in the shallow.
The pool room was steamy, the lighting subdued, the blues and grays of the tile floor and the brown of the brick walls as soothing as the heated pool itself. Skylights above revealed the night; this was a small rectangular room, taken up mostly by the small rectangular pool. It was after eleven now, midnight approached, and I had the place to myself. The glass wall, separating the pool room from the beige-brick parking-garage entry area, was steamed up; but the occasional shapes of people, going to and from their cars, to and from the hotel, could be made barely out, smudgy apparitions haunting the hall.
I swam laps for a while. Very easily. I don’t push myself when I swim. Exercise is not the point for me. Relaxation is. It helps me not to think, when that’s what I want; and it helps me to think, when that’s what I want-the way they used to claim a sensory deprivation tank would bring you in closer touch with yourself. I was in close touch with myself already, thanks, but I did like the way the water and the warmth slowed my thoughts and at the same time brought them clarity.
I had told no one about finding Ridge’s body, having left as quickly as I arrived, apparently unseen. I considered calling Freed, and I would tell him, but now was not the time.
But I had called Angela Jordan, albeit not to tell her about Ridge. I’d apologized for calling so late-ten-thirty is late to make a phone call, anyway in the Midwest it is-and asked her how she was doing.
“Just fair,” she said “The girls… especially Kristie… are just devastated. Mom’s staying here with me. With us. Thank God for her. It’s been just awful.”
“Have there been arrangements to make?”
“No, not really. Bob’s parents are taking care of everything-there’s a memorial service Wednesday.”
“I didn’t know if I’d catch you at home,” I said. “I kind of thought you might be at the funeral home or something.”
“No. There’s no… body, remember?”
Actually, there was a body-partially cremated in my A-frame; by now, no doubt, it was buried in a grave with one of my names on it.
“It’ll be a church service,” she was saying. “I.. don’t get along with Bob’s folks very well. I mean, I’m not the wife, I’m the ex-wife. But the girls aren’t his ex-daughters, so… aw, jeez. This has just been a horrible day.”
I was about to make it even worse.
“What if I said I thought your husband’s death was not an accident.”
A stunned silence followed, briefly.
Then, in a somewhat accusatory tone: “What do you mean?”
“What if I said I thought it was murder.”
“Murder? Murder? I know Bob was involved in some… rough things sometimes, but…”
“And what if I said I thought I knew who was respon- sible.”
“Jack, what are you saying?”
“What if I said I couldn’t prove it, and that there was no way we could go to the police about it.”
There was firmness in her voice now: “Jack, if you know something, we’re going to the police. Right now-no discussion.”
“Forget I mentioned it.”
“Forget you… Jack, I’m coming there to talk to you.”
That’s what I wanted anyway.
“Okay,” I said. “Make it midnight in the lobby of the Blackhawk. I’ll spell things out.”
She’d agreed to that. I’d called her from my room. Now I needed that swim. To relax. To think. And for another reason.
I sat in the shallow section, my head out of water, rest of me under, and waited. Played a hunch. I was starting to feel foolish, not to mention wrinkled, when I was suddenly not alone.
Another guest of the hotel invaded my dank, until-then solitary chamber. As I had hoped he might. He was six-foot or so, a pale, potbellied, balding man wearing a dark blue knee-length terry cloth robe and black thong sandals. Something heavy was in one pocket of his robe; the right. His face was pockmarked, his chin cleft.
He was the man I’d known as (among other things) Stone.
He took off the robe and draped it carefully across a yellow deck chair. Stepped out of his sandals and, ignoring the sign just as had I, dove into the water. Graceful as an Olympic diver, if considerably fatter.
He ignored me entirely, started doing laps, arms cutting the surface; he didn’t take it as easy as I did, rather made the water churn. I sat there in the waves he made, watching.
Finally, he came up for air in the shallow, came up gulping air, actually, like a heavy, getting-older man would do, and glanced over at me.
The glance turned into a fixed expression, as his slate-gray, oriental-cast eyes locked onto me. The skin around them tensed.
“Quarry?” he asked.
“Stone,” I said and nodded.
He smiled briefly, as if about to say “Small world,” but the smile and the thought didn’t survive long.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. Flatly.
“Having a swim.”
“Besides that.”
“It’s a long story. How about a sauna?”
He looked at me through slits. “Ever drown anybody, Quarry?”
“I threw a TV in a bathtub once. A soap opera was playing.”
“Somebody in the tub at the time?”
“What would’ve been the point if there wasn’t?”
He twitched a smile, shrugged. Said, “I could stand to sweat off some flab.”
We left the pool area and entered the small sauna that was off the short hall to the showers, johns and lockers. He was in his robe again. I was in my trunks, carrying my rolled-up towel under my arm; tightly under my arm. In the towel was the nine-millimeter. No suppressor. The towel, and a contact wound, would make it unnecessary.
We had the redwood cubicle to ourselves-just me and Stone and the heating stones; we selected the higher of two shelves, sat side by side on the slatted wood. I sat on the right, he on the left; that put my rolled-up gun-in-towel under my right hand.
He left the robe on. The heat was dry, and thick enough to slice-if you had a knife.
He sat hunched, looked up at me, his strange eyes placid. “You still in the business, Quarry?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was in retirement, but somebody tried to get me to make a comeback. To do one special job.”
“Really. Isn’t that flattering.”
“Hope to shout. Million-dollar contract.”
His eyes flickered.
“I’ll tell you about it,” I said.
And did.
There were parts I left out: I didn’t tell him I’d contacted Freed and was working for the candidate; and I didn’t tell him anything about Angela Jordan. I also did
n’t mention trailing George Ridge from the airport tonight (and all that entailed). But the rest I gave him.
He sat and sweated and considered what I’d said. It had taken almost five minutes, and he hadn’t interrupted once.
Now he said, “I’m sorry about your wife. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you.”
He shook his head no. Moisture beads flew off his forehead. “Like you said: you were a loose end. They tried to tie you off.”
“You don’t think you’ll be an immediate loose end yourself? You really think you’ll survive this, to spend your dough?”
“They’ve already put up half the dough. Up front.”
“Half a million bucks?”
“That’s right. In a numbered Swiss account.”
I’d only been offered a paltry hundred grand-but in cash.
“How are they supposed to pay the balance?”
“A deposit to that account.”
“They’ll find you,” I said, “and have you killed.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You think you’re smarter than they are?”
“Yeah. And you.”
“Where I failed, you’ll succeed, you think.”
“You didn’t fail, Quarry. They didn’t kill you. You killed them.”
“Like you killed Ridge tonight?”
That threw him. And this was a Stone not easily thrown.
“I didn’t kill him,” he said, sitting back, resting his hands on his knees; that put his right hand near the right, somewhat weighted-down pocket of the robe.
“I saw Ridge go in, and I saw you go in, and I went in after you took off.”
“You get around.”
“But you know, I never knew you to kill with a knife. How’d you manage that? You didn’t even get blood on you.”
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