And she was careful with her appearance, all right. Her coat was white leather with a white fur collar, her long legs in black-and-white geometrically patterned bell bottoms, her boots white leather with heels. Her long dark hair went halfway down her back, straight as a waterfall, the mane of a lanky lioness. Her complexion was olive, almost tan, whether from some vacation she’d grabbed or just her natural state, I couldn’t say.
Alice had been cute, perky, if psychotic. Annette was a different animal, and not the short, plump Italian Mouseketeer Frankie Avalon had tried to beach ball. This was a fashion-model type, her oval face, her full dark-lipsticked mouth, her big brown eyes, her well-shaped dark eyebrows, a study in symmetry.
Teaching assistant my ass.
He came down out of the cottage to meet her, and the bathrobe had been replaced by a tan leisure suit with a brown shirt with one of those collars that could put an eye out. Both eyes.
He came down, his breath pluming in the cold-the temperature had dropped some-and slipped an arm around her shoulders and led her up and inside. She had a little brown briefcase with her, so perhaps they were just going to work.
Three hours later they were still in there.
I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I was getting bored. Surveillance was not what I’d bargained for, though the Broker had made it clear sitting watch would come into play from time to time in this line of work. Anyway, I was getting bored and itchy and frankly curious.
So I stuffed the nine millimeter in my waistband, zipped the cord jacket over it, and went out the back way and cut through some undeveloped wooded property until I could cross the street a quarter of a mile away, and come up behind the cobblestone house and peek in a window or two.
Which is exactly what I did.
They were in a small room that I would best describe as a study-lots of books on shelves, and a big rolltop desk littered with more books and manuscript pages and a typewriter with a ream of white typing paper next to it. That’s where he was sitting.
So maybe they were working, right?
Well, she was anyway. She was in pink panties on her knees, blowing the guy, his leisure suit pants around his ankles.
Fuck, I would have killed this lucky prick for free.
TWO
I have a pretty good memory. I can recall conversations well, at least well enough to write them down for your benefit and have them pass muster. Same is true of people, their physical descriptions and the sounds of their voices and even what they were wearing-it all seems to stick.
But I don’t remember the exact words when the Broker came around to that little two-room apartment and recruited me for his team, even though it was one of the more important conversations of my life.
That was a bad period for me. For the month or so I’d been living in a rough patch of L.A., alternating between staying in bed feeling sorry for myself, watching daytime TV (game shows, not soaps), eating TV dinners, and venturing forth looking for women who were willing to fuck me for free, even if a certain venereal after-fee might get tacked on.
I was also drinking heavily, which is something I don’t normally do. In fact, I am more a soft drink kind of guy, though I do like wine, on special occasions, like New Year’s Eve or getting back from Vietnam.
And getting back from Vietnam is where I should start, really, to fill you in a little on how I became somebody who killed people for money. Or I should say somebody who killed people for good money, because in Nam I killed people for shit change, didn’t I? And the only person I ever killed for free was probably the only one that really counted, the only one that really mattered, and that I truly enjoyed doing.
Before I went over, I’d been stationed on the West Coast, and that’s where I met the California girl who became my bride. It was one of those whirlwind romances that are passionate and romantic and run to montages in the movies where the couples are hand in hand on the beach and in the park and share one ice cream cone with pop songs playing in the background. In our case it would have been something by the Association, “Cherish” maybe, though “No Fair At All” would have been more like it.
Because when I got home to our little bungalow in La Mirada, a day early, meaning to surprise my darling girl, I got surprised myself because she was in bed with a guy named Williams. I didn’t know his name was Williams at the time, but when I asked around the neighborhood later that day, I got filled in fast. He lived in La Mirada, too, just a couple blocks away, which is one reason why his car wasn’t in my sweetie’s driveway.
Another reason was that, at the moment, his car wasn’t running right. The next morning he and it were in his own driveway, Williams under the spiffy little sportscar, on his back working on its rear end-a coincidence, because the day before he’d been working on my wife’s rear end-and he looked up at me from under there, the buggy jacked up with the back wheels off, and gave me this look, which I read as contemptuous, and commented, “I got nothing to say to you, bunghole,” which didn’t take much reading at all, and I said, “Fine,” and kicked out the fucking jack.
That almost caused me some trouble. Had I killed the prick still in the sack with my wife, I’d have been in a better position to claim temporary insanity and irresistible impulse and suchlike. Instead, after I’d found them together in what I’d presumed was my bed, I’d walked off and settled down and thought about it overnight and gone around to his house the next day and crushed the fucker under his car.
That got me arrested, though I explained that if I’d gone over there to do anything but talk, I would have taken a gun. I’d killed his ass, all right, but it wasn’t premeditated. He’d just gotten on my wrong side, calling me a bunghole and being generally disrespectful, and the thing hadn’t been planned. Not calculated at all. It was just he said “Fuck you” in his way and I said “Fuck you” in mine-only mine took on a more physical form.
The media had a whale of a time with it, and the public was on my side, so there was no trial. The war wasn’t popular, sure, but Johnny couldn’t be expected to come marching home and not get pissed off catching some son of a bitch fucking his wife. So the D.A. dropped it, saying it would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money, and then some fuss followed, since a public servant can’t really win in a situation like that. Damned if you do…
Only there was a backlash against me. I couldn’t find work, not that I was qualified for anything except shooting yellow people from atop brown trees between green fronds. Sure, I’d worked in garages as a high school kid and was a pretty good pick-up mechanic, certainly qualified to pump gas and learn on the job. But nobody was interested, not even where Williams used to work as a mechanic, and it wasn’t like they didn’t have an opening.
By the way, I had nothing to do with my wife after that. At this point I didn’t want to kill her any more than I wanted to fuck her (though fuck her and kill her had flashed through my mind as an option, on reflection not a terribly good one) and she divorced me. Hey, she had grounds.
The first week I was in that little two-room shithole, my old man came out from Ohio and looked me up. We’d had a pretty good relationship over the years; I’d lettered in swimming in high school and that had pleased him (he’d been an athlete in college). I maintained a B average and I didn’t get any girls pregnant, which was the very definition of a good kid. He was out of town on business a lot, so we weren’t maybe as close as some fathers and sons. But we didn’t hate each other, like a lot of my friends and their dads.
He’d hit a bad slump around 1967 in his business-he had a little real estate agency-and that had made putting me through college a non-starter. He advised me to enlist and then I’d have Uncle Sam’s help with college, and that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Anyway, he knew about the trouble I’d been in, even though it didn’t hit the national press, and came to see me with a very special message: “Don’t come home.” He would have been cool with it, but my stepmother (a wealthy widow he’d snagged who’d made his bu
siness worries go away) had found me off-putting even before I started kicking jacks out.
“You’re a man,” he’d said. “You understand about women.”
I almost said, Why don’t you reflect on my current situation, Dad, and see if you still think I understand about women. But I didn’t.
“I just want you to know,” he said right before he departed my fleabag Shangri-la, “I’m proud of what you did in the service of your country.”
So killing a bunch of Cong who were strangers to me, squeezing off rounds and shattering and splattering their noggins like melons at target practice back home, that was fine, that made sense. Killing that prick Williams, who had needed killing, who I had a reason for killing, that was wrong.
That may have been when the gears shifted in my skull and made me view things from my own admittedly off-kilter perspective. Society sanctioned killing strangers in war, but didn’t like it when you took out some bastard you knew who richly deserved it. To me that’s hypocritical, but what the hell, that’s just my take on it.
So the Broker.
He knocked on my door. At that stage in my existence, I didn’t even bother to take a gun with me. This joint couldn’t afford peepholes, either, so I just opened the door and there he stood, an apparition of success: six two and broad-shouldered, with stark-white hair made starker by a tropical tan and a gray double-knit suit and a darker stripes of gray tie, as distinguished as a guy in a bourbon ad in Playboy.
He called me “Mister,” and used my real name, which is none of your fucking business. He had the damnedest face, too young for the white hair, long and fleshy but largely unlined, and his eyes were light blue, like arctic waters, or anyway like I figured arctic waters would look.
I do remember he said, “I have an unusual opportunity for you, Mr.. A money-making opportunity.”
And I remember my answer: “Amway’s not my thing, Mac. Try next door. There’s a hooker with some real sales experience.”
But he talked his way in, and we sat at the little scarred-up table where I had my TV dinners and the rum I was mixing with Coca-Cola, a twelve-ounce can of Coke lasting longer than a bottle of Bacardi.
I took him for forty, despite the white hair, but came to find out fifty was more like it. He had the manner of a well-heeled lawyer or maybe a politician, and I do recall he began with a fairly lengthy diatribe on how poorly I’d been treated by, well, just about everybody-my wife, the press, the legal system, even my family, and how the hell did he know that?
Another thing I remember is the chill I felt, when I realized this guy had researched me. Who was I, for anybody to look into me? But the Broker had it all down, chapter and verse, and now it gets vague in my memory. He didn’t come straight out and ask me if I was interested in killing people for hire, of course not; it was more like, How would you like to make real money at home doing what you did for almost no money overseas?
Looking back, I was ripe for the Broker. I might have gone in any direction about then. Maybe if that had been Amway at the door, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’d have gone off into some other form of lunacy. But it was the Broker who caught me at just the right time, thank God.
And, anyway, Amway or the Witnesses wouldn’t have offered me an advance of fifty thousand dollars. That was attractive to a guy living in two dingy rooms. So was the notion that half a dozen jobs a year would bring in another fifteen thousand or so; and when the fifty K had earned out (I’d be getting only half of each fee till it was), I’d be at thirty a year, minimum. The average yearly income for an honest man was under ten grand.
I would have a bogus job to pay taxes for, though I wouldn’t have to record my real income, the bulk of which would be in cash. I would be a salesman with a sample case and could even call on clients if need be, to establish a cover. My wares? Lingerie. That made the Broker smile, and I smiled, too, but just to be nice.
The Broker, you see, was “a sort of an agent,” a middleman in the murder business, insulation between client and killer. I would not know the client’s name, and the client would not know mine.
That had been two months ago. In the meantime I had bought a house, a little pre-fab A-frame cottage on a small lake in Wisconsin. When summer rolled around, that lake would be nice to swim in, but in the meantime I joined the YMCA at nearby Lake Geneva, and swam every day. It was my only exercise and perhaps my only passion. It relaxed me, and helped me think, when I was so inclined, but didn’t demand it of me, if I wasn’t.
The A-frame was perfect for my needs. This particular lake was underdeveloped and I had a lot of privacy, though I anticipated the warm months would be anything but private. On the other hand, that Lake Geneva was a vacation area suited me. I liked the idea of having access to good-looking college girls who could come and go. I got a kick out of the Playboy Club, and would dress up a little and get that James Bond vibe on, Bunnies dipping to serve up a drink and a view of the hills of heaven, name entertainers taking the stage, and the food a big step up from what I could rustle up for myself.
Life at the A-frame was dull and that suited me fine. I had television, although the reception was poor and I would eventually have to put in an antenna half the size of the place, and I liked to read, Harold Robbins and paperback westerns and science fiction, mostly, nothing heavy. I was living a life of leisure and started thinking the Broker was just this crazy asshole who went around spreading demented stories and piles of cash. Like that guy on TV when I was a kid-the Millionaire. Writes you a check and then disappears. Cool.
But the Broker didn’t disappear. He called and summoned me; I felt like I’d been tapped for jury duty.
I had a little green Opel GT that had cost me about four grand of that fifty Broker had given me, and I drove it to the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities, specifically Davenport, where as per instructions I checked into a ten-story hotel called the Concort Inn near the government bridge. The Broker either owned the place or had a piece of the action-at least that was my theory. Because he seemed to feel perfectly comfortable meeting with me openly at the hotel, even housing me there.
I liked the hotel. The room I’d been provided was spacious, nicely furnished in an anonymous modern way, with a view of the Mississippi River where you could see the other cities across the way. The television reception was outstanding, and the room service wasn’t bad, either. The swimming pool was medium-size and the water was too warm, but nice to have, anyway.
You might think the Broker would come to my room to confab, but on this occasion, at least, he had me meet him in the lounge downstairs, a Gay ‘90s-theme bar with a modest nightclub-style dance floor and stage. At 3:30 p.m., the place was closed and we had the whole room to ourselves, just us and the gaudy San Francisco whorehouse decor. Broker was already ensconced in a red faux-leather button-tufted booth, his double-knit suit tan, his wide silk tie shades of tan and brown.
He was organized, the Broker. A pot of coffee for him and a glass of ice with two bottles of Coke waiting at my seat. The bottles were unopened, but of course an opener on a napkin was nearby. On Broker’s side of the table, a pack of Viceroys and a gold Zippo and an ashtray were poised for his use.
The baritone was warm and mellow: “Accommodations suit you, Quarry?”
That was the name Broker had started calling me. Whether it was a first name or last never came up- but the Broker was usually polite, so the absence of a “mister” in front of it may have indicated first. I had a feeling it was a sort of code name for the Broker, who did have a cute streak-a single-o, like Liberace or Tarzan or Cher.
Or Broker.
“Swell,” I said. “Pretty nice hotel, considering the neighborhood.”
A seedy warehouse district was nearby.
The Broker shrugged. “The traffic flow is ideal, and with the bridge right here? People who come to the Cities with business to do at the Arsenal find it most convenient.”
The Rock Island Arsenal was a major employer in the Quad Cities. I figured I was right-t
he Broker had a piece of this place, otherwise why the knee-jerk puff job?
I glanced around at the red brocade wallpaper; you could see people moving out in the kitchen through windows in steel doors. “This is a little public, isn’t it? Not exactly where I expected us to meet.”
He waved a hand heavy with gold and diamonds in Pope-like benediction. “There’ll be no dark alleys, Quarry. We’re business associates. No need for paranoia, discretion suffices. I have enough clout around here that we can meet in comfort and relative seclusion without having to resort to ridiculously surreptitious measures.”
“Yeah, that would suck.”
He was studying me. His smile went up and his white mustache drooped down. A hundred years ago, this was a man who’d have bought and sold slaves. But I wasn’t perfect, either.
He said, “Judging by your confident demeanor, I would say you’ve had no second thoughts about the direction of our business relationship.”
“I spent a bunch of the money,” I said. I worked the opener on one of the Cokes and it made a pop. I could say it sounded like a gunshot, for dramatic effect, but it didn’t, really. “So I’m in. There’s a job?”
“A first job,” he said, and he chuckled, as if he were about to tell his twelve-year-old son about the birds and the bees. “And the first job is of course the most important.”
“Really? I’d think the final job.”
His brow furrowed. “And I do wish, right out of the gate like this, that I had something… simple for you. Something straightforward and not at all complex. Although I admit seeing how you handle a challenge will be instructive all around.”
I frowned. “My understanding was that my role would always be pretty straightforward. And never complex.”
The Broker reached for the pack of cigarettes and selected one and lighted it up with the golden Zippo. “Life is inherently complex. The human organism itself is complex, with enough moving parts to make the inner workings of a Swiss watch seem about as complicated as a slingshot. And human relationships…my God, they are even more complex than that!”
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