I followed him through the lobby, down a couple of halls, and saw him stop to knock at one of the rooms. I walked on by, rather quickly, not especially wanting Ash to see me when he opened the door to let Brooks in.
I heard Ash say, “Can I fix you a drink, Brooks?” in a tone as embarrassingly chummy as it was contrite, and the door closed before Brooks could answer, if he did answer at all.
So. Brooks was pissed off, and Ash was apologetic. What that added up to was interesting enough to make me take back my negative reaction to the lawyer showing up here today.
Obviously, Brooks was here because Ash and the backup man had fucked up last night, and the man’s irritation was, of course, directly related to that. Which not only connected Brooks to Ash and the backup man and a proposed hit, but seemed to suggest Brooks was higher on the chain of command than Ash, confirming once and for all Ash was not the new Broker, and at the same time supplying a replacement candidate: Curtis Brooks himself.
But then, as an attorney, Brooks was a professional go-between, so by no means was it safe to assume he was the one who had taken over for Broker. Perhaps it was more likely that he had simply stayed along for the ride when the control of the Broker’s operation shifted to someone else.
I went back out to the parking lot, back to my old stand, sitting in the Buick watching and waiting, just one more time. When Brooks came out of there, I’d go in.
And an hour later, Brooks came out, and I started getting out of the Buick, and saw Ash following on the lawyer’s heels. Brooks still seemed irritated, but somewhat cooled down. Ash seemed less than totally subservient, but was obviously still trying to placate the man. They spoke for a few minutes, or rather Ash spoke and Brooks somewhat patiently listened, and then they got in their separate cars and drove out of the lot.
I followed.
Both men headed toward downtown Davenport, and once there, at the bottom of the hill, they split up, Brooks driving off toward the left, Ash to the right. I stayed with Ash, followed him onto Third, a one-way that began commercial and dwindled into residential. Ash stopped in an area where commercial and residential were uncomfortably commingled, and went into a diner, whose neon glowed the words “Chop Suey House” even in the afternoon.
I pulled in behind his LTD, and watched through the smudged windows of the place as he found a booth in the back. Inside the front window, two Oriental men in damp white outfits with aprons as smudged as the windows worked short-order style behind the counter, at a stove where two black metal woks were steaming, while nearby griddle and French-frying setups sizzled and smoked.
I went in, and the heat from cooking in that confined boxcar of a little room was overwhelming. One of the Orientals behind the counter greeted me, but I had no idea what he was trying to say. I greeted him, and he seemed to have no idea what I was trying to say.
It was well after lunch hour, and there were only a few people in the place, which at peak could hold maybe twenty-five. Ash was sitting in his back booth, face buried in the menu. He had taken off the coat of his expensive suit, and his shirt was long-sleeved and pastel yellow and his tie was a stylish brown and blue pattern. Every hair on his head was in place, a sandy red tapestry woven to conceal his bald spot.
He hadn’t seen me yet.
I sat down across from him and said, “Still go for that Chink shit, do you?”
He looked up and blinked and said, “Hello Quarry,” and went back to his menu.
“That’s some car you’re driving,” I said.
He put the menu down, smiled. He seemed a little worn out, probably a combination of fucking up last night, and just having had to go through some sort of song and dance for the lawyer. “It gulps the gas, though,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re right. Some car. You like it, Quarry?”
“The car? LTD’s not my style. I like a sportier number.”
“Like that little fuckin’ Opel of yours, you mean.”
“Like that. Only I traded it in.”
“What you driving, now?”
“That Buick, parked behind you.” I pointed a thumb at the greasy window next to us, through which the two cars could be made out, barely.
“That’s the kind of car you’re partial to driving on a job, Quarry. You on a job?”
“Not exactly.”
“Hey, let me order for you. You don’t know Chinese food like I do. This little dump’s supposed to be the best Chinese joint in town. I checked around. So leave it to me.”
And about then an Oriental woman, who managed to look attractive despite her greasy white outfit and sweating brow, and who was somewhere between twenty and forty in age, asked us what we wanted, and Ash told her.
“So,” Ash said, when she was gone, “you’re not dead, Quarry.’’
“Not that you’d notice.”
“Ha! Well, I want you to know I had nothing to do with that.”
“With what?”
“Those two guys who came around to try and whack you out.”
“That gives me a warm feeling inside, knowing that.”
“Come on. What was I supposed to do? Warn you?”
“That would have been nice.”
“Fuck. Who you tryin’ to kid? In this business, anybody’s a potential victim. You. Me. Those gooks over there, cookin’ their butts off. Anybody. And people like you and me, we do what the guy with the money says to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“But you knew in advance, they’d be coming around? Explain that.”
“I was the one who set it up.”
“You’re sure as hell hard to get information out of.”
“What, do you think I’d fuck around lying to you? I set it up. Somebody hired me to set it up, I mean.”
“Who?”
“That, I can’t tell you. You know that, Quarry.”
“I guess I do.”
“But, like I said, I had nothing to do with it. You know, nothing personal.”
“I know.”
“I knew you weren’t dead, when Lynch and Beatty didn’t call in, afterwards. I figured they were at the bottom of some lake up there. That was no surprise. But I sure didn’t expect you to come around here.”
“What did you expect?”
“I expected you’d take it on the lam, what else? Just get the fuck out, go bury your head in Canada or Mexico or something, take your money, and make a new life or something.”
“What money?”
“The money you saved from all your jobs.”
“I spent most of that.”
“Well, then, the money you made off of killing the Broker.”
“I didn’t kill the Broker.”
“Okay, you didn’t kill him. Whatever you say.”
“Somebody figures I did, though.”
“Right. And if you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“A punk kid named Carl.”
“The Broker’s bodyguard?”
“Yeah. He was trying to shoot me, and I put the Broker between me and him.”
“Well, you did kill the Broker, then, in a way.”
“In a way.”
“Why was the Broker’s bodyguard shooting at you?”
“I told the Broker I was quitting. He thought I was pulling something, and was going to have me put away. It didn’t work out the way he had in mind.”
“Hey, that’s a good story. Maybe the guy that put the contract on you would even buy it. I don’t think so, though.”
“Would it be worth a try?”
“Why the fuck ask me? I’m just another employee.”
“I heard you took over for Broker.”
“You heard wrong.”
Our food came. Sweet and sour shrimp.
“What’d I tell you?” Ash said, his mouth full.
“It’s good food,” I said.
“Look. I’ll do this much for you. I’ll pretend I didn’t run into you. I’ll just look the other way, while you leave.”
“Can I finish my food first?”
“Fuck, yes.”
“And then I just take all that money I made off killing the Broker, and go to Canada or Mexico.”
“Wherever you want. It’s your money.”
“There isn’t any money. But suppose there was. Suppose I killed Broker, and got money for it. Why should anybody care?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“I want to talk to the man you’re working for. “
“Why?”
“I want to find out exactly why he wants me dead. I want to explain what really happened with the Broker.”
“Then what?”
“Who knows? If he’s taking over, maybe I’ll want my old job back.”
“I don’t know, Quarry.”
“Ask him.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’d be a good idea to ask him.”
“What the fuck… you threatening me, Quarry? What kind of shit is that?”
“You didn’t ask me yet when I got in town.”
“When’d you get in town?”
“Couple days ago.”
“Couple days ago. What you been doin’, since you got in town?”
“Nothing. Looking at dirty pictures and playing with myself.”
“You’ll go blind.”
“I’ll cover one eye.”
“What the fuck you tryin’ to say, Quarry? What you been up to, around here?”
“Nothing. Vacationing. You know. Sightseeing.”
“Sightseeing? In the Quad fucking Cities?”
“Sure. I got this camera. I take pictures of the sights.”
“What sort of sights?”
“Oh, like the river. Important buildings. Classic old homes. Like that brown brick number, up on the hill. You know. That place that looks like some sort of castle or something.”
“When do you want to talk to him?”
“Give me a number I can call.”
He got out a pen and wrote a number on a napkin. “Call this afternoon. Before four.”
“I’ll call sometime before midnight.”
“Whatever.”
“I want to thank you for your help, old buddy.”
“It’s okay. After all, you saved my life once.”
“It was nothing. Believe me.”
“You think I should’ve warned you, huh? Fuck, Quarry, you better than anybody ought to know it’s not that kind of business.”
“How much does it cost you, to get your hair puffed up like that, Ash? Covers up that shiny spot terrific.”
“Fuck you, man. I like my car, and my clothes…”
“And your hair.”
“And my fuckin’ hair, too. I’m doing okay, Quarry, and you shouldn’t begrudge me.”
The Oriental woman came with the check.
“Look,” he said, “I realize I owe you, for that time out west. Maybe I can find some way to pay you back for that, in spite of everything.”
I pushed the check over to him. “Just pay for lunch. That’ll make us even.”
I had him leave before I did, and didn’t follow him.
I had somewhere more important to go.
16
He was still up there. Watching. The sun was out again, and would glint occasionally off the binoculars, and that’s how I knew. He was up there, in that dingy little efficiency apartment, on the second floor of that decaying yellow woodpile that used to be a mansion, watching out the window, watching the brown brick house across the way.
I’d been here all afternoon, sitting in the Buick, parked along the street across from where the apartment house parking lot met the castle’s lawn. I was still dressed casually, like a college kid, and the nine-millimeter was in my lap, with Penthouse over it. It was five-thirty, and it had been a boring afternoon, but I’d found out what I came to find out.
They were going through with it.
It was a job that should have been scrapped a couple times already, but they were going through with it.
Last night Ash seriously screwed up, going in to make the kill and finding an empty house. That alone was enough to consider shelving all plans, stepping aside to let some other team come in and handle it, at a later date.
Then today, over a plate of sweet and sour shrimp, he’d learned from me I’d been in town a couple days and had been watching him and his backup man, and knew they were planning to hit somebody in that brown brick house, and had pretended even to have been taking pictures, of ’em, as I went.
And still they were going through with it.
I’d allowed Ash all afternoon to get in touch with his backup, plenty of time to tell the bogus hippie to get the hell out, which was the only logical thing to do in the situation. But here it was five-thirty, and there the guy was, sitting at his window, with his binoculars, watching the brown brick house across the way.
They were going through with it.
In spite of screwing up last night.
In spite of me.
And that meant whoever lived in that brown brick castle over there was somebody pretty goddamn special. Special enough to make a professional like Ash take risks he would normally never think of taking.
Somebody who had something to do with the takeover of Broker’s operation, maybe. Otherwise, what the hell was Ash doing behind a gun? Ash wasn’t a hit man, anymore. He was an organization man. Second in command. Setting jobs up, not carrying them out. Now that Ash was moving up the criminal corporate ladder, it would take some very special target to rate his attention.
I sat there wondering who lived in that brown brick castle, wishing I’d checked into it sooner, not having realized before the importance of the potential victim living in that house, wondering if it would do any good to take down the address and go over to the public library and check the city directory, where I could match a name to the address, but who was to say that name would mean anything to me?
I got an answer to my question almost immediately, and without going to any library.
Just after six the Pontiac Grand Prix pulled out from the garage on the other side of the brick house, and glided out of the driveway and into the street. The car skimmed right by me, but the driver didn’t notice me.
I noticed the driver.
She was on her way to meet me for an evening swim, even though I hadn’t got around to calling her.
17
She was in a phone booth, in the Concort lobby, when I caught up with her.
I knocked on the glass, she opened the door and gave me an embarrassed look, and said, “I was just trying your room…”
“Never mind that.”
“… you must think I’m terrible, chasing you like this. If you’d wanted to see me, you’d have called. I had no right coming around here and…”
I grabbed her by the arm and squeezed. Hard.
“I said never mind that.”
“Wh… what’s wrong? You’re hurting me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, easing my grip but not letting go.
“What’s this all about, Jack?”
“You really don’t know, do you, Carrie?”
“Know what?”
“Listen. Later we can sort this out. Right now I want to get you out of here, okay?”
“Why.”
“Because someone’s going to try to kill you.”
At first she smiled, at first she thought I was putting her on, but then she studied my expression and thought a minute, and it sobered her.
“Does this have anything to do,” she said, “with my husband being killed?”
“Yes, it does… and unless you’re in a real hurry to join him, why don’t you come with me?”
“Jack,… I really don’t know who you are. I mean, I… please don’t misunderstand… but you’re just a man I slept with once. Hell, not even that. We just, well, I just got laid by you a couple times, and that’s about all there is to it, between us. That’s about all I know about you.”
“That’s all I know about you, too, Car
rie.”
“No. No, you know more. I don’t want to go anywhere with you until you explain this to me so I can understand it, all of it. Don’t try to force me. I have friends here at the hotel I can turn to, if necessary. Some of them within earshot.”
“You only have one friend in this hotel, Carrie, and I’m it. That you can depend on, anyway… anybody else here, who you consider a friend, is a friend through your late husband, am I right? And his friends, well, they may not be.”
She considered that for a while, then finally said, “I’ll go with you to your room. We can talk there. You had me there alone before, and didn’t do anything to me I didn’t want done, so… that much I’m willing to do. Then we’ll see where we go from there…”
I didn’t like it, really, but on the other hand I needed to clear my things out of the room, anyway; I didn’t want to be hanging around this hotel anymore, and while nothing I’d brought with me ought to be too terribly incriminating, you never can tell. So I said okay, and we got on an elevator and had it to ourselves, thankfully. I looked at her, and she seemed shaken, but certainly not unhinged. I wished I was just taking her up there to climb in the sack with her again; she really looked fine, in her clinging sweater and slacks outfit, the same light blue as her eyes. I put that out of my mind, and asked her if there was any place I could hide her out for a few days.
“Like what sort of place?” she said.
“Do you have some girl friend who’s out of town, and has a temporarily vacant apartment? Something like that?”
“Well. I think I have something better, if you’re really serious about this.”
“I’m nothing if not serious, Carrie.”
“It’s a cottage. On the Mississippi.”
“Secluded?”
“Very much so. There’s a bridge out on the only road that leads to the place. We can get there by another road, but’ll have to walk the last half-mile or so.”
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