Turns out white sheets are pretty fucking flammable.
A hooded handful that the fire hadn’t yet touched were poised like they wondered if they should rush me. I hurled the burning cross at them and they changed their minds, scurrying away. I took the opportunity to get out of the hood and then the robe, knowing I was anything but immune to the hell I’d unleashed here. Then I kicked the other two fiery crosses over, to further discourage anybody fucking with me.
And then everybody but me was running away, those that were on fire trailing flames like the ass of a jet engine, while those who had somehow avoided catching fire were making sure they stayed that way. They ran in seemingly every possible direction and it was like seeing roaches scatter when you turned on a kitchen light. Roaches that were on fire. That were screaming.
Screaming loudest of all was the Grand Dragon, who was flat on his back, on the grass, which had caught fire around him, creating a flickering orange body outline. The green silk was black now, his hood a crackling charcoal like a roasted marshmallow that stayed too long on the stick—or was that just his skin with the cloth burned away? Either way, he was staring up at me with Jolson eyes, trying to roll on his side but not able to, his nerve endings just not able to send the right signals anymore.
The prick deserved a long, slow, miserable death. But he was wailing in such agony that there was nothing to do but shoot him in the head. Maybe I was getting soft at that.
Then I was alone in the clearing. The wind was gradually putting the fires out, the short dead grass not able to really get going. Two extra crispy corpses were the only real damage done—one of them Starkweather himself, the other the bearer of the rebel flag, who’d made it about fifteen yards, dying on his stomach and even now sending up smoke signals that would not be answered.
I did for Starkweather what he couldn’t do for himself. Using my foot, I rolled him over and over, until the fire was out. The silk robe was all but gone, but the smouldering remnants of his tan Nazi-esque uniform gave up his car keys.
By the time I started walking toward the hill, the night had turned very quiet, the Hunter’s Moon painting everything a vivid ivory. After all the hubbub, the sudden solitude was nice. Soothing.
At the top of the hill, through the cluster of trees, I could see only two cars remaining. All those Krazy Klansters had jumped in their cars and scrambled back to their real lives. The only sign that they’d ever been here was a handful of scorched white robes and hoods.
One of the two remaining cars was the white Lincoln with rebel flag decal and the WALLACE FOR PRESIDENT bumper sticker—down at the bottom of the hill, mirroring the Dodge Charger parked on the other side.
I unlocked the Lincoln trunk and easily found the plump envelope of cash tucked behind the spare tire. Hundreds, as crisp as the man who’d brought them. One-hundred hundreds—ten grand. Having collected my windbreaker, I stuffed the envelope in a pocket.
I walked up the hill. The night was quiet. If there was a God, maybe He’d noticed the fuss down in the clearing. But nobody else seemed to have. I walked down the hill.
Unlocked the Charger trunk.
Delmont looked cramped yet strangely comfy. You can get used to an indignity after a while.
“Jesus fuck, Jack!” He looked up at me the way a dog in its cage does its overdue master. “What the shit-fuck-hell was goin’ on out there? Uh…is something burnin’?”
I helped him out. He moaned and groaned a little. I could hear bones pop. It’s tough being ten pounds of meat in a five-pound can.
He was damn near babbling. “I mean, I could hear screams and guys rushin’ around and swearin’ and even bawlin’! Car doors openin’, slammin’, more engines startin’ than Indy, drivin’ off, kickin’ gravel…what the hell did you do down there, man?”
“I got your money,” I said.
That brightened him.
I handed him the fat envelope and he grinned as he thumbed through the new bills. When he looked up, I was pointing the silenced nine mil at him.
“Jack—what’s the idea, man? We’re partners!”
I put out a palm. “Hand it over.”
“Jesus fuck! That ain’t fuckin’ fair, Jack!”
I snatched the envelope back, slipped it in the windbreaker pocket.
He looked like he might cry. “What do you need my money for? You said I’d be in the black!”
“You will be,” I said, and the nine mil hiccuped.
TWELVE
Boyd and I sat in our underwear at the kitchen table at the lookout pad. It was a little after eleven P.M. and the end of a very long day, much of it spent on a bus getting from one out-of-town campus rally to another, only to return to find a lumberjack beating Boyd to shit, followed by a moonlit KKK meeting. Little man, you’ve had a busy day.
Ten thousand dollars—all in crisp new C-notes—rose in two equal stacks on the Formica tabletop, like we were in a high-stakes poker game and somebody forgot the cards.
I had taken a shower and my t-shirt and jockey shorts were fresh. Against the kitchen wall behind me, next to a wastebasket, was a garbage bag in which all the clothes I’d worn this evening were stuffed. They had to be disposed of. One must assume that forensics had come to Missouri.
I will be straight with you and admit I considered keeping the entire ten grand. Hadn’t I been the one on hazardous duty? Going from the boonies to the St. Louis suburbs, behind the wheel of the Dodge Charger, I’d decided to keep seven and give Boyd three. By the time I got back to the Central West End, I’d decided to give him twenty-five hundred and say it was half. That Delmont had been paid five grand and it was an even split.
Then when I came in the kitchen way and Boyd greeted me in his underwear, all contused and puffy-eyed and worried, I said, “We’ve got ten grand to split.”
What his grin did to that battered face must have hurt. Anyway, it hurt to look at.
I tossed him the bulging envelope and said, “Here, you split it. I’m a walking crime scene. I need to get out of these clothes and into the shower.”
When I returned in my skivvies, with the smoke smell scrubbed off at least, I sat across from Boyd, who had his stack of green neatly before him, with mine waiting at my chair, like he was waiting to say grace. Reading an expression on that grotesque mug was tough, but I could tell he was troubled.
“Where’s Delmont?” he asked.
“In the trunk of his Dodge Charger.”
“…Is he alive?”
“What do you think?”
“Aw. Kind of a shame. He was a sweet kid.”
“Want me to get you a mirror? Maybe if I smash you in the face with it, you’ll call me sweet.”
“Guess you had to do it.”
“Not really, but it was prudent. And we each have five grand we wouldn’t have, which is a good thing, since this job is almost certainly off.”
His face made something that might have been a frown. “Why do you say that?”
I gave him an account of my evening in southwest Missouri under the Hunter’s Moon. Several times he tried to open his puffy eyes wide and damn near succeeded.
“These were separate contracts,” Boyd said, when I’d finished. He was thinking aloud. Each word carefully parceled out. “Delmont was hired by the Nazi. Our contract comes courtesy of parties unknown. Just a crazy coincidence.”
“Yeah, I don’t like it either.”
I got up and opened the refrigerator door. I reached for a Coke, remembered the caffeine, and grabbed one of his Budweisers instead. Nasty fucking beer, but maybe the alcohol content would help me sleep. Exhausted as I was, I was still kind of keyed up.
Sitting back down, I said, “The only way this could be one contract is if somebody really fucked up.”
Boyd nodded. “Like maybe Delmont was on hand waiting for the go-ahead, should we screw up or bail.”
“Right. Only Delmont didn’t seem to have any sense of that.”
“None,” Boyd agreed. He was drinking
Bud, too. He sipped like that was worth doing, and said, “What if it’s not such a big coincidence?”
“You did get hit hard.”
“No, hear me out. We have a deadline, right? We got till the end of the month.”
I nodded. “Specifically, before the big McGovern rally here in St. Louis where the Reverend is featured speaker. Yeah.”
“With specific instructions from the Broker not to hit Lloyd there, right? And if we haven’t made it happen by then, we’re to pack up our tents and go home.”
Now I saw what he was getting at. “The Broker is too shrewd,” I said, “too smart to want Lloyd taken out at a big event, with lots of security. It’d be a stupid play. Even a suicidal one.”
The slits in the macaroon eyes widened. “But a homegrown hater like Commander Starkweather wouldn’t see it that way.”
“No he wouldn’t,” I said. “He’d want to make a statement, and what better way than take down a prominent black leader in public. And that rally—biggest of Lloyd’s campaign for McGovern—would be the natural place to do that.”
Boyd pounded the table with a fist, kind of lightly but enough to make the money stacks shimmy. “And that’s what Delmont came to town to do. A low-end hitman hired through racist redneck channels.”
“But the Broker insists the Lloyd hit isn’t ‘overtly’ political, or racial,” I said, “preferring a less showy removal. Okay. That makes these two contracts, with their contradictory goals, feel a little less coincidental—though I think we might still be missing a piece. Not that it matters.”
“It doesn’t?”
I shook my head, sipped some lousy beer. “Tomorrow morning, when one of us checks in with him, the Broker’s almost certainly going to pull the plug. The shit will fly in this town when the Commander turns up burned blacker than everybody he ever hated, with a bullet hole in his head.”
“Maybe not by tomorrow morning…”
“Maybe not. But I’ll talk to Broker on a very secure line where I can spell everything out. Hell, maybe I should call him tonight and wake him up. Then there’s Delmont.”
Eyebrows rose over the awful eyes. “What about Delmont?”
“Well, his body’s going to be found on a side street, in the trunk of his Charger, where we’re going to dump it a good distance from here.”
“We are?”
“Yeah. We’re going to get dressed and I’ll drive the Charger and you follow me in the Impala. Can you see out of those things?”
“Sure.”
Maybe. But he looked like one of the Mole People.
“It is kind of a shame,” he said.
“Knock it off about Delmont already.”
“No, not him. Dumping that Charger. I came by plane, you know. I could use a car, sweet ride like that.”
I grunted a non-laugh. “That ‘sweet ride’ is registered under Delmont’s own name. Apparently the Dogpatch branch of Associated Assassins is just fine with a member using his own name and his own vehicle on the job. And keep in mind Delmont and Starkweather were killed by the same gun—mine, remember? I’ll switch out barrels on the nine mil, sure, but the bullets will connect the two kills. Which is why the Broker is likely to yank us out of here. Delmont’s racist pedigree combined with the late Commander’s Nazi résumé will put the spotlight on local racial matters, which’ll surely lead to increased protection and attention for Reverend Raymond Wesley Lloyd. Our target, remember?”
“Yeah,” Boyd said, sitting up now. “Best dump the Charger.”
“And Delmont.”
“And Delmont. But, really, he wasn’t so bad.”
“Go put some pants on.”
Fucking Odd Couple was right.
* * *
We dumped the car ten blocks north, in a black area. That was a risk, two white guys making a drop like that, since we might be remembered if seen; couldn’t count on us all looking alike to them. And we are talking about a bright yellow muscle car. But we chose a residential area that was quiet and basically asleep, so we should be fine.
I left the keys in the unlocked car, which might give somebody a nice surprise, followed by a not nice surprise, when the trunk got opened. Anything that confused the issue was good.
We stopped at a phone booth outside a closed gas station and I put in a call to the Broker. Again, it went right to him, maybe because it was so late. I told him I needed an absolutely secure line, so we could call a spade a spade, a remark the Broker took as me being cute but was completely accidental.
“My house was swept today,” he said.
“My compliments to your housekeeper.”
“I meant electronically swept.”
“I know. That time I was being cute.”
And I told him everything I’d shared with Boyd, even the ten grand we split. It was no skin off his nose or money out of his pocket, either.
“I’m assuming you want us out,” I said.
“Not just yet.”
“Not yet? What if the cops come around the Coalition office and do background checks?”
“They won’t likely, but should they, yours will hold.”
“My address won’t. I gave them the YMCA, like you said, but I haven’t set foot in there.”
His voice radiated patience; you’d never know I got him out of bed. “I made the reservation and paid by credit card over the phone. A credit card as secure as this line. You will be fine. Oh, you might want to go to the Y and drop by your room. One of those rare times it might pay to be seen. Maybe take a swim there. You like to swim.”
“Yeah, I know I like to swim. I’m the one doing the swimming. But swimming in shit I don’t like. Or blood.”
“Understood. But there’s no need for melodramatic overstatement. You boys stay on for a while. Again, if things look compromised, follow your own judgment—I won’t second-guess. You’re the ones on the scene.”
“That’s right. Don’t forget that. So. Was that Starkweather character our client or not?”
“Obviously not, or I would indeed advise you to pull up stakes.”
Did anybody else on the fucking planet use “indeed” in conversation like that?
“Last time we spoke,” I said, “you implied he might be connected to our client.”
“It’s possible. Perhaps not directly, but…possible.”
“It’s a secure line, Broker. You needn’t be coy.”
“I do, if I’m to maintain the role that I play in our relationship, which is as a buffer, as insulation, as a middleman.”
As a redundant prick.
“Your role,” he was saying, “is fairly well defined. I won’t insult your intelligence by reminding you what the boundaries are.”
“Well, I’d be glad to insult yours. Where should I start?”
“Now, Quarry, I understand you’ve had a very full and taxing evening. I can tell you, with utter sincerity, that I am very pleased that you survived the unpleasant circumstances you happened upon this evening.”
“Circumstances like getting attacked by a KKK Klavern, you mean?”
He chuckled. “You do have a knack for getting yourself into the most outlandish jams.”
I held the receiver out and looked at it. Shook my head. I wasn’t going to win with this guy. Or maybe I was just too beat to try.
I said we’d talk tomorrow and he said that was a good idea, and we exchanged goodbyes and hung up.
* * *
I tried to sleep but couldn’t. I tossed, I turned, back, sides, belly, and still my brain refused to stop buzzing, the sheets getting more and more tangled. I kept turning things over in my mind, getting nowhere, but always coming back to the same conclusion.
Boyd and I should not hang around.
Tonight I’d killed two people who were not on my dance card. Yes, I picked up ten grand for my trouble, five after splitting with Boyd, but this job had really gone off the rails.
I turned on the nightstand light and read. Half an hour later, I finished the Louis L�
�Amour paperback and climbed out of bed, in my underwear. Light edged under the door between my bedroom and Boyd’s, so he was probably awake, too. I knocked lightly and announced myself. He said come on in.
He was reading a paperback called Gay Safari. Both his hands were showing, which was a relief.
“Just passing through,” I said. “Too wired to sleep.”
“No problem,” he said, still looking like the victim of a beekeeping accident, and returned to bettering his mind through literature.
I shut the door to his bedroom and crossed to the recliner that faced the television. It was after two A.M., and not much was on, but I found an old Charlie Chan movie. It was terrible, and just what I was looking for—something that would put me to sleep. Thing was, Mantan Moreland was so damn funny, I never did get drowsy, though I was well aware that my Coalition friends across the street probably wouldn’t find this wonderful black comedian at all amusing. Their loss.
Every time Mantan said something that made me laugh (“Murder’s okay, Mr. Chan, but you wholesale it!”), I would look over at the nearby window toward the Coalition HQ, sort of reflexively. I was finally just getting drowsy when Mantan said, “Move over troubles, here we come again!” and I glanced over and there were lights on over there.
I got up and went to the windows. Knelt and looked out and lights were on in the rear of the place. At close to three A.M. on a Sunday night or anyway Monday morning, lights going. I used the binoculars but saw no one moving inside, though a storeroom door seemed to be partway open at the rear by the restrooms, between the two glassed-in offices. The light was coming from back there.
I knocked at Boyd’s bedroom door and said, “Me,” and found him still reading.
I said, “Something’s going on across the street.”
Quarry in the Black Page 12