Read Online Quarry's Deal by Max Allan Collins - Free Book Online
Authors: Max Allan Collins
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flicker. Christ this bitch was good.
“I’ll put a word in for you. I’m new on the job, but I got some pull just the same.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Couldn’t’ve got that job if I didn’t. Got to have connections in this world, to get by.”
“No shit?”
“None. So what do you think? This thing tonight was just a glorified mugging or what?”
“Who knows. You wouldn’t happen to have any old boyfriends or anything, would you? Who might be crazy enough to follow you from wherever you came from and beat up your new boyfriends?”
“I hardly think so. It’s a long drive from Florida.”
Damn! She was telling me too much. The other night she’d told me the story about mob people killing her husband, and I knew, from reading her file, that the story was true. And her name, her goddamn real name, it was Lucille. I’d have felt a lot better if she’d lie to me more.
What was she doing, anyway, baiting me? She asks me what happened, how was it I happened to get the piss beat out of me just now, when she was probably there when I was getting that lamp busted across my face. She was playing me like a kazoo.
“Let’s fold the couch out,” she said.
“I’m too weak. You’ll have to do it.”
“Pull out the bed you mean? Or the rest, too?”
“Just the bed. On the other, if you want to start without me, go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
She laughed a little, like she meant it. I laughed, too. Like I meant it. The fuck of it is I did mean it. That’s what bothered me.
Then she turned the couch into a bed and we used it.
16
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
SHE SAID SHE didn’t snore, and she didn’t, but she was sleeping deep just the same, that fine, full chest of hers rising slow and steady and, well, it was with not a little reluctance that I crawled out of bed and got in my clothes and left her.
My GT was in the parking lot below her window. I had a spare sportsjacket stowed under some stuff behind the driver’s seat and I took the jacket and shook it and got some of the wrinkles out and put it on. From the glove compartment I took a pair of glasses and my silenced nine-millimeter. I put the glasses on and stuck the gun in my belt and glanced up at her window. Dark. Curtains still drawn, as best I could tell. The change of jacket and the glasses were for her benefit, should she wake up and get back to doing her stakeout number, in which case she could conceivably see me going in or out of the Town Crest, and in that event the jacket and glasses and distance would hopefully keep her from recognizing me.
The jacket and a tie were all it took to get into the Town Crest, even at three in the morning. That and the twenty I handed the guard in the front lot, when I asked him to park the GT for me. I had him put it in the back lot, which was unlit and presented less of a chance of being spotted by somebody with binoculars across the way.
The modern exterior of the Town Crest was more than matched in its cold sterility by the interior, which looked to have been designed by a mortician who read science fiction. The walls were smooth and white, like eggshells pressed flat. Diffused light glowed down from the white tile ceiling, some of it swallowed up by the black carpet. The elevators were shiny metal that reflected like a compassionate mirror. I pushed the UP button and turned away from my soft-focus reflection while I waited.
Tree’s room was on the top floor, the twelfth, down a wide white hail to the right and at the end. I opened his door with a credit card and went in. No lights were on, but I was familiar with the place from my previous visit, in the afternoon, and walked quickly across the tufted shag carpet, though I nearly neglected to sidestep the glass-and-plastic coffee table by the half-circle couch on the edge of the spacious living room, just off of which
“I’ll put a word in for you. I’m new on the job, but I got some pull just the same.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Couldn’t’ve got that job if I didn’t. Got to have connections in this world, to get by.”
“No shit?”
“None. So what do you think? This thing tonight was just a glorified mugging or what?”
“Who knows. You wouldn’t happen to have any old boyfriends or anything, would you? Who might be crazy enough to follow you from wherever you came from and beat up your new boyfriends?”
“I hardly think so. It’s a long drive from Florida.”
Damn! She was telling me too much. The other night she’d told me the story about mob people killing her husband, and I knew, from reading her file, that the story was true. And her name, her goddamn real name, it was Lucille. I’d have felt a lot better if she’d lie to me more.
What was she doing, anyway, baiting me? She asks me what happened, how was it I happened to get the piss beat out of me just now, when she was probably there when I was getting that lamp busted across my face. She was playing me like a kazoo.
“Let’s fold the couch out,” she said.
“I’m too weak. You’ll have to do it.”
“Pull out the bed you mean? Or the rest, too?”
“Just the bed. On the other, if you want to start without me, go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
She laughed a little, like she meant it. I laughed, too. Like I meant it. The fuck of it is I did mean it. That’s what bothered me.
Then she turned the couch into a bed and we used it.
16
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
SHE SAID SHE didn’t snore, and she didn’t, but she was sleeping deep just the same, that fine, full chest of hers rising slow and steady and, well, it was with not a little reluctance that I crawled out of bed and got in my clothes and left her.
My GT was in the parking lot below her window. I had a spare sportsjacket stowed under some stuff behind the driver’s seat and I took the jacket and shook it and got some of the wrinkles out and put it on. From the glove compartment I took a pair of glasses and my silenced nine-millimeter. I put the glasses on and stuck the gun in my belt and glanced up at her window. Dark. Curtains still drawn, as best I could tell. The change of jacket and the glasses were for her benefit, should she wake up and get back to doing her stakeout number, in which case she could conceivably see me going in or out of the Town Crest, and in that event the jacket and glasses and distance would hopefully keep her from recognizing me.
The jacket and a tie were all it took to get into the Town Crest, even at three in the morning. That and the twenty I handed the guard in the front lot, when I asked him to park the GT for me. I had him put it in the back lot, which was unlit and presented less of a chance of being spotted by somebody with binoculars across the way.
The modern exterior of the Town Crest was more than matched in its cold sterility by the interior, which looked to have been designed by a mortician who read science fiction. The walls were smooth and white, like eggshells pressed flat. Diffused light glowed down from the white tile ceiling, some of it swallowed up by the black carpet. The elevators were shiny metal that reflected like a compassionate mirror. I pushed the UP button and turned away from my soft-focus reflection while I waited.
Tree’s room was on the top floor, the twelfth, down a wide white hail to the right and at the end. I opened his door with a credit card and went in. No lights were on, but I was familiar with the place from my previous visit, in the afternoon, and walked quickly across the tufted shag carpet, though I nearly neglected to sidestep the glass-and-plastic coffee table by the half-circle couch on the edge of the spacious living room, just off of which
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