Quarry in the Middle (10 page)

“How sick?”

“Well, I don’t know. But he goes to the doctor once a month. Otherwise, he hardly comes down from his suite. He sometimes has breakfast with Jerry G, at that little café downtown.”

“Not at the Wheelhouse restaurant?”

“No! Jerry G stays away from the Paddlewheel and the Wheelhouse. There’s a real rivalry there. The girls say Jerry G hates that guy, Cornell. Richard Cornell?”

“Ever been to the Paddlewheel?”

“No. That’s one world. The Lucky is another.”

“Pretty rough world, for a sweet kid like you.”

Her smile was a chin-crinkler. “Are you flirting?”

“Not yet. I just mean, prostitution, gambling, narcotics…”

“Those kinds of things have been around forever. Didn’t you ever hear of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“Sodom, anyway. Doesn’t bother you?”

“I’m responsible only to myself, Jack. I have a nice body, and I don’t think being naked is sinful or evil or anything. If it makes men happy to see me dance, to feel my boobies in their face or put their hands on my bottom, that’s okay by me…long as they pay the freight. I have a kid to provide for. I don’t trick, and I don’t let anybody touch me in my private place.”

“Nobody ever?”

“Now you
are
flirting.”

“Maybe a little.”

She sighed, looked at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Her nails were painted hot pink. “Look, I know the Lucky is a rough place. It’s like…everybody has to put their time in, in some hellhole in this life. It’s an awful, corrupt place, and Jerry G is like the little Godfather of the place.”

“Running downtown Haydee’s Port isn’t that big a deal in the scheme of things, is it?”

“Oh, it’s more than just the Lucky Devil—like, Jerry G runs all
kinds
of narcotics up and down the river. They have boats that look like, you know, summer outing kind of stuff. But you’d be shocked at how much of that…
evil
stuff moves through this tiny little town, and all across the country.”

“Were you raised a churchgoer, by any chance, Candace?”

“I went to a Baptist church when I was at home. I haven’t been in years. I don’t like church, really. But I believe in Jesus. Do unto others and all that stuff.”

“You
must
, hauling my ass out of that alley…You got any more of that Percodan?”

“I’ll get you another dose. But be careful—you don’t want to get hooked.”

I took the Percodan and went back to sleep for a while. When I woke up, the clock on the nightstand said one, and sunlight was still edging in around the dark curtains, so I didn’t figure I’d slept another day away or anything.

What was interesting was the presence of Candace next to me, under the sheets. Shouldn’t have surprised me, since this was her bed, after all, and she worked nights, and had to catch some rest some time.

She was sound asleep, even snoring a little, and wearing another t-shirt and sheer panties. She was nestled against me, with her head on my chest, my arm around her, her slender arm draped across my side.

I was just staring at her, wondering what my life would have been like if a sweet kid like this had married me back in the Nam days, and not a cheating little cunt.

I was also thinking about my close call—without her sweet nature and Baptist upbringing, I might have been dead right now, dumped in a ditch or maybe in the drink.

Seemed to me I had about come to the end of this way of life. I was lucky I hadn’t already been killed, trying to play the Broker’s database like a loose slot machine. I was dealing with murderers and their
deserving clients, trying to play both ends against the middle, only I was always the guy in the middle, wasn’t I?

If I could make that substantial financial killing in Haydee’s Port, I might be able to invest in Wilma’s Welcome Inn and start living the kind of life actual human beings experienced. Maybe I could even find a nice kid like Candace, who had now turned her back to me. I risked turning onto my side, and didn’t die of a hemorrhage, so I spooned with her. She snuggled her bottom against my groin and a mighty oak grew.

She began giggling, in her sleep maybe, and a hand reached around, and found my dick and stroked it like a puppy, while I purred like a kitten. She turned over and whispered, “Sam’s napping, so…” And she gave me the finger-to-the-lips
shush
sign.

Then her right hand slipped in the front of my jockey shorts and withdrew the only part of me that was throbbing in a good way, and her little mouth with the full lips suckled on the tip, then began to slide up and down, her tongue working miracles that had surely not been revealed to her at the Baptist Church.

She had me to the brink, when she stopped and asked, “You want to come this way? Or do you feel good enough to…?”

Keeping faith with her Baptist roots, I got on her Missionary style, but only after she had slipped out of the panties and pulled off the t-shirt. Her pert breasts stayed that way, on her back, and when I slipped inside her, she was so tight, she might have been holding me in her fist.

It lasted a surprisingly long time, and I felt every ache and pain from the other night but somehow it only added to the sensation. She looked up at me with that face free of makeup, looking only twelve but fucking like twenty, her expression begging mercy, understanding and forgiveness. What she got turned her chest and neck and cheeks scarlet and made her nipples point skyward and her eyes the same direction with her mouth making a little O to go with the big one.

Me, I came so hard my soul might have been escaping me, if it hadn’t fled long before.

We did that darn near silently, not waking Sam from his nappy-poo, and she took a shower and I took a shower and we both sat, fully dressed now, at a little table off her kitchen nook, feeling vaguely embarrassed, yet knowing we’d made a memory that neither of us would ever lose, at least till she died of natural causes and somebody put a bullet in my head.

Then I asked her about Gigi Giovanni and his doctor appointments. Would she happen to know when his next one was?

“Funny you should ask,” she said. “It’s always the third Friday of the month.”

“What’s today, the second Friday?”

“No, silly. The third.”

The River Bluff Neurology Clinic was in Rivercrest Medical Park, a beautifully landscaped collection of recently erected one-story red-brick buildings with interconnecting drives and several shared parking lots—a sort of shopping mall for the sick.

This was West River Bluff, where I’d wound up following a dark-green late model Lincoln Town Car from the Lucky Devil parking lot. Enough vehicles had been there for me not to call attention to myself and, anyway, there was no reason to think any of Jerry G’s people would recognize my wheels. I sat parked between a pick-up truck and a Dodge Daytona and watched for almost an hour, thinking I’d probably missed my moment.

The only thing that had given me hope was that Lincoln Town Car, parked near the casino portion of the Lucky Devil. Hanging around near the Lincoln was a big guy with a butch haircut and a black suit with a tie-less white shirt, smoking one cigarette after another, occasionally leaning against the driver door, now and then checking his watch.

Finally Jerry G, in a yellow sport shirt and rust-color slacks, came out a casino exit, helping an older gent toward the car. Jerry G was smiling and talking, one arm around his charge, the other guiding him along. The old boy was short and squat but not really fat, not
anymore; his head was squarish and his snow-white hair neatly barbered but indifferently combed. He wore a double-breasted wide-lapel gray pinstripe suit that had been in style a couple of times in the twentieth century, just not at the moment.

Was Jerry G going to accompany his pop to the doctor’s appointment? That was who this was—Giorgio “Gigi” Giovanni, and I wasn’t guessing, because I had done enough work for that family to have seen all the main players at one time or another, if from a distance.

No—Jerry G was depositing his pop in back of the Town Car, and the butch-hair boy was tossing a smoke to the gravel and coming around to get behind the wheel. They pulled out, Jerry G lingering to watch them go, then he headed back in. The Lincoln had exited the lot—access was strictly in back of the Lucky Devil, on a gravel strip along a row of trees—but catching up was no problem. Besides, I wanted to make sure I always had at least one car between us, and when I fell in behind them on the toll bridge, I had a two-car cushion.

Wearing sunglasses—not a disguise, this was a sunny day—I had followed them through the rolling city to its west outskirts and the medical complex. The Lincoln took a handicapped space, and I pulled around to park as far away as possible, at least for the moment. I watched while the burly chauffeur helped the old man out of the back seat, and walked him up a gently slanting walk to the double doors of the modern clinic.

When they were inside, I moved the car closer—I didn’t take a handicapped space, because I may be a
killer but I’m not a prick, and anyway I didn’t have one of those hanging plastic cards that fend off fines. I wanted to be close in case I needed a quick getaway.

This might seem amusing, particularly since several other elderly patients were being helped into the clinic by relatives or whatever, indicating the facility was primarily geriatric. I would grant you few quick getaways had ever been made from this building.

On the other hand, that chauffeur was a big fucker, and the only reason I was walking around after that beating by his bouncer brothers was the Percodans perking in my bloodstream. Plus, that suitcoat hung loose enough that a handgun might be snugged under his armpit, and I was currently unarmed.

He was driving around the supposed godfather of Haydee’s Port, after all, a character with genuine Chicago bona fides—old Gigi only missed getting himself an episode of
The Untouchables
by maybe a decade.

A sign on the brick by the front doors spelled out the specialty of the house—neurology—and I went on into a small waiting room populated by senior citizens and their keepers. Nobody looked very bright-eyed, including the keepers. Two rows of chairs on either side faced each other, divided by a big coffee table where old magazines went to die.

I selected a
Highlights
, read for a while about Goofus and Gallant (speaking of pricks, how about that fucking Goofus?), and after ten minutes the nurse receptionist, a plump woman bursting her whites, called, “
George Giovanni!
”

Giovanni did not react, but the butch-hair bodyguard
did, smirking disgustedly as he tossed his
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue on the coffee table, to rise and haul the old boy around and down a hallway at left.

I waited, and about ninety seconds later, the bodyguard returned, alone, and retrieved his reading matter.

I got up, went up to the porcine nurse (what the fuck kind of health message was
she
sending?) and asked where the men’s room was. I already knew, having spotted it from where I’d been sitting—it was down that same hallway where Giovanni had been walked, and abandoned.

She pointed toward the men’s room, mildly irritated (yeah, those bodily functions are a real nuisance), and I went down the hallway. It wasn’t a big place, maybe four little examining rooms, and they all had patient charts hanging on the door. The second chart I checked said “George H. Giovanni.”

Nobody else was in the hallway, and the fat nurse was busy resenting her lot in life, so I thumbed through the sheets. I’m no doctor, but the word “dementia” jumped out. Among the pages clipped to the board were several tests taken by Mr. Giovanni, including the faces of clocks that had been filled in with floating hands, as if Dali and a four-year-old had collaborated, and several pieces of startling news, including that Nixon was still president and that the patient’s favorite color was “ice cream.”

I went in, leaving the chart on the door, and said pleasantly to the little old man sitting on the edge of the examining table, “And how are you today, Mr. Giovanni?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Leefer.” That was the name on the chart, anyway. “How have you doing, Mr. Giovanni? Are the medications helping?”

I’d seen the names of the meds, but they were Greek to me. Right now, from my point of view, anything that wasn’t Percodan wasn’t pertinent.

“I’m doin’ okay, doc.”

“And how is your son doing?”

He frowned. The face that had once been fearsome was a lined, sunken thing, like a fruit that had gone off, and the eyes had less alertness than your average chimp. “I have a son?”

“You sure do.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

“His name is Jerry.”

“Yes! Jerry! He’s a good boy.”

“He’s taking care of you all right?”

“Yes. Yes. Can’t complain.”

“Getting what you need to eat and drink?”

“Yes. I get plenty of ice cream. All the ice cream I want.”

“That’s wonderful. Do you know who I am?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I’m the doctor—Dr. Leefer.”

“Well, that’s right! Dr. Leefer.”

“Do you know a man named Cornell?”

“Do I?”

“Richard Cornell. Do you know him?”

“No. Can’t say I do. Might. I forget people’s names sometimes.”

“What about a place called the Paddlewheel? Do you know that place?”

“No. Is it a boat?”

“No, it’s a gambling house.”

“The Lucky Devil is a gambling house.”

“Right. Your son runs it for you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. My son. Is his name Jerry?”

“Yes it is.”

“Who are you again?”

“Your doctor. Dr. Leefer.”

“I’m staying on my pills.”

“That’s good, Mr. Giovanni. That’s good.”

The door opened and we both jumped a little. A guy with a Freud beard and no hair on his head and goggle-size eyeglasses came in, checking his clipboard. He had a name tag that said dr. leefer. He frowned at me.

“And
you
are?” he asked.

The old man answered for me: “He’s my doctor.”

“If he’s your doctor, Mr. Giovanni, who am I?”

“Don’t you know?” The old boy nodded toward me. “Maybe Dr. Leefer here can tell you.”

I stood. Went over to the doc and said, “I’m his nephew Al—Al Giovanni in from Chicago, Dr. Leefer. How’s he doing? He seems a little confused.”

He frowned at me. “Were you in an accident, Mr. Giovanni?”

He could see the contusions and scrapes on my face.

“No, I had a little altercation across the river. Haydee’s Port?”

“Ah,” he said, accepting that.

“But I am really am concerned about my uncle…”

He tried not to sigh and almost succeeded. He spoke softly: “Well, I’ve explained all this to Mr. Giovanni’s son. This is not senility, nor do I think we’re looking at Alzheimer’s. Mr. Giovanni has suffered, and continues to suffer, minor strokes. They’ve caused no physical disability to date, but his memory is severely affected. But I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Giovanni.”

“Are you? Good.”

Dark eyebrows rose over the big eyeglass lenses. “Mr. Giovanni’s son hasn’t accompanied his father to the last
three
appointments, and I need to stay abreast of how Mr. Giovanni is doing at home. He’s been able to dress himself, bathe himself, fix himself small meals. Watches television, and can enjoy himself in, shall we say, the moment. Or that
has
been the case—I obviously can’t ask Mr. Giovanni about these things himself, which is why it’s better if his son would take a stronger interest. I don’t mean to be judgmental, but if Mr. Giovanni can no longer perform these simple tasks, he will need a different kind of long-term care.”

“To the best of my knowledge,” I said, “he’s still able to do those things, dress himself and so on.”

“Good. That’s very good to hear. Now, I’m going to give your uncle a series of cognitive tests. Would you like to sit in?”

“No, no, doc—I think having me here might distract the old fella. You do your thing, and I’ll just wait outside…So long, Uncle Gigi.”

“So long, Dr. Leefer,” he said.

I found my way out, the nurse giving me a glare (I’d clearly really exceeded the toilet time limit), moved
through the waiting room where the bodyguard was holding his magazine sideways, and went out to my car.

No fast getaway necessary.

After I called from the bar downstairs, Cornell received me in his third-floor office. The Paddlewheel was open—it was around six-thirty—but business wasn’t bustling yet, as this was not exactly a place where you went for the early bird special.

He emerged from the bedroom, tying a black rope belt around his maroon dressing gown; his legs were bare and as tanned as George Hamilton’s neck and his feet were in slippers. He was lighting up a cigarette and his unblinking aqua-blue eyes narrowed, taking me in.

“What happened to you?” he asked, so concerned he flopped into the nearest overstuffed brown leather chair as he tossed a spent match in an ashtray.

I sat nearby on the matching couch. Cocaine ghosts haunted the glass coffee table.

I said, “Two of Jerry G’s greeters took me out back and beat the fuck out of me.”

His eyes tightened a little. “You all right?”

Was there an end to his compassion?

“I am, now. This happened Wednesday, or really Thursday morning, and I slept round the clock. Nothing broken. This is what that hazardous duty pay is for.”

“Drink?”

I had trained him not to say drinky-poo.

“I could stand a Diet Coke.”

He called, “
Chrissy!
”

The bedroom door opened and the little babe with the big yellow perm emerged, painting her nails red. She had on black panties and half a white t-shirt, the underside of pert breasts showing.

“What?”

“Fix me up with a drink, and my friend with a Diet Coke.”

She zombie-walked over to the bar, painting her nails all the way, not blessing either of us with a glance. She was efficient, though, and only two minutes or so passed before Cornell had a tumbler of Scotch and ice cubes and I had a cold can of Diet Coke.

“Thanks,” I said. “Things go better with Coke, you know.”

She said nothing, her lips almost forming a smirk but lacking the enthusiasm for that commitment. She padded into the bedroom, the perfect moons of her bottom exposed below the cut of the panties. She could have used a spanking. So could my dick.

Alone again, my employer and I made a half-hearted toast, and he said, “Why don’t you fill me in?”

“I don’t do details. I can tell you’ve I’ve determined, to my satisfaction anyway, that the old man is out of it.”

The tanned forehead formed white creases. “Out of…what?”

“It. Any contract on you, any aspect of running the Lucky Devil in particular and downtown Haydee’s Port in general, anything greater than putting on his pants, wiping his bottom and warming up some cocoa.”

He grinned, a white slash in the tan puss, but his
forehead kept on frowning. “What is he, senile?”

“As good as. He’s had a bunch of little strokes, and Jerry G is Chief Big Shit now. Sonny Boy apparently hasn’t advertised papa’s delicate condition because the old reprobate has a big rep, and Jerry still needs to bask in it.”

Cornell shook his head. “I hate to say it, but Jerry G has something of a reputation himself. That’s one of the reasons why this Chicago conflict, between the Giardelli brothers, continues to just simmer, never boil over. The status quo is too appealing—me running the Paddlewheel effectively, and profitably…and Jerry G doing the same with his sleazeball operation downtown.”

“I believe Jerry G does more than just run the Lucky Devil,” I said. “I think some major drug-running is going on, and Christ knows what other contraband. We
are
right on the river.”

“I’ve heard the scuttlebutt.” He shrugged, swirled the liquid in its tumbler, studied it as if looking for tea leaves to read. “So—it’s just Jerry G, then. Are you prepared to go forward?”

“With what?”

He frowned. “What the hell do you
think
, love? Handling the Jerry G problem.”

“You want him gone, I’m fine with that. But I haven’t got the goods on him.”

The forehead creased again. “What goods are those?”

“Making sure Jerry G took out the hit. How do you know this didn’t emanate straight from Chicago?”