Quarry's Choice (14 page)

Kelly was crying again. Fear crying.

“You see, Morrie,” Killian said, arm still around the trembling man’s shoulder, “because we’re moving quantities, and dealing with an established distribution system, we don’t sell ourselves here at any of the clubs. That’s strict policy.”

“I know that, I really do, I know.”

“We can look the other way when someone makes a transaction in a bathroom or out on the beach. That’s commerce. That’s capitalism. But if
we
do the selling, and something bad happens, like a bust. . .or like whatever happened to Tommy here. . .it can reflect badly on us.”

“Absolutely,” Morrie said, shaking his head, “it won’t happen again.”

“Where is the boy?”

Morrie swallowed and nodded. “Still in the Honeymoon Suite.”

The Honeymoon Suite, it turned out, was a cubicle with a mattress and some dirty sheets behind the stripper’s stage; the
thump thump thump
of the bass line of “Temptation Eyes” was bleeding through a plywood wall.

Killian, apparently wanting to instruct his new charge, had taken me along for a look. There wasn’t room for us in that cubicle, so we viewed it from the doorless doorway.

On that mattress, on his back with his mouth open and his eyes closed, was a kid a couple years younger than me, maybe five-ten with a fit-looking build and a blond butch haircut. His nose looked red around the nostrils. He wore a light yellow t-shirt and orange flared trousers and he was dead as shit.

Suddenly the little stripper was at Killian’s side, clutching his arm, desperate. “Mr. Killian, I didn’t give him that much. I swear! It
can’t
be an overdose. He was on top of me dry humping and then he rolled off and was clutching his chest. Really hurting, trying to catch his breath and stuff.”

He patted her shoulder. “Go sit down, Kelly. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She nodded and went back to her chair. Behind her, Morrie was pacing again.

“Mr. Quarry,” Killian said, “fetch Mr. Henderson, would you?”

That was the unibrow guy.

I brought him over and stepped away as Killian gave him some whispered, rather detailed instructions, eliciting nods. Then Henderson quickly went back out through the club.

Killian went over to Morrie and said, “Shut down for the night. Announce a gas leak. Get everybody out of here.”

No discussion of that. Morrie just nodded and rushed off to fill the order.

That left Kelly on her chair. Killian walked casually over to her. I positioned myself near the door back into the club.

“Now, Kelly, you understand you can’t speak of this to anyone.”

“No, sir. I mean yes, sir.”

“If you are questioned, you have to stay strong and just deny that you know anything about what happened to Tommy.”

“I understand, sir.”

“You could cause your family a lot of embarrassment and grief.”

“I’m not local, sir. My family don’t know where I am or care.”

“I’m sorry. But you don’t want to go to jail on a manslaughter charge, do you?”

“No!”

“Or for selling drugs?”

“No!”

“That’s a good girl,” he said.

I was impressed with the way Killian was handling this. I’d been told he was violent and a loose cannon, but what I’d observed the last few days was a self-controlled businessman who knew what he was doing.

He slipped behind her, withdrew something from his pocket that made a
snik
and grabbed her by the ponytail, yanking her head back, and slit her throat. A spray of blood painted the wall behind which Tommy’s body lay on a dirty mattress.

She stayed slumped in the chair somehow, with her head tilted at a crazy angle, like it might break off and fall on the floor. Some blood had run down and soaked her pink robe, but not so much. Blood stops flowing when you’re dead.

Well, then. That had been impressive, in a different way. Perhaps I’d misjudged Killian.

He wiped the blade off on a shoulder of the girl’s pink robe, clicked the switchblade shut and slipped it in his pocket. He strolled over to me.

“Now Mr. Henderson and a couple of other comrades of ours will be rounding up a boat so we can dispose of the bodies.”

“That kid is an airman. . .won’t there be—?”

“Tommy is going AWOL tonight. And no one will look for him at the bottom of the Mississippi Sound.”

“Ah. And Kelly’s going with him?”

“Yes. Now, I need you to wait here until Mr. Henderson returns. There will be several others with him who will give this area a thorough cleansing. All I need from you is to keep watch here till they return. They’ll come in through the rear. . .see there?”

I nodded.

“You don’t need to participate further. Catch a cab. But in the meantime, I need
not
to be here. Mr. Phillips will take me back to the Tropical.”

I gathered Mr. Phillips was his driver.

“Okay,” I said.

“May I borrow your gun?”

I didn’t love the sound of that.

“Certainly,” I said, and got the nine millimeter out from under my arm and handed it to him. The safety was on, so that should give me time to react, if he was planning to make a dead witness out of me.

“Do you understand the concept of trust, Mr. Quarry?”

“I think I do.”

“Perhaps you don’t. Trust is based on secrets. Mutual secrets. Secrets that one individual could reveal to expose the other, but does not, because that individual could reveal similarly damaging secrets about the other.”

“Makes sense.”

The door from the club opened and Morrie came in. There was a jog around some boxes that kept him from immediately seeing Kelly in her chair, and he was talking as he came: “We’re all clear. Gas leak sent everybody running. Two of my girls ran bare-ass out into the. . .
shit!
”

Morrie moved like the mummy through a swamp as he approached Kelly. “What the fuck happened here?” He turned to look at Killian, who shot him in the head.

Morrie’s surprised expression was his reaction to Kelly, not to getting killed, because he didn’t have time to process that before going down on his back and splashing in some of Kelly’s blood.

Killian handed me the nine millimeter.

“Trust, Mr. Quarry,” he said.

And he was gone before I realized that I’d just missed the perfect opportunity to ice his ass.

That left me with two corpses in the storeroom of the Bottoms Up, three counting Tommy on his grungy mattress beyond the plywood wall. I went out into the empty club, where the lights were down. Behind the bar, I got myself a glass of Coke and sat at one of the tables, as if I were waiting for a stripper to come out.

And not a clean-up crew with bleach and a boat.

Just before ten the next morning, Killian called me to come up to his office in his suite at the Tropical. I said I’d be there in ten minutes.

I was still in the shorts I’d slept in, but had been up for maybe an hour. Luann and I’d had a light room-service breakfast, and now she was in her room next door, watching television. She watched a lot of it when she wasn’t working, I gathered—game shows and soap operas by day, various dramatic series and movies at night.

So I got into one of the goddamn suits, feeling like a working stiff and not crazy about it, and soon was making my way through the top-floor bachelor-pad digs without an escort now—one of the family—rating bored nods from others in the black-suit brigade, two of whom were reading newspapers and drinking coffee at the captain’s table by the kitchen area.

I knocked once on the office door, said, “Quarry,” and got a “
Come.
”

The slender, Asian-eyed man was in his own black suit and dark silk tie, if more expensive than mine, seated behind the massive desk with a ledger before him, which he marked with a built-in ribbon and closed before smiling at me and leaning back in the swivel chair.

“Good morning, Mr. Quarry.”

I nodded. “Mr. Killian.”

“You did well last night.”

I shrugged. “Not much to it. Your other minions took care of the hard stuff.”

He chuckled at my use of the word “minions.” Probably not a lot of his staff tossed that one around much. You pick up a lot reading paperback novels.

Then his smile dissolved into something serious—not grave, just businesslike. “You don’t need to know the details. . .”

“I don’t want to.”

“. . .you don’t need to know them, right, but you do need to know that everything’s been taken care of.”

I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. That was
my
gun he used on his minion Morrie. I guessed it couldn’t come back on me, if the late manager of the Bottoms Up was face down with the fishes, but I hadn’t liked that at all.

“Airmen go AWOL all the time,” he said, matter of fact. “Few servicemen have families who can hire investigators, and certainly the officials in our fair city won’t put up much of a fuss.”

“Because you’ll tell them not to?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have to. I depend on their general benign neglect and inherent incompetence. And they know that the occasional out-of-towner or airman or whomever is going to drop off the edge of the world.”

“Ah.”

“Speaking with Woodrow, who oversees all of our clubs, I’ve learned that the girl—what was her name?”

Kelly.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, waving it away. “She was a runaway we took in half a dozen years ago, and a druggie, and she really won’t be missed. As for the manager I fired, he has an exwife in another state who hasn’t been able to squeeze an ounce of child support or alimony out of him, so he will not be missed, either.”

“Okay,” I said, not really caring. This was his mess, if it was a mess. “Mr. Woody is cool with all of this?”

That got half a smile out of the slash under his nose. “Of course not. He’s upset with me. He’s always upset with me lately. He is one enormous pussy, these days. He thinks the other people running clubs for us up and down the Strip will hear the scuttlebutt that the manager of a certain establishment was let go in a. . .harsh manner.”

I shrugged. “Well, any of us who were in on it last night won’t make a peep.”

“I agree wholeheartedly. But it’s
Woodrow
who will spread the word.”

I frowned at that. “Really?”

“Of course. He’ll want our people to know that I’m someone not to be taken lightly, and that he doesn’t approve, but can’t do anything about it. Thus reinforcing the notion that he’s a mensch and I’m a hardass.”

“What’s a mensch?” You can’t learn everything from paperbacks.

“A good guy. Woodrow understands very well that a firm hand keeps everybody in line. But being loved himself makes his life’s work go smoother.”

“Makes sense.” I shifted in my chair. “Anything in mind for me today?”

He nodded. “Something that won’t take much of your time, but
is
important. To me, anyway.”

“Okay.”

He sat forward slightly, folded his hands in that prayerful manner. “I trust my people, but that only goes so far.”

Trust again.

He was saying, “I’m spending the evening tonight with a female friend. Not
all
night—just a few hours. The circumstances are. . .delicate. Meaning, discretion is key.” When I didn’t say anything, he continued: “Mr. Quarry, this is a married woman, and she has a husband of. . .let’s just say influence.”

“Whatever you need.” I had no idea why he felt the need to explain himself. So he and Mrs. Jones had a thang going on. Who gave a shit?

“As I say, I trust my staff, but I don’t see any need for needless risk.”

Said the guy who last night offhandedly slashed a hooker’s throat and a shot a minion in the head.

“Yeah,” I yes-manned. “Why take a needless risk?”

“So I’m taking no retinue along at all. . .except yourself.”

That perked me up, but I didn’t show it.

“You’ll drive me,” he said. “I realize you’re not familiar with the area, but the Fantasy Sweets is only a few blocks from here.”

“Do we need to pick up your friend?”

He shook his head. “No. She’ll already be in the suite when I get there. I’ll position you outside the door. You may want to bring something to read. You can commandeer a chair from the desk clerk.”

“Sounds fine,” I said. “What time?”

“Meet me downstairs at seven-forty-five. I told my friend I’d meet her at the suite at eight or shortly thereafter.”

“Piece of cake.”

“Piece of something,” he said with a wicked smile.

That was about as witty as I heard him get.

I said, “Anything you need before then?”

“No. After last night, and the night before, you’ve gone above and beyond. Take this afternoon off. Relax. That little stripper that Mr. Woody provided—she showing you a good time?”

“I’m showing her a good time. Taught her how to achieve orgasm yesterday.”

That made him chuckle again. “I never know when you’re kidding, Mr. Quarry.”

“That’s my charm.”

He dismissed me and I went back out, nodding at the various black suits between Killian’s office and the elevator.

I collected Luann. I ditched the black suit for a blue t-shirt and jeans, and she got into her yellow halter top and hot pants. We had another lunch at The Dockside, then I drove her over to the nearby Saenger Theater on Reynoir Street for a movie. They had two screens—we had a choice between
The Godfather
and
What’s Up Doc?
I opted for the latter, because it was a comedy. I’d heard the Mafia movie was good, but I didn’t need a bunch of violent shit in my head right now.

In the car, on Beach Boulevard, I said to her, “Do you like to swim?”

“Sure.”

“I do, too. It’s driving me crazy being this close to all that blue water and not taking a dip.”

“And our motel doesn’t have a pool, Johnny. I know. Bummer.”

Our
motel. Something about her putting it that way was nice. And troubling.

“
I
know where we can swim,” she said, sitting up with rare enthusiasm. “Gulf’s too cold right now, but there’s a hotel where they know me.”

“Yeah?”

“We could stop at one of these souvenir stands and buy suits. If you want.”