Quarry's Choice (17 page)

He turned to look at her, poised in the opening of glass doors, and so did I.

Woody had scored himself a fine-looking wife. Or at least I didn’t figure his housekeeper was a tall dark-blonde with the features of a model and the bosom of a centerfold. She was in a kind of half-sarong with a halter top, a tropical print of green and yellow and white. Her sandals were open-toed, with red nails. Her fingernails were red, too.

“You’re not interruptin’ anythin’ much, sweetheart,” he said, and rose, and presented her with a loving smile that held no indication of a desire for a getaway pad minus the “little woman.” Who was easily two inches taller than him.

She came hesitantly over and Mr. Woody said, “This is John Quarry, dear. He was workin’ for Jackie but he’s with me now.”

Her smile was quick. “I guess everyone is now.” She nodded. “Mr. Quarry. Pleasure.”

I was on my feet and took the hand she offered, not shaking it, just sort of holding and squeezing it a little. “Mrs. Colton.”

“Call me Wanda, please.” Then her attention went to her husband. “I’m goin’ out golfin’ this afternoon with my gal pals. Do you mind catchin’ dinner on your way to the club?”

“Not at all, darlin’,” he said, and beamed at her.

She nodded, smiled politely to me, and was gone.

But her eyes had confirmed that she’d recognized me just as I had recognized her. . .

. . .as the married woman I’d seen leaving the Caligula Suite last night.

* * *

Luann and I had lunch at The Dockside. Nothing of import occurred, although she was happy to hear I would be staying in Biloxi for a while.

I said, “Mr. Woody says you can stay on as my tour guide, if you like.”

“Is that what I am?”

“No. Much more, honey.”

But I really didn’t know what she was. I knew I liked her, and wasn’t having a fuck bunny on call the dream of every road-company Hefner? Only on some level, she was just one more aspect of this job that was off-kilter.

She had to go in to the club at two-thirty that afternoon. I dropped her off at the front door of Mr. Woody’s and promised to return at eleven-fifteen.

I parked the Chevelle in the space next to the outer door of my Tropical room but did not go in. Instead, I hiked across the highway to the phone booth that was becoming my home away from home.

I got the Broker right away.

I told him, in the necessarily elliptical fashion, that the Killian job was done but that Woody Colton expected me to hang around for a while, apparently to help cover his ass with the troops.

“He says,” I said, “that he talked to you about this.”

“He did,” the Broker said. “His reasoning is sound. But I would stay no longer than a week. I don’t want Woodrow getting used to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“A young man of your skills, your aptitude, would come in handy. Can’t have you stolen away from me.”

“Sweet talker.”

The conversation with the Broker went on a while after that, but covered nothing new. Oh, he promised me an extra five grand for staying another week. Nothing else of significance.

In the hotel room, I considered climbing into the hot tub to relax, but thought better of it, even though I hadn’t had any red wine. But at least I could get out of the tailored suit and tie and into something comfortable. I put on a blue t-shirt and jeans and flopped on the bed.

I’m not sure how long I’d been sleeping when the knock came. Oddly, it was from the door to the outside, by the parked Chevelle, not the hall one. I got the nine millimeter from the nightstand and went to the door, which had no night-latch, and cracked it.

A beautiful high-cheekboned female face looked at me plaintively, the dark blue eyes going surprisingly well with the lighter blue eye shadow.

“Please,” Mrs. Woodrow Colton said. Her hair was up, like it had been last night. “Might we talk?”

“Sure,” I said, and let her in, keeping the pistol behind my back.

She was in a light-blue pullover skirt that looked like a Polo shirt with a long tail, though in this case it made a short mini. A metallic belt was at her narrow waist. Too young an outfit for her, but I’m not a stickler about stuff like that.

She touched my shoulder, standing very near to me. She was as tall as me in her sandals with heels. Her narrow face was almost horsey, but the features were too finely carved for that to be a problem. She smelled great. My Sin, I think. Somebody’s sin.

In a breathy contralto, she said, “You were kind not to say anything in front of Woody.”

“You’re welcome.”

Her eyes popped. “No one can know I was there last night.”

“I get that.”

She nodded, then walked to the bed and sat on the foot, her knees together primly. Those legs were a little slender for my taste, but my God they went on and on.

“There’s nothing I can give you for your silence,” she stated.

“I don’t want anything.”

“Woody and me, all our money is in a joint account. If I withdrew somethin’, he’d know. Woody would know.”

“Not necessary.”

She shook her head and a few dark-blonde tendrils fled the pinned-up hair. “You don’t know him.”

“Sure I do.”

“You think he’s nice. You think he’s sweet.”

“I wouldn’t say sweet.”

“He can be brutal. He can be violent. He might. . .would you think I exaggerate if I said he might kill me?”

“No. People have been known to do that.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if. . .if
he
had Jack killed. If somebody came in after I left, somebody he hired, and drowned him or something.”

“Pretty far-fetched.” Was she fucking with me?

“Mr. Quarry. . .should I call you ‘Mr. Quarry?’ ”

“Just Quarry is fine. Most people call me that.”

“Your last name?”

“Yeah. Unless you want to call me ‘Jack.’ ”

“No! No.”

Didn’t think so.

She patted the bed next to her. I came over and sat, bringing the nine millimeter with me, draping it in my lap.

“What’s that for?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Surprises. What do you want, Mrs. Colton?”

“Call me Wanda.”

“Okay. What do you want, Wanda?”

But she didn’t answer, at least not directly.

“Quarry. . .I’ll try to get used to that. . .Quarry, have you talked to the police?”

“No. As far as they’re concerned, I wasn’t there last night.”

“But you were.”

“No. Mr. Killian drove himself.”

She thought about that. “So you can’t say a word about seein’ me there without. . .”

“That’s right. So you don’t really have anything to worry about.”

“That’s wonderful. Oh. . .I mean, nothing’s wonderful about it, but. . .thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It’s mutually beneficial, that’s all. Somebody once told me that trust is when two people each have something on the other.”

“I heard that somewhere, too.”

“So then we’re cool.”

“We’re. . .we’re cool. But I would
still
like to thank you.”

She stood. She undid the belt, tossed it with a clunk on the nearby bureau by where the TV squatted. “Put that gun somewhere.”

I got up and placed it on the nightstand, then turned to her and said, “I don’t need any thanks.”

“Do you have any protection?”

“Besides the gun?”

“Yes. Besides the gun.”

“You mean, like Trojans?”

“Yes. I mean like Trojans.”

I shook my head. “Not necessary.”

“Maybe my thanks aren’t. But a Trojan is.”

She pulled the Polo dress over her head and tossed it like a spent paper cup. Then the only thing she was wearing was a wicked smile. She was olive-complected and those legs didn’t stop till her neatly trimmed pubic triangle demanded it. The flare of her hips was emphasized by the narrowness of her waist, and the large full breasts drooped some, due to age and gravity, but were astonishing nonetheless, their areolae the size of silver-dollar pancakes at the Waffle House.

She shoved me onto the bed. I really didn’t need this. I’d been having so much sex with Luann lately I was raw.

She demanded, “The Trojans—where are they?”

It was like the demand of a Greek goddess.

I pointed to the opposite nightstand, the one without the gun. She found the rubbers, tossed one little package on the bed. There was an unsettling confidence about her—she moved like a man. Nothing mannish about her ass, though, which was beautifully shaped and dimpled. She came over, undid my belt and yanked my jeans and shorts down around my ankles. She snugged the Trojan onto the part of me currently doing my thinking. She piled two pillows against the headboard and said, “Get comfy.”

I got comfy.

She crawled up between my legs like a panther on the prowl and the eyes were cold as she said, “Just so you know—I don’t suck dick.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” I said.

She climbed onboard and fucked me like I was a steer she was trying to break, and she never got tossed. Her eyes and nostrils flared and her upper lip curled back over feral teeth and the long tips of the huge breasts shook at me like scolding fingers. I was breathing so hard I was wheezing, and then with me still in her, she rolled us over and wrapped the endless legs around me and squeezed and squeezed and churned her hips in rhythmic abandon. It was savage and it was intense and it was lustful as hell, without an ounce of tenderness. It was like fucking Hitler, if Hitler had great tits and a nice ass.

She got off me and went in the bathroom and washed up and came back and gave me a businesslike look, her head tilted. “So do we have an understandin’?”

“Sure.”

“I wasn’t there last night. You weren’t there last night.”

“Where?”

“Good,” she said. She gathered her purse and was about to go out the door, then turned and came over and gave me a little kiss on the forehead. I was still on my back with my dick wilting into the damp rubber.

“Bye, Quarry,” she said.

And was gone.

I went in and pitched the rubber in the crapper, making sure it flushed—couldn’t have my little hooker knowing I had cheated on her with Mrs. Caligula—and took a long, hot shower. I felt dirty. I never felt this way after killing somebody, but this was different. I’d come hard and long and I knew that over the years there would be nights when I would reflect on this wild, sudden, bizarre fuck and remember just how hard and long I’d come and how little I’d felt.

Christ, I wanted out of Biloxi. There was just too much killing and fucking going on in this goddamn town.

Even for me.

I pulled off Highway 90 on the beach side, into the under-illuminated lot of the warehouse-like strip club, its painted
MR. WOODY’S
sign lit up by low-mounted white floods. The place looked to be doing okay off-season business, a good dozen cars worth, anyway. For the hell of it, I drove around to the mini-casino, which announced itself modestly in a window with a small
LUCKY SEVEN
neon sharing space with glowing beer signs. Nine or ten vehicles back here—respectable but nothing to brag about on a Friday night. Two months from now it would be packed.

When I swung the Chevelle back around to the front of the building, Luann was just coming out, a canvas tote bag in hand. Wearing no make-up, she was in a loose gray t-shirt with cut-off sleeves and baggy jeans and sandals, her long hair ponytailed back. A stripper leaving a club after her last set did not go out into the world—much less the parking lot—all dolled-up. Not unless she was looking for a john.

And Luann already had a john, right?

I leaned across and opened the door for her and she got in and gave me a tiny smile, shutting herself in. The sweatshirt, I noticed, said
OLE MISS
in red letters. Somehow I didn’t figure Luann had ever attended.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Back to the old bump-and-grind, huh?”

My levity didn’t register on her. “Just fillin’ in. You’re still my. . .you know.”

“Assignment?”

She shrugged, flicked me another smile.

My God, in the dashboard glow, without make-up, hair off her shoulders and up in a girlish ponytail, boobs lost in that oversize tee, she looked about thirteen. The age her mother sold her.

She was staring straight ahead. It was only five minutes down the Strip to the Tropical, but her silence made it seem longer.

Halfway there, I asked, “Something wrong, Luann?”

“No. Tired is all.”

“Sure that’s it?”

She nodded a couple times.

Since I’d already been laid today, I generously said, “Take the night off, why don’t you? You can go to your room.”

That last came off funny—like I was a daddy sending his daughter upstairs for punishment.

She swallowed and, very quietly, said, “Thanks. Maybe I should. I’m pretty beat.”

Something
was
wrong. Had something happened tonight at the club? That had to be it. But I didn’t press it.

At the Tropical, I pulled the Chevelle into its slot and we stepped into the motel room using that outer entrance.

I hadn’t even switched on the light when she looked up at me and said, “We have to talk.”

Never in the history of mankind, when a female spoke those words to a male, did that phrase precede anything positive. Not in your bunk bed at eight years, not in junior high after a sock hop, not in your first year of marriage, not in your last year of marriage, and certainly not in a motel room with a little hooker you’d been banging for half a week.

This couldn’t be about me knocking her up or anything. I hadn’t been in town that long.

The door to the outside was still ajar. Standing there in the near dark, I asked, “Honey, is something wrong?”

She glanced into the barely visible motel room and said, “Not here. You never know about these rooms. Let’s go somewhere.”

“How about across the street?”

“There’s nothin’ across the street.”

“Right.”

She tossed her canvas tote inside and we went back out. I closed the motel room door and took her hand and we made our way through four light lanes of traffic and across the sidewalk to the beach. In one direction was that small-boat harbor, in the other could be seen the white shaft of a historic lighthouse. From here the sleazy clubs lining much of this stretch of Highway 90 weren’t visible.