I asked her what she was majoring in, and she said, “English, with a minor in philosophy.”
“Wow. Two ways not to get a job.”
She took that well, then got reflective. “Maybe what’s really going on with me is I’m jealous of my uncle and even my dad.”
“Well, maybe I can find us a hotel with a Jacuzzi.”
She smirked. “No, I mean... here I am all up-in-arms about social issues and, like you rightly say, my money-hungry, sex-addicted uncle, with the help of my business-oriented daddy, is the one getting his political views out there. It galls me that he’s making social change, and doing it on the backs of women!”
“Usually it’s the women on their backs.”
That made her laugh. She didn’t want it to, but it did. “You know, Jack, I like having you around. You sort of... keep me honest.”
“Somebody has to.”
“How long will you be working for my uncle?”
“Not sure. Probably not much longer.”
“Oh. That’s kind of too bad.”
By the time we were back in the Mustang, night had fallen and frogs were talking to each other and insects singing their own song. This was the south, all right. I leaned over and kissed her. It was soft and it was sweet. Maybe it didn’t top fucking the Climax Girl of the Month in the ass, but it was all right.
When I pulled up in front of the Claridge House, she gave me a kiss, a nice long one, and said, “You wanna come up?”
“I should get back to that X-rated episode of the Beverly Hillbillies. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Maybe studying. Nothing else — it’s Sunday.”
“Well, I meant after church, of course.”
She got out of the car, laughing, then leaned in like a carhop and said, “You know where to find me,” and ran off.
This time it was Climer who answered the bell by the big pink door. He was still in his burgundy silk robe, smoking a cigarette now.
“Thanks for comin’ back,” he said. Then the small smile in the bland baby face got accompanied by a twinkle in his eyes. Yes, a goddamn twinkle. He asked, “Did you bang my little niece?... No. Sorry. None of my business. Bad taste.”
Yes, Max Climer was worried that he might have wandered into the realm of bad taste.
He walked me back to the den where Corrie’s mostly untouched glass of white wine was still on the massive coffee table. He got behind the bar and asked, “Beer? Hard stuff?”
“Coors or anything but Budweiser.”
He grinned at me, cigarette dangling. “You have no taste, Quarry.”
Taste again.
He brought me a Coors and a Bud for himself and settled in next to me on the couch, not too close, since there was plenty of room.
He said, “I figured we should talk about last night.”
“We’re not going to talk about last night, Max, because last night never happened. Anyway, it was really morning. The wee hours.”
“Okay.” He let out smoke. “What about repercussions?”
I sighed. “Well, you’ll likely hear from the cops. I haven’t seen the news, or an evening paper, but that van with the three dead dipshits in it will likely be written off as an organized crime hit of some kind. Eventually, though, that trio will be linked to you. They worked for you.”
His arm was along the back of the couch, his feet crossed and resting on the coffee table. “Recent hires. Not on the books yet.”
“Well, if nobody comes around asking, so much the better. If they do, don’t try to fake it. Say they were recent help and admit you don’t check references on bodyguards and so on. At some point you may be asked about me.”
“What do I say?”
“That I claimed to be a security expert, and gave you an off-the-cuff assessment of your security situation and you were convinced. Plus, I said I was a Vietnam vet and war hero.”
He was studying me with those rarely blinking eyes. “Listen... do you have a background that would hold up on examination? You know, if I wanted to hire you full-time?”
“I do. The Vietnam service is real. The Bronze Star, too. But I’m not looking for a job. I already have a job, as you know.”
“And I’m guessing it pays well.”
“It does.”
“What if I were to double it?”
“No sale. No offense, but... not interested.”
His tone got softly chummy. “There’s not just money available, Quarry. There’s more pussy than you can shake a stick at. There’s nose candy and other recreational stuff, as long as you stay away from anything hard.”
“Your bartender, the black dude? Leon? He’s the one providing grass and coke to the girls, right?”
He frowned. “Right. You spotted that?”
“Yeah, and without a seeing-eye dog. Be careful, Max. Be more careful.”
Grinning, he stabbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table. “That’s just the kind of service you could lend me. Come work with me, Quarry. I mean, now that the job here is done.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘done’?”
He gave me the world’s tiniest shit-eating grin. “Well... last night... which never happened... that was it, right? That was the threat, and you squashed it?”
I shook my head. “No. That was something else. Something that reflects in general what a target you are, but had nothing to do with the contract we discussed. I’m still working on that.”
The unused-looking face turned blister white. “I’m still in the crosshairs?”
“Like a clay pigeon. At least one of the kill team is in town. Both should be soon. We’ll take care of them. And I’m still looking into who hired them.”
“Anything there?”
I shrugged. “I spoke to Leonard Peck. He seems like a respectable sort. But operating adult bookshops, that makes him a likely mob associate.”
He let out some breath. “Hell. Okay. Well, I got faith in you, Quarry. I’ve seen how you handle things.”
“Thanks.”
He hauled his feet off the coffee table and rose and said, “Come with me a second.”
I nodded and got up, followed him, and before we knew it, we were back in the master bathroom. In the sunken whirlpool, his fiancée Mavis, as naked as when she was at the end of her strip act, was sucking on one of the much more real tits of yet another Climax centerfold, a blonde. Mavis had her hand underwater and was doing something to the blonde, who seemed to like it.
“Two of them, two of us,” Climer said, with a baby-tooth leer. “Just drop your drawers and we can climb in there with ’em.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I never learned to swim.”
Of course I swam just fine — but so did the germs and sperms swimming around in there.
Giving the sales pitch one more try, Mavis got herself up on the edge of the hot tub, spread her legs and invited the blonde’s attention. That’s when I noticed skin-colored make-up on her inner thighs getting washed away, exposing needle marks and bruising.
Time to go.
I was in the Mustang, with the engine started, when Climer in his silk robe came to the door and called, “Quarry! Phone for you!”
I went back in and was led to a phone in the hall.
“Quarry,” Boyd’s voice said. Phone booth. I could hear street sounds. “The shooter’s in town, and they’re both on the move.”
Twelve
“I’ll be in a joint called Lafayette’s,” Boyd’s voice said. “In Overton Square — you know where that is?”
I did. I’d been there earlier, because Corrie’s apartment building ran along an edge of it, and that burger joint we’d eaten at, Huey’s, was in the thick of it.