Stone Quarry

dragged you in and he found out you'd been messing with his baby.'

'Maybe it would've, maybe not,' Grice shrugged. 'But why take the chance? That pipeline thing is worth two, three million, all legal. 'Go back to Daddy, baby whore,' I told her. 'You're not ready for the big time.' 'Oh, no?' she says. She smiles that smile she had, kind of scary, you know? She walks up to Wally, presses her tits against him like she's been doing for days. He gets all hot. He was so dumb, Wally.' Grice took a drag on his cigarette. Arnold nodded solemnly. 'He never noticed when she pulled his gun outta his pants. Three lucking shots she put in that jerk. Then she said, 'Is that big time enough?' You know, she never stopped smiling.'

Grice pressed his cigarette down into the ashtray. He smiled, folded one hand over the other in a gesture of finality.

My cigarette wasn't finished yet. I watched him through the smoke that drifted up past my eye. 'And after you had Jimmy set up for that one, you figured you'd make it two,' I said.

'Well, what the hell was I gonna do, send her home? She was bragging to everyone and his brother-in-law about the burglary, like she was the only broad ever stole anything. She would've called the newspapers to say she'd killed somebody.'

'And that would have gotten you involved.'

'You bet your ass. Besides, I was thinking about the paintings. I didn't want her to fuck that up for me.'

'For you?'

'That's right. For me.' He smiled the smile of a python thinking about a mouse. 'We went back to my place. Christ, that's what she wanted. We spent the whole next day in the sack. Just me and those tits and that pink ass. She was a great lay, Smith. You ever have her?'

I couldn't do anything but shake my head.

'Well, you should've. You missed something. She told me she talked to you, that night.'

I spat my cigarette butt onto the floor, squashed it under my foot. 'She was looking for Jimmy.'

'She told me. She thought I'd be impressed if she found him for me. I would've, too. But you wouldn't tell her shit.'

'After that,' I said, trying to keep my voice calm, even, 'that night, you took her to Eve's studio?'

'Hell, she took me! She still thought I just didn't believe her. She thought showing me where the goddamn paintings came from would change my mind. 'She's real famous, Frank.'' Mimicking, again. ''I learned all about her in school.' Christ, a million-dollar education, that broad was still dumber than shit.'

'She was fifteen, Grice.'

'And she'd've been sixteen one of these days, if she'd kept out of my way. I tried to get rid of her. I told Mike and those guys, Jimmy too, not to let her hang around, but she was balling 'em all, what were they gonna do?'

Grice stood, faced me close, slipped his hands in his pockets. 'So tell me, Smith. Why hasn't the shit hit the fan yet?'

I ignored the question. 'What was the setup?'

He stared, then shrugged. 'I found Jimmy's gloves in the truck, left one of 'em next to her in the shed. Didn't you notice?' he asked sarcastically.

'That was all?'

'What did I need? Everyone knew he'd been screwing her. I had the truck, I had the gun. I had Brinkman chasing all over the county hunting Jimmy for doing Wally. The glove was plenty.'

'The blood in the truck was hers? And the gun you killed her with—Gould's gun?'

'You know so fucking much, how come the whole county isn't screaming about it? You expect me to believe you weren't counting on a little shakedown?'

'Blackmail's your game, Grice. It isn't mine.'

He was starting to speak when the telephone shrilled loudly. Grice may have jumped; I know I did. Lydia was still as stone. Grice backed over to the phone, picked it up. 'Yeah?' Silence. His twisted face twisted some more. He tried to speak a few times, finally yelled, 'Hold it! Dammit, hold on! No. No! Look, I'll call you back.' He dropped the receiver back between its prongs, said to Arnold, 'Take them upstairs.' He stood by the phone, watching, as Arnold pressed his gun against my spine and showed us the way upstairs.

On the next floor were three disheveled bedrooms and one closed door. Arnold, with a lift of his eyebrows, rousted Otis and Ted from a decaying couch and a Gilligan's Island rerun. He passed Ted something from his pocket, nodded toward the closed door, and thumped back down to join Grice.

'Doesn't he ever talk?' Lydia asked into the cold air as we were shepherded up the steep steps beyond the door.

'He talks to Frank,' Otis said. 'He don't like to talk to no one else.'

The stair stopped in a small, slant-ceilinged room. It held two chairs and a table, a sink full of ancient dishes, and a sense of chill neglect.

'Now what?' I asked Otis.

'Now you stay here until Frank wants you somewheres else.' He turned to go.

'I don't trust him, Otis,' Ted whined.

'It's too damn cold to stay up here with 'em.'

'Maybe we should cuff him to something. The radiator,' Ted suggested.

'Yeah,' Otis agreed. 'Good idea.' He took the gun Ted had been pointing and he pointed it while Ted came around behind me and opened the cuffs.