easy drive of Lake Geneva, where I belong to the Playboy Club, where I spend a night or two a week, when I’m not working. One night a week I play cards with some friends of mine down at Twin Lakes, mostly old guys who’ve retired, doctors and dentists and lawyers who stay the year round, though the crowd changes during the summer and the winter skiing months, when some men closer my age drift into the penny ante game. Once a year I go to Las Vegas and gamble and do my best to screw some pretty girls; sometimes I win. Once a year, in the winter, I go to Fort Lauderdale and soak up some sun. When I’m at the lake, in summer months, I swim and sun and water ski when I can find a knowledgeable female assistant to help me with my boat. There are many nice outdoor things to do around there in the fall, and the spring too, but in the winter I stay inside and listen to my stereo and watch television and read an occasional paperback western. When I’m not working.
A nice life: comfortable, better than comfortable. I work six, maybe seven jobs a year, for varying fees, my yearly income averages between fifteen and twenty thousand, a lot for a man alone, though I manage to spend every cent every year. I pay taxes on an income of seven or eight thousand, under my salesman cover; Broker fills out the IRS forms for me. My cover is something of a joke: door-to-door salesman of women’s “personal wear,” meaning hosiery and lingerie and the like. I still take along a sample case and credentials, but first year or so I took the case door-to-door some, establishing myself in whatever town the hit was in as a salesman, while Boyd was doing his lookout thing. Later I decided that was stupid. It was better to be invisible, and the cover was useless as far as cops were concerned anyway. After all, cops wouldn’t ask questions till you did something, and the only thing you would do is kill some guy, immediately after which you’d be the hell out of town. And if they did happen to catch you in the act or something, a fuck of a lot of good a damn sample case of underwear is going to do you.
“You mind if we join you, son?”
I got off my back to tread water and looked down toward the shallow section of the pool where a short, fat- bellied guy in his fifties, who was the one who’d spoken, and a short but skinny guy with white hair all over his chest and none on his head who was also in his fifties, were sloshing their way into the water. I stroked over to the side and climbed out.
I said, “All yours, gentlemen. I was just getting out.”
The fat one nodded and grinned and the two men lolled around in the shallow end like a couple overage water babies.
There was an exercise room downstairs. I found it empty, which was the way I hoped to find it. Empty of people that is: the room had plenty of equipment, such as barbells and wall-pulleys and chinning bar and rowing machine. I spent a long time in there. Sweat rolled off my body and got the bad things in me out. I exercised mechanically, with speed and concentration, with a pleasant mindlessness that was just what I needed right then.
But when I started to get tired the thinking hit me again. I was on the rowing machine and I got to thinking about Boyd and Broker and my job and how long was it all going to last, anyway?
I was spoiled, maybe, from five years of smooth runs, five years of nothing-goes-wrong and then all of a sudden Boyd loses his edge and almost gets me killed last job. Then Broker pulls that half-ass, last-minute airport deal on me, where it’s not enough I off the guy, I got to play strong-arm and delivery boy too. By that Broker betrayed the trust I had in him and our working arrangement.
Your mind works things out sometimes. Your subconscious, I mean. In my mind somewhere I knew that if I ever wanted to quit doing what I was, I ought to have some money laid aside to fall back on. But I didn’t: I had spent every nickel and that was something I never faced. But my subconscious did. My subconscious made me hold onto half that load of heroin. My subconscious was responsible for me having that little key to that little locker forty miles away at the Quad City Airport. A locker that had a bag of stuff in it that was my nest egg, my ticket out of Broker’s loving arms, my everything. Till I found something else at least.
My subconscious had made a decision: get the hell out. I’ve lost faith in Broker. And Boyd. This is it for me. Just this one damn dipshit little job. Just wipe out this one poor mark, this Albert Leroy who’s dead on his feet anyway, and quit or disappear or whatever but get the hell out! No more Boyd, no more Broker, maybe quit the racket altogether. Maybe not. It isn’t the killing. It’s working with people I got no trust in is killing me.
I got up off the rowing machine. In the corner was a punching bag. I went over to it and started hitting it, pretending it was Boyd, and suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore and I hit it for a long while. I took out a lot of frustration on that bag, and when I was done I was tired again. But refreshed. To take the coat of sweat off I went back up to the pool, which was again empty of people, and swam for another half hour. I was alone the whole time. It was wonderful.
By the time I got back to my room it was five o’clock. On my way up to the room I’d stuck my head out of the air-conditioned Y and found that one of those late summer scorchers had come out of nowhere and descended on Port City. So I said to hell with the sportcoat-and-tie business and got myself a shortsleeve mock-turtleneck Ban- Lon and a pair of denim slacks from my suitcase and put them on. I felt like a human being again.
Down the street, near the waterfront, I found a restaurant that would feed me breakfast. I consumed several omelets and a lot of toast and bacon and I felt good by the time I got back to the Y. It takes a long while to get dark in the Midwest, thanks to Daylight Saving Time, so I sat downstairs in the small television room of the Y and watched a made-for-TV movie, and then it was nine o’clock and late enough to go calling on Boyd.
Boyd was sitting, back to wall, facing away from the window, a can of Bud between his legs. There was a smile under his mustache; he was enjoying the cool night breeze coming in the open window. His eyes were closed and he looked asleep, but as soon as I got within a few feet of him, he said, “Albert’s having his soda right now. You can expect him to come out of the drugstore and start strolling back down the street, oh…” He checked his watch. “… three minutes from now.”
“Hello, Boyd.”
“Hello.”
“It was hot today.”
“Sure was.”
“Did he wear his sweater?”
“No, by God he didn’t. First time, too.”
“Maybe he’s human after all.”
“But he did wear a long-sleeve shirt.”
I shook my head and sat down on the davenport.
“Want me to get you a beer?” Boyd said.
“No.”
“You know, I’m thinking of taking up permanent residence here. This apartment is something else.”
“Sure is.”
“Do you know that the fridge was full of beer and food, before I even got here?”
“No kidding.”
“Sure was. Whoever our host is, he’s thoughtful. And, shit, Quarry, you know what? Budweiser. That was what kind of beer was in it. My favorite kind, can you beat it?”
“You can’t beat it.”
“Listen, Quarry, I want to ask you something.”
“Shouldn’t you be watching?”
He made a face, half-turned toward the window. A couple minutes went by and he said, “Here comes the gink. Thirty seconds off schedule. Yeah. There he goes. Go to the door, gink. Thata boy. Fumble for your goddamn key. Thata gink, thata boy.” Boyd belched and turned back to me. “Boring. We’re doing the world a favor this time out.”
“Are we.”
“Sure.”
“This guy’s dead already, Boyd. Who wants a dead man killed?”
“That isn’t our business. Our business is doing him.”
“You’re right. I think I’ll go get myself a beer.”
“Do that. Do that, Quarry.”
A few minutes later I was sitting sipping the beer and Boyd said, “Quarry?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to ask you something.”
