life. Women hadn’t been persons in my life for a long time. Women were pretty receptacles for pent-up biological and psychological waste material. An extension of self-abuse, nothing more.
But why then was I thinking crazy thoughts about her? Wild thoughts, like thinking of asking her if she could use a business partner, someone who could add a fat bundle of cash to what she’d saved, to aid her in her attempt to either possess or escape from Bunny’s. Why was I entertaining the fantasy-insanity of wanting to ask her to go partners with me, to find a bar or club or restaurant or diner or anything somewhere, out west maybe, and run a quiet, legitimate business with days and nights and maybe years of breathing and eating and screwing and doing all those things that make life tolerable, maybe even grow old together, or at least older. Of course I didn’t have much saved up, but I did have that plastic bag of white powder that was worth a lot of money, and…
Bullshit.
I was used to being alone. I liked it. People annoyed me. Sometimes companionship got necessary, sure, so you would play some cards with people you could abide, you’d find some good-natured, well-bodied woman and take care of your needs.
But my needs now were shifting. This business of killing, for one thing; this making a life out of death. You can only do that as long as your stomach and head are hard; mine were getting soft in places. I was losing my edge. Otherwise why else would I stick in town after a hit? Detachment, never get personally involved in a job, the fundamental rule, and here I was hip-deep, Boyd’s death eating at the back of my head, Albert Leroy less a shadowy target in my mind and more a real person I’d shot in the chest this morning. And the one constant in my life for some years now, the Broker, long-time business associate, had become a person to be distrusted, perhaps feared, at the very least the umbilical cord of our working relationship was soon to be severed, in fact I was…
Goddamnit!
Thinking, I had to stop this goddamn fucking thinking!
I slipped out of bed. Peg moaned and reached for me in her sleep but I was too quick for her. I wandered out into the other room, moving through the museum her mother had left behind, went to the window and drew back the curtain. It was raining again.
On the chair by the window was my raincoat and in the raincoat was the nine-millimeter. I’d retrieved the automatic from the trunk of the car since I felt that until I was safely away from Port City it would be best to have gun close at hand. I patted the pocket which held the gun. It was a deep pocket, sewn in special for this purpose. I wished I could put on the coat and go out and find the goddamn man with the goddamn wrench and use the gun on him and leave Port City. There was only one part of this fucking town I’d want to remember, and she was asleep in the other room.
I looked out at the rain. It was coming down damn near straight, coming down heavy, hard, enough so that the gutters of the street were flooding. I looked out at the rain and wondered if I should leave now, while she was still sleeping.
“What are you doing, Quarry?”
I turned and looked at her. She was wearing lacy blue panties and that was all. She was stretching her arms above her head and yawning, her dark nippled breasts flattening as she reached her arms up, blooming full again as she lowered them.
“Nothing,” I said.
Outside the thunder rumbled, cracked. She joined me at the window and looked out. The gray streaking rain reflected on her pink flesh, as though someone were projecting a film and using her as a screen. She leaned a knee against the chair and touched the window sill and said, “I like the rain.” She was smiling, but just a little. “I wish I could run out there just like this and jump around in it. Rain like that depresses some people. Not me. It’s a release, a gush, like crying, or coming.” She leaned over and picked the raincoat up off the chair so she could sit down. The gun fell out of the pocket and dropped to the floor. It was like another crack of thunder. “Christ!” she said, and sat down. She stared at the gun, as though she’d never seen one before and was trying to figure out what it was. Her eyes were very round, very white, like the plates in her mother’s china cabinet nearby. Then she looked at me with the blankness that precedes terror, and when her lower lip started to tremble she bit it.
“Easy, Peg,” I said. “Now don’t get upset.”
“Who… who the hell are you, Quarry? Who are you, for Christ’s sake?”
“Now Peg.”
“Quarry? Who… what are you doing here?”
“I can explain.” I went over and picked the gun up off the floor, shoved it in my belt. “Just take it easy.”
I took her by the arm and guided her over to the table in the kitchenette. I held her hand and she said in a soft, frightened but firm little voice, “Just what the hell kind of man are you, anyway?”
I patted her hand and said, conversationally, “What was that man’s name? The one in Chicago, the gangster, you called him.”
“What… what does that have to do with anything?”
“What was his name?”
“… his name was Frank.”
“Frank. Peg, I’m the kind of man your Frank was, I would guess. You can call it what you want… gangster, mob person, whatever.. the label doesn’t really matter.”
She blinked. Just once. “What are you doing in Port City,” she said quickly, almost defiantly. “What are you doing here with me?”
“You really want to know?”
“You tell me, Quarry. You tell me now.”
I paused, gathered my thoughts. I said, “I was brought to Port City to carry out a certain task, never mind what. The people I work for have a policy of not telling me why I’m performing a function, or who exactly that function’s being performed for. I just do as I’m told, and I’m given money, like any other working stiff. But this time, after the task was carried out, bad things started happening. For openers, almost four thousand dollars that belonged to my partner and me was stolen, and that was the nicest thing that happened to us. Then somebody murdered my partner and hung around and tried to murder me. You’ve noticed the bruised area on my chest and shoulder?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her face had turned bloodless white when I mentioned murder, but after a moment she managed to nod her head yes.
“That was from where somebody tried to do me in with a wrench. Damn near succeeded, too. So I been nosing around, asking questions, looking under beds. I’m at a dead end right now. I wanted to find the guy who worked the wrench on my partner, and then on me, but I’m at a dead end. So now I’m going to throw in my cards, cash in my chips and look for another game.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Springborns?”
“I’d rather not say. The less you know about the specifics, the safer you are. All I can tell you is I was looking to find the man responsible for killing my partner and stealing my money.”
“And if you would have found the… man responsible?”
“Let’s just say he would’ve paid what he owes me. You wouldn’t want to know the details.”
She shuddered slightly. “No. I wouldn’t.” She paused for a moment, pulled her hand out from under mine. “What about us. Quarry? What about you and me?”
“I won’t pretend our meeting was accidental. You knew about some people I wanted to get at. I managed to find out in an underhanded way some of the things I needed to know.”
The color came back to her cheeks. “And getting into my pants was sort of a bonus for you, then, wasn’t it?”
“Peg.”
“I’m a tour guide providing sex on the side, right? That’s what I am to you, that’s all I am to you.”
I said, “It could’ve been that way. Things worked out different.”
“Did they?” Her face was emotionless-motionless-but I thought I could see something starting to melt in her eyes.
“Peg,” I said, “remember what you said this morning? Remember what you said about being able to tell somebody in twenty years all about what we did together, making love together? Well so could I. Twenty years from now I’ll remember every detail of being with you. You just look me up in twenty years and try me.”
She gave me a tentative smile. She said, “Will you, Quarry?”
