“Until I believe you, Quarry.”
“There was one bag. One bag, Broker. I won’t fool with that stuff, you know that, don’t you?”
“I thought I did. Where did he keep it?”
“Well, I had to search him. He claimed he shipped the stuff out by some other route. Said he didn’t have any of it on him. But I shook him down and found that bag in the lining of his coat.”
“Some other route. Did he say what route?”
“No. When he said that, I didn’t pursue it. I thought he was bullshitting. And when I found the bag on him, I was convinced.”
“Do you remember what it was he said?”
“No.”
“What did he say, exactly?”
“I don’t remember, exactly.”
“Quarry… are you being straight with me? Can I trust you you’re telling the truth?”
“You’ll have to.”
“If you’re lying, I can get it out of you.”
“If I’m lying, you can’t, Carl can’t, and nobody you know can.”
He thought that over. A tic got going, gently, under his left eye; he touched his mustache. He decided what I said was true; he decided Quarry was so tough no man alive could make him talk. Wrong. There are guys so fucking mean they could look at me and I’d tell them whatever they wanted to know. But Broker didn’t know that, so it didn’t matter.
“Broker,” I said, “I’ve been working through you for, what, now? Five years? Have I ever tried to pull one single damn thing on you?”
Broker shook his head no.
“And,” I said, “haven’t I told you I didn’t want to be involved in any part of anything except this one thing I do? Just my one thing. We’ve talked about that several times. Few hours ago, at that restaurant, for instance.”
Broker nodded.
“So what do you think?” I said.
Broker hesitated. Then he touched his hands to his knees and said, “I think we ought to forget this matter.”
“Good.”
“I think we ought to forget this matter and get on to something, else.”
“Good.”
Broker seemed to relax; the tic was gone; he touched his mustache again, but in a different way. He said, “This afternoon, at the airport, was a rather hastily conceived affair. You were, of course, called in for another purpose entirely. But with you available, I felt it less than prudent to use someone local, like Carl, who wouldn’t have been able to perform in the professional manner I can depend upon you to employ.”
“Thanks for the orchids,” I said. “Now what about the assignment yon had in mind before the sidetrack?”
Broker nodded and said, “Your associate is already doing preliminary work.”
“Boyd’s there already?”
“Yes. Mr. Boyd has been on the scene for a week. You can join him tomorrow afternoon…” Broker glanced at his watch. “Rather, I should say, this afternoon.”
“He’s not somewhere here in the Cities, is he?”
“No. One hit this close to home… my home, that is… is dangerous enough, let alone two. But you will be closer than perhaps is best. Thirty miles from here, small town of twenty or twenty-two thousand, on the Iowa side.”
“Port City?” I asked.
“Yes. You know it?”
“Been through it. Wouldn’t say I know it. Just another river town, little smaller, little older than some I worked.”
“A very simple assignment, really. You’ll need three, four days at most.”
“Fine.”
Broker unfolded his suitcoat and got an envelope out from a side pocket and handed it to me. “There’s a piece of paper in there, with a phone number on it.”
I took the envelope and folded it and stuck it in my shirt pocket. “Boyd’s number?”
Broker nodded.
“Motel or hotel or what?”
“Phone rings where he’s doing surveillance. He’ll be there most of the time.”
“A phone at a lookout? Sounds like an unusual situation.”
“It is. It’s a dream situation for you, Quarry, like a vacation with pay.”
“Work isn’t my idea of a vacation, and neither is Port City.”
“Busman’s holiday, then.” Broker got up and into his suitcoat, smoothing it with his palms and saying, “Sorry we had so much trouble with that other matter.”
“All is forgiven, Broker.”
“I’m sorry if you found your task today offensive. I’ll keep that in mind and avoid giving you any such activities in the future.”
“Good.”
“Enjoy your stay in Port City.”
“I don’t enjoy my work, Broker. I just do it.”
Broker smiled. “And you do it well, Quarry. I appreciate that. You didn’t even bother asking how much this one’s going to pay.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m sure you’ve told Boyd all that. It’ll give us something to talk about.”
Broker walked to the door. “Quarry.”
“Yes?”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why does it bother you so much, my hiring Carl?”
“Doesn’t bother me at all,” I said.
He shook his head, shrugged and opened the door, where Carl was outside waiting. The kid glanced at me and I gave him the peace sign and shut the door on them.
8
I left the Quad Cities at three-thirty that afternoon. I drove down the Illinois side, along a moderately traveled road bordered by lush farmland, busy with harvesters; an occasional cluster of trees bent over green and graceful in the less than gentle afternoon breeze, like oversize, out-of-shape ballet dancers trying in vain to touch distant toes.
I crossed the suspension bridge over the Mississippi River-though it was more suspense than suspension, as it was a rickety, narrow, mostly wooden old thing that had to date back to horse-and-buggy days-and found myself in the heart of Port City’s business district. I set aside an hour and started driving, aimlessly guiding my gray rental Ford over and around Port City; when the hour was up I felt for a stranger I knew the little town pretty good, and why not? It was the same as a thousand other small towns. Not unlike the one I grew up in.
Port City was two hills with a downtown in between, with growths extending from each corner of the city, one to the north a prosperous shopping-center boomtown, one to the south a slum-ridden embarrassment to the Chamber of Commerce. The latter section of the city was in fact called South End, and only by small-town Midwestern standards could it be classified a slum; in big cities used to ghettos and such, South End would’ve been
