The Broker did.
5
“Ash,” he said.
“What?”
“That’s the name. Mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I just happen to have an address that goes with it. That, you can have later on.”
“Later on.”
“Right. Soon as we get some trust built up in each other. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“I can understand that. You want to tell me about Ash?”
“He worked through the Broker. Like you. Like me. Like that dead kid in bed in the other room.”
“So he worked through the Broker. So what?”
“So three and a half months ago, the Broker was killed. Or, should I say, hit.”
“No kidding.”
“And I think we both know who hit him.”
“Do we?”
“Come on, Quarry. You killed the Broker. Don’t fuck around.”
“What if I didn’t?”
“Kill the Broker, you mean? Wouldn’t matter. Ash thinks you did.”
“Don’t stop now. You’re rolling.”
“I kind of thought you’d find this interesting. Anyway, Ash, or somebody behind him, wants to take over where the Broker left off. And figures doing away with the guy that killed the broker is a necessary safety precaution for anybody planning to step in the Broker’s shoes.”
“When do you get to the part where you and me make a pile?”
“I’m there already. All we got to do, Quarry, is ease Ash out. Or, Ash and whoever’s behind him, if there is somebody behind him. That part I’m not sure about, but it’s no problem.”
“Then what?”
“Then we, Quarry, we take over for the Broker. We play the middleman role and get some of the safe money, for a change. Shit! Who in fuck is better qualified than us?”
I nodded. Sat staring thoughtfully at him.
“I know, I know,” he said. “There’s more to it than just what I’ve said. I’m just sketching it in, broad strokes, broad strokes. But it’s not hard to see that there’s more here than just one man can handle. Two men… if they’re men like you and me, Quarry, the sky’s the fuckin’ limit, man. What do you say?”
“How about ‘this is so sudden’?”
“Take your time. Think it over. Nobody’s rushing you.”
“You keep talking. I’ll be thinking it over.’’
“Okay. First move is, hit Ash. Got to question him first, of course, find out if this was his idea, and if not, whose it was. We got to find out about the mechanical side, too, you know, find out just how exactly taking over Broker’s old setup could be put into effect. I mean, I assume there’s a list or something of the people like you and me who worked through the Broker, and we’ll need that; that’ll be the key. Questioning Ash won’t be any big deal. I, uh, know how to get people to talk to me, if I have to. Even somebody like Ash.”
I remembered the stiletto in the other room and knew what he meant.
“All right. I gave you the name, like I said, But it’s meaningless without the address. I can take you there. We can go see Ash together, we could go tonight.”
“It’s within driving distance, then?”
“That’s right. You’ll excuse me for not being exact about how far, or how long it’ll take us, you understand. But if we left now, we could be there in… a reasonable amount of time, yes.”
“You do realize there’s a body in the other room that needs getting rid of.”
“Oh, well, sure. No problem. We could do that on the way.”
We wrapped the body in the bedclothing; the plastic cover I’d put on the bed was dark green, and not only held in the mess, but made for a nice dark bundle that would look relatively inconspicuous, should we happen to be seen depositing it in the back of his station wagon. The wagon was parked beyond the bushes that separated my property from the road. I am on the outskirts of a town of less than one hundred population, so the road is lit, but not particularly well traveled, especially in winter, in the early predawn hours.
There are a lot of sand and gravel pits along the Wisconsin and Illinois border. The greatest number are near Woodstock, which is thirty or so miles from my cottage. The abandoned pits fill with water, and there was one of those, a large one, a mile and a half from me. In the summer the tree-encircled, water-filled pit is used by kids of various ages for skinny dipping. In the winter it isn’t used for much of anything.
Around a year ago August some teen-agers were swimming there and some kid with good lungs went tooling way down underwater to see what he could see. What he saw was a car with three bodies in it. The bodies were floating around inside, bloated, decomposing, full of bullet holes.
The authorities called it a gangland killing, which it probably was.
I didn’t have to mention any of this, of course. We both knew that we were close enough to Chicago to be able to dump a shot-up corpse about anywhere and have it called a gangland killing.
He was still talking, but I wasn’t listening. I had him drive, just to keep his hands busy, and interrupted him with instructions when necessary, which he followed cheerfully. We were on a gravel side road, now.
“See that little inroad, up there?” I said. “There between those two big trees?”
“I see it.”
“When you get there, back in, slowly.”
“Okay. You know something funny, Quarry?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“I feel a little bad about that kid back there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the lump in the bedclothes behind us.
“Really.”
“I mean it. He was too young. I thought working the backup spot, after so many years of going in first, would be relaxing, but shit.. with a young guy like that, no experience, impulsive, I was sitting on pins every time around, waiting to see if he pulled it off or stepped on his dick or what. No, last couple years, Broker was bringing ’em in too young. I don’t think Beatty was twenty-five, even. What are you, Quarry, thirty? You must’ve come in young, yourself. Fuck. Must be gettin’ sentimental in my old age.”
“I guess I know how you feel,” I said. “I lost a partner myself last year. Hey! This is it right here… don’t miss it.”
He started backing in, saying, “So you lost one, too, huh? Well, it happens.”
“Yeah. I worked with the same partner for something like four years. Okay, whoa. This is good.”
He shifted into park. “I had three different partners, since I got in the business. I guess you’re my fourth.”
“Yeah, well, I worked with other guys, myself. I spent a whole year, filling in where Broker needed me, whenever one half of a team wasn’t available. I even worked with a guy named Ash once or twice.”
He didn’t catch it right away.
He was looking into the silencer by the time he said, “But I thought you said you never heard of Ash…”
“I lied,” I said.
He took it between the eyes and the side of his head hit the horn. I eased him over a bit, to stop the honking, and got out of the car.
I opened the door on his side and he almost fell out. I pushed him forward so that he was prone across the seat, put the car in neutral, shut the door, got around front and pushed. A few feet from where the little inroad ended, the watery pit began.
