“There’s somebody to do the stakeout work,” I said. “And somebody to pull the trigger.”
“You said three.”
“Sure. The victim makes three, Frank. That’s where you come in.”
21
The psychopathic hospital at Iowa City was a sprawling one-story brick building on a spacious lawn whose many trees and bushes were apparently tailored to provide a soothing landscape, no matter what the season. Only right now it was no season at all, rather that limbo period between winter and spring, trees gray and skeletal, grass brown as cardboard. Even the few evergreen bushes looked wilted, like a salad that sat out.
We came in separate cars. I had already determined that no one (except me) had followed Tree from Des Moines to the Amana turn-off on Interstate 80. But that didn’t mean somebody, knowing Tree’s patterns, might not drive to Iowa City by some other route and pick up shadowing him there. So Tree parked along the curb of a half- circle drive designed for outpatient pick-up, where you could legally park for thirty minutes or so; and I left my latest rental Ford in a metered stall down the slope of the hill just beyond the hospital. I spent ten minutes trying to see if anybody was here ahead of us, watching, and there didn’t seem to be, but I couldn’t be sure: the University Hospital was across the way, with its large parking lot, where somebody could easily be staked out. My main concern was not wanting to be recognized, not wanting to be seen with Tree, particularly by Lu, who might be sitting in a car in that lot watching right now. Maybe the ten minutes between Tree going in and me following would be enough; that and my rental car and feeble disguise, consisting of glasses and a sweater I’d pulled on over my shirt, hopefully affecting the look of a straight-type college kid. The man of a thousand faces.
Inside was a hallway, with a glassed-in office area off to the left, with a pretty young nurse in it, who Tree was unsuccessfully flirting with when I came in. I was identified as a cousin of the patient; evidently only relatives were admitted. Then the nurse told Tree that Dr. Cash wanted a word with him before the visitation, and Tree went down the hall and knocked on a door on the right and it opened and he went in.
I waited downstairs, in a room full of tables and chairs and vending machines. This room, like the corridor I’d been briefly in upstairs, was as coldly institutional as a tax form. Some lunch room. I’d sooner have a sandwich in the morgue. Which didn’t stop me from feeding some change to a vending machine that sold me a Coke that was all ice and syrup and I drank it anyway.
After that I wandered in the hall a while. This lower floor was apparently in as much use as the upper one, withrooms labeled various functional things. The ceiling was a maze of exposed electrical wiring and pipes, cheerfully painted over in bland pastel, and would have been enough to make your average fire inspector check in as a permanent guest. The only advantage I could see to having the place set up this way, like a two-story building with the first floor under- ground, was it cut down on people jumping out of windows.
I’d never been in a nuthouse before and hoped this wouldn’t start a trend. But there was somebody here Tree wanted me to see, and I’d decided to go along with him, since it seemed to mean a lot to him.. but by now I was half expecting Tree to come through a door with a brace of boys in white coats and point his finger at me and say, “That’s the one.”
We had talked money first. I reminded him that in one of our earlier conversations he’d offered double the price of the contract on him. He reminded me that I’d had a gun on him at the time, which, like trying to get a good-looking woman to do what you want in bed, is a situation where a man will say anything.
And then I told him I didn’t want him to double the price, anyway.
I just wanted him to match it.
“What are they paying?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I can make an educated guess.”
“Make it, then.”
“Five.”
There was a short silence, and then he said, “Five thousand dollars,” slowly, shaking his head, smiling a little. “A man likes to think his life’s worth more than that.”
“It’s not your life we’re talking about, Frank. Just the opposite.”
He wanted to know how I’d be paid, and I told him a thousand up front, which would do little more than cover expenses. The balance would come only after I’d got some results. And it would be paid half in cash, half in check, so I’d have something to pay taxes on and keep the IRS happy. There were some details about how the check was to be handled that I needn’t go into here.
And he wanted to know what he’d be getting for his money.
I told him he’d already got quite a lot, and explained how I’d followed a woman named Glenna Cole from Florida to Des Moines, where she had been staking him out for five days, and figured she’d watch him no longer than two weeks total before the other half of the team stepped in to finish the job. I didn’t mention that Glenna Cole was his lady bartender at the Barn, Lucille. Or that I had tentatively tagged that house dealer of his with the glasses and sullen manner as the trigger. I didn’t want to lay too much on him all at once. Especially when he hadn’t come across with any cash yet.
“And you’ll stop the hit?” he said.
“I’ll stop this attempt. I’ll try to.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I might fuck up and get shot to shit and you along with me.”
“And if you don’t fuck up, Quarry?”
“There’ll still be somebody out there who wants you dead. Who was willing to pay for it once, and’ll be willing to pay for it again.”
He thought about that a while.
Then he said, “Are you saying you can find out who bought the contract?”
“Maybe. Can’t guarantee it.”
“There’d be a bonus in it for you.”
“You’re goddamn right there would.”
“How much do you want?”
“Another five.”
“Looks like you get double after all.”
“You better hope I do, Frank.”
And I asked him what enemies he had, if he could think of anybody who’d pay not to have him around.
“I think I might know,” he said, a light going on in the back of his head somewhere. “I think I know.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know the name, or names I mean. But I know who, generally. There are some people into dope I caused some trouble for.”
“That doesn’t sound like your bag, Frank.”
“It’s nothing like you’re thinking. It’s a situation that’s hard to explain… I think you’ll understand better if you go along with me to Iowa City. There’s someone in the hospital there, the Psychopathic Hospital, that-I want you to meet.”
“Who?”
“My son.”
22
Tree pushed the button and pretty soon somebody came to unlock the big iron doors from the inside and we went in and the doors were locked behind us.
Then we were in a vestibule that was really just a continuation of the corridor we’d been out waiting in. A television blared against the wall on the right, and on the left people were sitting on a couch and some chairs, and
