2
I was chopping wood, which was about as physical as my life got these days. The lake was placid and blue, surrounded by trees painted in golds and yellows and browns; the water reflected a soothing Indian summer sun. You could almost understand why somebody, long ago, chose to name the lake Paradise. There weren’t even any mosquitoes this time of year.
I swung the axe in my two hands, building a rhythm, liking the pull on my muscles, enjoying the sweat I was working up, feeling alive. Wood chips flew and logs became firewood. When Linda got back from her yoga class at Twin Lakes, I’d prepare supper (still had a microwave) and the wine would be chilled and we’d sit before the fireplace and be “toasty warm” (as she put it) together. We would also undoubtedly have great sex, one of the major reasons I kept the ditsy little dish around.
Feeling winded but good, I sat out on the deck and unzipped my down jacket and relaxed with a cup of coffee. I was watching the lake when a cloud covered the sun and the gravel in my driveway stirred.
A chocolate BMW pulled abruptly up, making a little dust storm. I did not recognize the car-other than as the pointless and drab status symbol it was. I stood. My shoulders tensed and it had nothing to do with chopping wood.
From the edge of the deck I noticed two things: the driver of the car, a slightly heavy-set man of about fifty in a London Fog raincoat; and the front license plate of the BMW, which was covered with mud. There hadn’t been any rain in the Midwest for several weeks.
He saw me perched above him on the deck. My expression must have been hostile because he smiled tightly, defensively, and put both hands out, palms forward, in a stop motion.
“Just a few minutes of your time,” he said, “that’s all I ask.”
He had a mellow, radio-announcer’s voice and a conventionally handsome, well-lined face, a Marlboro man who rode a desk.
“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
His smile twitched nervously. “I’m not a salesman, but I am here on business.”
I motioned off toward the highway. “Talk to Charley up at the Inn. If he can’t handle it, make an appointment to see me, there, later. I don’t do business at home.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with the restaurant business, Mr. Quarry.”
I said nothing. A bird cawed across the lake. My sentiments exactly.
“I, uh, realize that isn’t the name you’re using around here.. ”
“Explain yourself.”
The outstretched hands went palms up, supplicatingly. “Please. There’s no reason to get your back up. There’s no obligation…”
“You sound like a salesman.”
“Your wife won’t be home for another hour. I didn’t want to bother you while she was here…”
Mention of Linda made me wince; this guy, whoever the fuck he was, knew entirely too much about me. He didn’t know how close he was to spending eternity at the bottom of one of the area’s scenic gravel pits.
“Come up here and have a seat,” I said.
He smiled tightly again, nodded, and came around and up the stairs.
I sat in one of the lounge-style deck chairs, legs stretched out, and he took one of the director-style chairs and pulled it up near me. His salt-and-pepper hair was heavy on the salt and thinning a little, though some fancy styling minimized it; you could buy a week’s groceries for what he spent on that haircut. He smelled of cologne- some expensive fragrance, strong enough to blot out that of the pines around us.
“May I smoke?” he asked.
“It’s your lungs.”
He lit up-something unfiltered from a flat silver case drawn out from under the London Fog; I had a glimpse of dark, vested, well-tailored suit with blue striped silk tie.
“I know this is an intrusion,” he said, deferential as all hell, “but I think, when everything is said and done, you’ll be pleased. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Does this have anything to do with Amway?”
A short, harsh, nervous laugh preceded his response: “Hardly, Mr. Quarry. This is more on the order of… Publishers Clearing House.” The constant if slight smile turned wry, smug. “Mr. Quarry, I’m in a position to make you a very wealthy man.”
“Drop the name, all right? I haven’t used that in almost ten years.”
He made a small open hand gesture. “A man known as the Broker gave it to you, a long time ago.”
“That’s right.” I looked at him, locked his eyes. They were gray, like his cigarette smoke. “What else do you know about me?”
His smile faded, and he shrugged facially. “I know that you were a hero. That you served your country honorably and well.”
“Yeah, right. Is there more?”
“I known that you were married once before. You returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam to discover your wife had been untrue.”
“Untrue? I found her in bed sitting on a guy’s dick.”
“You killed him.”
I shrugged. “Not on the spot. I came back the next day, after I cooled off, and he was under his sporty little car, making some minor repairs. I made one, too.”
“You kicked the jack out.”
I shrugged again. “He called me a ‘bunghole.’ What would you do?”
“You were arrested.”
“But not tried, except in the papers.”
“The unwritten law.”
“There are two times society puts up with murder.”
“War is one,” he said, nodding.
“Finding somebody fucking your wife is the other.”
He gestured with cigarette in hand. “Nonetheless, you were looked down upon in certain quarters.”
“I had trouble finding work. I was a Vietnam vet, remember? We were all assumed to be unreliable dope addicts. And I was a ‘disturbed Viet vet’ before it was fashionable. Before it was a cliche even.”
I killed a guy, after all. Nobody minded the numerous yellow people I killed for no good reason. The one white asshole I killed for a good reason got people bent out of shape.
“Shortly after that,” he said, carefully, quietly, the gray eyes studying me but pretending not to, through a haze of cigarette smoke, “you met the Broker.”
“Did I?”
“I don’t know the circumstances, but you began taking contracts. Working as part of a team.”
Did I mention I had brought the axe up on the porch with me? Well, I had. It was leaned up against the front of the house, near the door. Not far away at all.
“Are you sure,” I said, with a gentle smile, “that you want to keep this line of conversation going?”
“I just want you to know that I’m familiar with your background.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a contract for you.”
“I’m not in that line of work anymore.”
“Mr. Quarry, you are an assassin. It’s not something you can leave behind.”
I nodded. “Well, I’m willing to kill again, under certain circumstances.”
“Such as?”
“Assholes coming around fucking in my life.”
He smiled again, another tight nervous twitch, and he said, “I’m not here to make trouble in your life. I’m here to improve your life.”
“Say it. Whatever it is you’ve got to say, say it.”
