She turned to me sharply and her laugh was sharp, too. “I guess that is a dead giveaway…You’ll be around all this coming week, then?”
“Some of it.”
“Maybe we’ll run into each other. I’m sometimes in the bar in the evenings.”
“You’ll be here a while, too?”
“Maybe. It’s kind of…open-ended. Trying to work something out.”
That was when I noticed that though her eyes were smiling, they had a sadness. No, that wasn’t it: weariness. I’d seen that look before, just not on a good-looking woman. Guys who’d been in the jungle on one too many a tour, they got that kind of weariness in their eyes.
For a moment there, I thought maybe she’d slip her hand under the water and inside my trunks and help me out. Instead I had to wait for her to go and then do my best to get up and out of the whirlpool with my back to the other guests and those impressionable kiddies and wrap a towel around my waist and disguise my condition until I could get back to my motel room and do something about it.
About time I got a grip on myself.
Pretty soon I was climbing back into my long underwear (a real turn-on for dolls like Dorrie you picked up at a bar) and wondered how stupid it would be to indulge with this sad-eyed curvy older woman. I was on a job. Relieving tension was a good thing, when you had a job to do. But what if she somehow figured out who I was, or why I was here?
That was stupid. Nothing wrong with picking up some chick (was a thirty-five-year-old woman still a chick, I wondered?) and getting your rocks off. Might help me not go around getting raging erections in public, which is the kind of attention grabber a guy trying to stay invisible generally tries to avoid.
As I reflected on the little whirlpool mini-encounter, I realized the redhead probably hadn’t been hitting on me or anything, just indulging in some gentle flirting, maybe checking to make sure she still had what it takes to get a younger guy’s attention.
And how had I reacted? I’d gone off on another wild-ass mental scenario, this time involving some housewife from Who-the-Fuck-Cares Junction, probably because the professor was getting some and I wasn’t.
Shit, I should cut the old boy some slack. Why shouldn’t he enjoy himself a little in his last days? I was young. I had plenty of time ahead of me to get my ashes hauled. Give the dead guy a break.
Before long I was back at my window in the split-level, in my corduroy jacket over my clothes and long johns under them, with the space heater making its electrical whine. I had another thermos of hot chocolate, and a six- pack of canned Cokes and a gourmet selection of beef jerky and Slim Jims and a package of those yellow Hostess Cupcakes with the orange frosting that they don’t sell year-round.
The overcast day threw soft blue shadows on the wintry landscape. The cottage looked homey and quaint; the Corvette parked out front, already white, took on a lumpy, surrealistic look with the layering of snow. After two and a half hours, I was starting to wonder if Annette had moved in with the prof for the rest of winter break, which would make my job much harder. I would have to wait for her to leave on some errand of shopping or a doctor’s appointment or whatever-the-fuck, and run across the street and get the job done with no notion of when she might be back.
Also, the lack of activity over there was numbing. I began to think I was looking at a photograph, and would squint until I could see some movement from the light wind, branches rustling, snow blowing, anything to convince me otherwise. The radio station I was listening to was on its second pass through its play list-“Spill the Wine” had come around again and, if memory served, would be followed by “War,” which apparently was worth absolutely nothing, as if I needed a fucking song to tell me.
That was when the dark green Pontiac GTO rolled up in front of my split-level and I ducked down, even though from where I was sitting I probably couldn’t be seen, anyway. Like a kid peeking over a fence, checking if the coast was clear before sneaking into a ball game, I edged my eyes up to where I could see who the hell my visitor was.
Nobody was getting out of the GTO, which was a nice set of wheels, by the way. I could make out a figure with brown hair (Beatles ‘64 length), mutton chops and a trim mustache behind the wheel, just sitting there with the motor going and the windows up. No snow was on the car, either, so he’d either cleaned it off or had just arrived from enough of a drive to completely melt it off.
He was in a tan cowhide jacket with fleece lining. Had sunglasses on, even though the sun was M.I.A. He began pounding on the steering wheel with the heel of a hand. And “War” was indeed playing on my radio and this guy was keeping time to it, which kind of freaked me out.
Then I figured it was either a coincidence or he was listening to the same station. Nonetheless, I picked up the nine millimeter automatic from where it lay by my thermos of hot chocolate and I held onto it tight. I felt colder all of a sudden and leaned over and drew the space heater closer; it hummed but not in tune with “War.”
When “War” ended, and “Get Ready” began, the guy was still sitting there. He wasn’t watching my split-level, that was for sure. His eyes hadn’t turned my way even once, not a casual quick check on his surroundings. He was glued to the cobblestone cottage.
This guy was staking out the same fucking house as me! Not very damn subtly, I grant you, though his ass- hanging-out method did validate my own more careful approach. As I resumed my normal position at the window- normal except for the gun being in my hand and resting in my lap-I frowned at the mustached kid (and that’s what he was, a kid, even younger than me) who was suddenly smack dab in the middle of my surveillance.
Okay, I thought, this is really getting fucked up.
If this was what my new career was going to be like, I might want to consider signing on with Air America instead: there was always room for another mercenary in this shithole of a world.
Here’s the thing: this little prick in sunglasses, with a cool ride that made my Opel GT back home look like a kiddy car, did not match up with any of the surveillance info the Broker had given me. I had a list of names and descriptions that included four guys who were staying in Iowa City over winter break, who the prof was the advisor of or some shit, and who might stop by his pad for an hour or two of legitimate college work, as opposed to coeds stopping by to polish his professorial knob. I had cars and license plates on this quartet (none of whom had shown as yet) and addresses and even goddamn phone numbers, like that would come in handy.
“Hi. My name’s Quarry. I’m in town to blow your favorite professor’s brains out. Can you tell me whether you’re planning to stop by his place this afternoon, so I can pick a time when I wouldn’t have to spray your fucking brains against the wall, too? Thanks!”
So who the hell was this little bastard?
“Let It Be” was on the radio now, doing its endless thing; apparently the DJ had to take a dump. I watched the GTO. Here I was, supposedly keeping an eye on the cobblestone cottage, and now I had this green machine on my mind. Further, he was seated in front of my split-level, inadvertently calling attention to me, or anyway my post.
The front door of the cottage opened.
For a moment, I thought the brunette was finally leaving, and doing so coincidental to the GTO’s arrival; but I’d been right before, when I figured the sleek Pontiac on this quiet street would attract attention. She appeared on the porch, breath pluming, holding her arms to herself in the cold-she did not have the fur-collar coat on, just a black sweater and the same black-and-white geometric-pattern bell bottoms as yesterday.
She trotted down the sidewalk, long legs pumping, and was heading across the street as the kid in the GTO got out, his breath pluming, too. He was of medium height and on the slight side.
“ Tom!” Her teeth were bared and her eyes large. She loomed, at least an inch taller than the kid. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Then it’s true?”
She stood there, hugging her arms to her body, shivering. “Then what is true?”
“You are shacked with that creep!”
Even at this distance, from the meager crack of my window, I could hear her sharp, indignant draw of breath.
“Professor Byron is my advisor! I told you I couldn’t see you over break. We are working on a very, very important project.”
“I bet you are! I just bet you are!”
This guy sure had some snappy responses.
