Quarry in the Black by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online

didn’t say that. Not in those words.”
    “Sure she did. Well, not the ‘black gentleman’ part. I told you she was from a place called Poplar Bluff.”
    He’d stopped eating, and if he leaned over farther, he’d be crawling across the table knocking plates and cups off. “Quarry, what’s your
read
?”
    “Seems to be a coincidence. She’s in the apartment above us, and I ran into her working at the bar next door.”
    He sat back heavily. “I fucking hate coincidences.”
    “And what, I love them? I think she’s just a good-looking hick from downstate. If she isn’t, I can only think of one possibility.”
    I made him ask. I’m kind of a prick that way.
    “What possibility, Quarry?”
    A cute blonde waitress in an old-fashioned green uniform refilled my coffee. She smiled at me and I just nodded. I’d already got in enough trouble.
    When she was elsewhere, I said, “Maybe whoever hired us, through the Broker, installed Becky What’s-It to keep an eye on us. To…well, not to supervise exactly. Just keep an eye.”
    Now he drank some coffee. “I suppose that’s possible. Never ran into her before on the stairs or anything…but possible. Her being a little bigot, what do you make of that?”
    I sighed. Admitted, “Well, I don’t like it. Her presence implies she’s part of some racist bunch who maybe hired us and she got assigned to watch us, or help provide back-up we didn’t request. Could even mean our client intends to pull a double-cross.”
    “Shit. But what could some little hillbilly gal do?”
    “Ask Bonnie Parker.”
    “Shit,” he said again.
    “I got onboard because the Broker said this wasn’t really political
or
racial. Assured me that our subject is a bad boy who’s diddling his own people.”
    His eyes lifted ceiling-ward. “Oh, fucking please! Don’t go getting self-righteous on me again. You with a conscience makes me sick. It’s like John Wayne sticking up for the Indians.”
    “Stop bitching and think, Boyd. If we’re doing a job for a bunch of racists…if
that’s
what this job is about…it changes everything.”
    “Does it? Tell me. Is the way the money spends any different?”
    “No, but the attention level is. Suddenly everybody’s looking into this from the chief of police to the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover. It’s on the evening news every day for weeks, on the covers of
Time
and
Newsweek
, until they find…who? The ones that did it.”
    He was shaking his head. “We’ll be long gone.”
    “Maybe. Normally. But I’m going undercover today, and people will see my face and post-game there will be police sketch artists talking to staffers and Christ knows what all. Wanting to know all about their fellow staffer who came on recently and then up and disappeared. Right after the tragedy.”
    He stroked his mustache with a thumb and forefinger; he did that sometimes, when he was actually thinking.
    Then he said, “No offense, Quarry, but your face is about as memorable as a mannequin. Still, however this goes down,
whoever
hired it, the cops and probably feds’ll be all over it.” Very quietly he said, “The next Martin Luther King, remember?”
    I shook my head. “Maybe for a day or two. But they’ll dig in and come up with drugs and organized crime, fucking quick, and the manhunt for the Reverend’s ‘slayer’ will go back-burner so fast, you’ll get a nosebleed.”
    He thought about it. Sipped some coffee. Thought some more. “You’re right. If he’s dirty, it’ll come out, whoever hired it done.”
    Now I thought about it. Sipped. Thought some more. “Maybe. Maybe.”
    “You think we should bail?”
    “Not sure yet.”
    The black caterpillars that were his eyebrows rose. “What about your
Hee-Haw
honey?”
    I pushed my plate away, half-eaten. “I’ll stay in touch with her sweet little ass. I don’t know if she’s keeping an eye on us or not, but I’ll sure as shit keep an eye on her.”
    “But, Quarry,” Boyd said with sarcastic