Killing Quarry

Four

First order of business was to check the small front parking lot to see if the Mercury station wagon was still there.

It was.

Seemed my friend had not yet checked out of his room. With any luck he was tucked in his beddy bye consorting with Wynken, Blynken and Nod. So far so good.

I headed around to the side entrance. Off-season, no breakfast was served at Wilma’s Welcome Inn, and for that matter neither was lunch. The bar’s food service kicked in at four PM.

This meant, when I came in loaded for bear, the front register was closed, and the only part of the place open for business was the convenience store. So the outer area — the restaurant at left, the check-out area for both hotel and bar bills at right — was underlit and unattended.

The unnumbered master key to the rooms hung on the wall of keys behind the counter, intentionally mismarked “Storage” — yes, the security at the Welcome Inn was state of the art. And only the key to Room 12 was gone.

With my left hand, I snatched the master key off its perch and headed up the flight of stairs between the closed restaurant and the front counter. My right hand, of course, remained in the pocket of the bomber jacket around the grip of the silenced nine millimeter.

The top of the stairs opened onto a hallway with doors on either side — to the guest rooms plus a couple of oversized closets for actual storage, supplies and linens and such. We only had one woman on staff, off-season, for making up rooms; and she wouldn’t be in yet.

Down to the right, at the end of the hallway — the dead-end appropriately — was Room 12. I plastered my back to the wall to the left of the door and listened. For movement. For snoring. For a phone call in progress. For fucking anything.

And heard nothing.

But his fake woodie was still parked out front, so he had to still be here. Now, normally I am fairly cool — no, goddamn cool — in tense situations. But keep in mind I was accustomed to being in control of such situations — hell, I was usually the cause of them.

But for once my heart was pounding. I was trembling a little. Goddamnit! I was used to being in jams. I had been in plenty and talked or shot my way out. I had even dealt with threats on my home turf before — after I took the Broker out, people came looking for me, to kill me, and none of them are writing this book, are they?

Only this was different. This time I was not only the target, I was the mark. Someone had paid to have me killed. And I didn’t like it one bit. I resented it, and it had me shaking. With rage, I think, but maybe... all right, fear. I hadn’t really experienced fear like this since the earliest days in Vietnam, where I’d got numb to it fairly fast.

Two things had kept me alive in those days. First, I acted immediately to threats, no thinking, just response. Even taking a second — a fraction of a second — to process a threat can get you killed. The other thing that had kept me breathing was my sniper duty, which put me in control of such situations.

Made me the threat.

I calmed myself, back still to the wall. Slowed my breathing. Chilled my attitude. This fucker didn’t know I was out here. Or anyway, likely didn’t know.

A slight possibility existed he’d seen me out his window as I came out of the trees and across the parking lot, moving like a shark through still water. He’d have known at once I wasn’t dropping by to check on the inn I owned, at least if he (or whoever hired him) knew much about me at all.

I took time to think things through, to some degree anyway. I had been up most of the night, and what little sleep I’d had was accidental. I was both wired and worn-out, a terrible combination.

Think, Quarry, think.

Hardly any staff on duty in the building, just the college-student gal in the convenience store. Too early for the guy who ran the filling station/garage to be in, and the pumps were all self-serve. No cleaning staff in yet. No other guests in the rooms.

That left me, outside Room 12 about to burst in and kill a guy. Shoot him in bed while he slumbered. Nobody around to hear the cough of the noise-suppressed nine mil, but the sheets would get bloody and the mattress would have an opinion, too. Simmons would almost certainly shit himself on dying — it’s not an emotional reaction, it’s a reflex one.

But a mess, any way you slice it.

Head shot would be messy, too, and, if he heard me and woke and sat up, would splinter the wood of the headboard. While my preference was putting one in his brain, shutting off the switch on his life, I probably needed several body shots, across the chest, to minimize mess.

If I got lucky and didn’t put any bullets in the mattress — if the little killing projectiles stayed inside the guy, somewhat doubtful with a nine, but possible, bones to lodge in and such — I would still have to bundle his dead ass up in sheets and lug him the hell out of here like a rug-wrapped Cleopatra dropping in on Caesar.

Even with the world of Paradise Lake so underpopulated this time of morning, this time of year, somebody noticing such a sight seemed like a real possibility.

Mornin’, Jack! Whatcha got there? Whatcha up to?

Oh, hi, Milt. Just cleanin’ up after a paint job.

That red’s a tad garish, don’tcha think?

And then kill Milt, too. Had he existed.

Did I give a shit about any such concerns? With a contract out on me, by parties unknown but who knew about me and where I lived and Christ knew how much else, could staying in my A-frame and living my little life here be in any way salvageable?

Hard to think how.

But I did have ten grand getaway money stashed at the cottage, and the bulk of my funds were in banks here and there under the various names of my assorted identities. Easy enough to make a new start. Well, not easy, but feasible. Very damn feasible.

To hang on at Paradise Lake, though, I would have to be able to find out who hired this, and get rid of him. Or her. Or them. But just as I had worked through the Broker, Simmons almost certainly worked through an agent, a middleman, too. The purpose of that was to protect the client. Provide a buffer.

So Simmons wasn’t likely to know who was behind the killing. His broker would, of course, and I might be able to get the identity of that middleman from Simmons, and work this from that end. Maybe I needed to talk to my would-be assassin, not kill him.

Or talk to him before killing him.

But did I really want to do that here? At the goddamn Welcome Inn? Could I take him captive and walk him across that parking lot over to the A-frame with my gun in his spine and fake smiles on our faces?

The thinking had calmed me, got me in a rational mode, but it hadn’t given me any answers. I still had my back to the wall, literally and figuratively.

So I went back to basics. What was important now — right now — was surviving. The man in bed on the other side of this door, with its painted-on “12” starting to peel, was the immediate threat.

He had come onto my home ground to kill me. Meaning I needed to kill him. No other possibility presented itself. The fallout would be handled when it came.

The jury in my mind was unanimous: killing Simmons was the first order of business. Maybe I could locate the backup man, the passive prick on this hit, and get the name of their broker out of him. What I needed from the active asshole was for him not to be breathing anymore.

And my breathing? It was calm. Right now, it was calm again.

All I had to do now was work the key in the door. A few feet inside the room would put me at the foot of the double bed where he probably still slept. If he was up and out of bed, the mirrored dresser would be at my left, a closet at the near side of the dresser. The bathroom was off to the right. Number 12, like the rest of the rooms at the Welcome Inn, was modest. Small. Not like the accommodations at the former Playboy Club in Geneva. Vacationers with limited funds stayed here. In season.

Few stayed here now, and even Simmons was about to check out...

While I’m not technically ambidextrous, the various situations I’ve found myself in have given me unusual skills. Lipreading, for one. Using my left hand almost as well as my right is another.

With my left, I worked the key, the lock clicked, that hand was on the knob and twisting, and I was in, fast, kicking the door shut behind me with a heel, staying low, but not so low that I couldn’t put a couple of silenced slugs into the torso of a sleeping man.

Only the bed was empty of anything but slept-in sheets, blankets and pillows.

Nobody at left, by the dresser, either. I rolled to the right, to the open door of the little bathroom, where the tub was empty, the shower curtain back. Nor was anyone taking a shit, dead or alive.

On my hands and knees I checked under the bed, like a husband desperate to prove his wife was cheating on him, and saw nothing but evidence I was paying the woman too much who cleaned here.

That left only the closet at the left of the dresser. I considered putting a few bullets into that door, expense be damned, but had Simmons been hiding (or waiting) in there, surely he would have taken the opportunity to shoot my ass while I was crawling around on the floor checking up on the cleaning staff.

I checked out the guest room thoroughly. No canvas travel bag. Empty dresser drawers. He’d bathed or showered already. No toiletries in the john. Nothing but hangers and a spare pillow in the closet. Nothing at all to show he’d been here, except his room key, left on the dresser top.

I sat on an edge of the unmade bed, the nine mil in my hand draped in my lap like a limp dick.

What the fuck?

Exits at either end of the upstairs hall made it possible he’d slipped out just as I was coming in. But, shit — what was this, a French farce?

What the hell did this mean?

No. Not the right question.

Where is he now?

Better question.

I took the stairs at the opposite end of the hall, which was the quickest way down to the convenience store. This emptied right into the little parking lot at the front of the building, where the station wagon was no longer parked.

Shit!

The gal behind the convenience store counter, a black girl who was cute and a little heavy in a nice way, sat back behind the register and point-of-purchase displays reading a Stephen King paperback. Her name was Carrie, but that wasn’t the title of the book. She looked up pleasantly.

“You’re an early bird, Jack.”

Everybody here called me by my first name. I was a boss who didn’t stand on ceremony. A lovable son of a bitch.

“Yeah, any business this morning?”

She got up and came over to her counter. Her University of Wisconsin sweatshirt was gray with red letters with the Bucky Badger mascot swaggering between its formidable contents.

“Hardly any,” she said, leaning an elbow. “Guy bought some cigarettes is all.”

“What did he look like?”

She shrugged. “Just a guy. Dark hair? Pointy features, kinda?”

I nodded. “Dressed how?”

“Overcoat, I guess. Gray? He asked when we opened for breakfast and I said late April. I don’t think that’s what he meant.”

“Probably not,” I said, and managed a little smile.

“He wanted to know where he could get breakfast and I told him Marv’s.”

That was a diner in Twin Lakes, not far from here.

“Gave him directions,” she went on with a shrug. “Said they’d be open. Six AM, they open.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Carrie.”

“Any problem, Jack?”

“No. Just a guest who left something in his room. Thought maybe I could catch up with him.”

“Well, if it’s important, he could be at Marv’s. I mean, he got directions.”

I smiled and nodded.

“Not important at all,” I said.

Marv’s, in nearby Twin Lakes, had an enviable view on Lake Mary. In summer, they always had a line down the block and nobody minded. But things right now were so slow, I had no trouble parking right out front — no Mercury station wagon taking up a space, either. I’d already checked the small parking lot in back, which had a few cars, but no fake woodie.

I just sat there in the Impala a while, wondering whether I should drive around looking for Simmons and his ride outside some other restaurant. But Marv’s was about it for Twin Lakes right now. There’d be more options if I drove the twenty miles to Lake Geneva, but was that the right move?

Shaking my head at this frustrating shit, I stepped out into surprising cold. Despite my bomber jacket, the morning chill cut through me like a knife. A sharp one. I hadn’t noticed the cold snap when I clipped across that parking lot earlier. I guess I’d been distracted by the thought of kill or be killed.

I went inside. This time of year, the locals hardly put a dent in Marv’s booths, tables and counter seating. The building had been a private home once upon a time, but the lower floor had been a diner and kitchen going back to the ’40s. The walls were cheap paneling with framed local sports pages, religious images, and Bears pics hanging crooked cheek to askew jowl. Big mounted shellacked fish hung here and there. That kind of thing never made me want to order the catch of the day.

I sat at the counter. A skinny waitress named Hazel, who had been here since the Depression, and still seemed pretty depressed, came over and squeezed out a smile. Her hair had never been blonde but still was.

“Usual, Jack?”

“Sure.” The kitchen sink omelet, ingredients varying day to day. “Put the order in and come back, would you, beautiful?”

“Anything for you, honey.”

Rumor had it she’d been through several husbands, all of whom had lived off her. You had to wonder about a guy content to live off a waitress. How could you respect a guy who couldn’t find a woman with a better-paying job?

She put my order in at the window — mustached Marv was doing the cooking himself, no help back there off-season — and then she brought me a Diet Coke. She knew I didn’t drink coffee. I sipped the pop while she lingered, to see what it was I wanted of her. Also, I was one of maybe half a dozen customers. All local, of course. So she didn’t have much else to do.

I asked, “Anybody in today you didn’t recognize?”

“Nope.”

“You sure? Guy about my size, my age, but not as good-looking?”

“We get those all the time, honey.”

“Kinda pointy nose. Pointy chin.”

She was shaking her head. “Nobody in here so far today that I had to bother askin’ what they want.”

“Regulars.”

“Regulars.” She leaned on the counter. Somewhere in that creped face hid pretty features that should have given her a better life. “You asking for any special reason, Jack?”

“No.” I figured I better keep the same story going. “Guest at the Inn left something in his room. Hoped to catch him. Our girl Carrie at the grocery said she recommended this place to him for breakfast.”

“Nice of her. The little colored girl, right?”

“Right.” She wasn’t that little, but right.

Hazel shrugged. “I never had any trouble with her.”

Nobody had, but people said things like that around here.

A bell dinged and she went to the window, then brought me my omelet. She seemed like maybe she’d keep lingering, so I smiled and nodded and carted my eggs and Diet Coke off to a corner table to think. No, to ruminate. That’s the word.

So Simmons had asked “the colored girl” where to get breakfast, got directions here, then hadn’t used them. Either that, or he didn’t like the looks of the place and drove on by.

But Marv’s looked clean enough from outside, and from within — if he’d stopped and stuck his head in — seemed no better nor worse than your usual eccentric local eatery. And the food smells were pleasant enough.

Whatever. He hadn’t stopped here.

But had he driven on past?

Had I scoped this out all wrong? Maybe we were talking about that rare specimen, the genuine, sure-enough, honest-to-God coincidence. Maybe Simmons was on his way to a job upstate that had nothing to do with me. Maybe he had just happened to stop at Wilma’s Welcome Inn to spend the night somewhere quiet and out-of-the-way.

Was it possible I wasn’t the target at all?

Simmons was certainly not acting like the backup half of a hit team. You don’t do one day’s surveillance and then split. Of course, Simmons might be working the active side, and had stayed a night at the Inn at the direction of the passive partner, to get a room with a view on the scene of the coming crime. That made some sense...

Not much, though. What I would have done — following a procedure I knew others in the trade plied — was check in with my partner and go over the intel he’d gathered. Do some final planning. Coordinate with my partner. Determine whether the passive half could split or needed to stick around and provide literal backup.

Possibly that was what Simmons was doing right now.

Making contact with his stakeout guy to put the finishing touches on my finish.

I finished the Diet Coke but left half the omelet behind, paid Hazel at the register and headed to Paradise Lake, not sure what my next move should be. Also not sure what Simmons and his nameless partner’s next moves might be.

Still in the Impala, I drove back to my A-frame. No car was parked along the lane, and the gravel apron in front of the deck revealed no guests, either. I sat for a moment in the car, my thoughts doing their best not to go too fast or too far. What were my options?

It was doubtful Simmons would be waiting inside. Either he had not come to my turf with me in mind, and had driven on to his real job, as opposed to the one I’d imagined for him; or he would wait till nightfall. Middle of the night, most likely. If I was the target, that meant somebody knew who and what I was, and you don’t confront a professional killer head on. You sneak up, you surprise, or...

...shoot him from a distance.

With all those empty cabins and cottages hugging the lake, a sniper finding a suitable position for some artistry with a high-powered rifle would be a fucking snap.

Should I run from the car to the house, to make a running target? But that would tip my assassins to my knowledge of their existence and the job they’d come to do.

Bad move.

Of course, not as bad as just making myself a casual easy shot by sauntering up the steps to the deck and in the door. The best I could do was split the difference — move quickly but not suspiciously.

And I would make the best target when I paused to use my key. If I were in those woods across the way with a sniper-scope rifle, that’s when I’d do it, and the fucker in my sights would not have a chance in hell.

So I changed things up.

I got out of the Impala, quick but not frantic, and did not go up the steps to the deck. Instead, acting like there was something I had to do — which was true: stay alive — I cut back alongside the A-frame to the rear door and used my house key, already in my left hand, quickly and efficiently.

And went in.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, I moved carefully through my A-frame with the silenced nine mil in hand and checked everywhere. Yes, even under the beds.

The place was clear.

Last night, keeping the drapes shut made sense. This time of day it didn’t. I wanted to see what was coming. Who was coming. So I drew open the drapes, revealing my picture postcard view of the lake, sun shimmering gold on the water, sky blue with cotton ball clouds, with only the dark trees, dead-looking ones mingling with evergreens, to remind me of reality.

All the thinking had got me tired. That and the no sleep last night. I figured I’d need to spend the day in here, the evening too, waiting. Waiting for company.

So I prepped by piling some furniture in front of the back door, kitchenette chairs, tables and such. Blocked paths that would trip up an invader, should he come through a window, or at least make him reveal himself by noise. Even spread some bubble-pack on the floor under bedroom windows.

Not that I would fall asleep. By God, I would stay awake. I’d started the caffeine regimen with that Diet Coke at breakfast. I brought a whole six-pack back from the fridge.

I got a fire going, which prompted me to get out of the bomber jacket, and I moved the sectional couch pieces around so I could have my feet up and the gun in my lap as I lay back against the comfy cushion. I had an extra ammo magazine for the nine mil on the cushion next to me. I’d removed the silencer, which made the weapon too bulky for combat situations.

Didn’t dare put music on or the TV or read a book. I needed to stay alert. No distractions. Just the shimmer of lake and blue of sky, with enough light coming in to help keep me from nodding off. It took me back to the sniper days in country, where I might sit watch for hours on end, waiting for somebody to kill. Sometimes a specific somebody.

I was ready.

“Wake up,” a voice said.

Simmons.

Training my silenced nine mil on me.