By eleven-thirty the next morning, I was back in Biloxi at the Tropical.
The three very sharp lightweight black suits and six silk ties had been delivered, the latter on the dresser, the former neatly hanging in the closet in a garment bag. After a shit and a shower, I was a new man, particularly once I’d tried on one of the suits. No shirts had been provided, but a light-blue one I’d brought with me worked well with a tie alternating two darker shades of blue.
The shoulder-holstered nine millimeter under my left arm did not bulge at all. I hadn’t worn it for the fitting at Godchaux’s, where apparently the tailor knew ahead to allow for it. Impressive a couple of ways.
In addition to the new threads, a message was waiting for me, indicated by the bedside phone’s flashing light. The hotel switchboard operator read it to me: “Welcome home. Report in at one o’clock. JK.”
At the connecting door between my room and Luann’s, I knocked. She spoke through it: “Yes?”
“Need you for a second.”
She opened the door and stood framed there. She’d been showering, too, and had a towel tied around her waist, leaving her bare-breasted like a native girl in a National Geographic.
“Well, look at you,” she said, her hands on her hips, her perfect bare B cups staring at me as intently as the baby blues.
“Same back at you,” I said. “You want lunch? I don’t have to go to work till one.”
“Sure. I should put somethin’ on.”
“Why not?”
We took the same booth at The Dockside, where business was a little better than the last time we’d been here, thanks to businessmen having multiple-martini lunches. Luann was wearing her back-up coed clothes from Gayfer’s—a white shirt-style top with a floral explosion of colors, yellow short-shorts, plus the open-toed cork-heeled shoes again.
She ordered a pulled-pork sandwich and iced tea, and I had a fish sandwich basket. I was drinking Coke but she’d got a Tab, a nod toward the stripper’s regimen I’d talked her into otherwise ignoring.
“I haven’t seen you drink,” I said, hunching over to make sure I didn’t get tartar sauce on my fancy suit.
She sipped the Tab. She had barbecue sauce on her pretty face. “Sure you have.”
“I mean, anything alcoholic. Or is that part of your diet?”
The sunlight from the window did nice things to her hair. “I never touch anythin’ like that.”
“Why?”
“That shit killed my mother.”
“Oh. So how about drugs?”
“No thanks.”
“No, I mean, do you smoke at all?”
“Cigarettes cause cancer.”
“I mean the other smoke.”
She shook her head and the blondeness shimmered. “My girlfriends, my roommates? They do grass all the time. I don’t like the smell.”
“I’m not a smoker or drinker either. I guess we’re just a couple of health nuts.”
She shrugged, spoke through a mouthful of pork. “I guess.”
“What do you do for fun, Luann?”
“TV. Movies.”
“You got a boyfriend?”
She made a face. “I get enough of that at work.”
“So. . .do you and your girlfriends. . .?”
“Get it on? No. Well, they do. They’re lezzies. Each his own.”
“How long have you been working?”
She frowned in thought, finally cleaning barbecue sauce off her face with a cloth napkin. “Hookin’ or strippin’?”
“Hooking.”
“Since I was thirteen. No. . .twelve.”
“Twelve.” I had encountered my share of fucked-up shit, but this was right in there.
She shrugged. “My boobies come in early. Never got much bigger, but I got ’em.”
Whoever had turned her out at that age could use a beating and a bullet. But that was a long time ago, and not my business.
Of course nothing about her life was my business, except that in a way it was. I was trying to size her up. To understand her. If she’d seen what I did last night, that would have made her a witness. Which really sucked. What had I been thinking?
I heard myself ask, “You a runaway?”
She shook her head and the blonde hair danced on her shoulders. “No.”
“Then how did you come in contact with a pimp?”
“Didn’t.”
“How did you start?”
“You’re awful curious today.”
I had another bite of my sandwich. “Just interested, Luann. Who put you on the game?”
“I been with Mr. Woody for like. . .forever.”
“He turned you out?”
She thought about that. Nibbled a French fry dipped in barbecue sauce. “Not really. See, my mom sold me to Mr. Woody.”
“Sold you?”
“Yeah. She was running a house for him. He paid big money for me.” Then she did the damnedest thing: she grinned at me. First time. “I guess they never heard of Abe Lincoln.”
I put my half-eaten sandwich down. Takes something special to get to me, but this one turned my stomach.
I pretended it hadn’t, and sipped Coke. “What do you do with your money? Mr. Woody does pay you. . .?”
“Sure he does. I’m not that big a slave. He’s paid me all along.”
“So what do you do with your money?”
“Save it.”
“What for?”
“Tomorrow.” She frowned in thought again. “Not tomorrow tomorrow, but for. . .sometime.”
I signed the check to my room, and as we walked back, she did something even odder than grin at me: she slipped her hand in mine.
“You’re nice,” she said. “Or am I over the line?”
“Not at all.”
I guessed if blowing me within an hour of meeting me hadn’t been over the line, neither was this.
I said, “Well, I like you, too, Luann.”
“I don’t mean anythin’ drippy.”
She even sounded young.
She went on: “I just think you’re nice. Because, what you did last night? That was totally awesome.”
I didn’t know what she meant, or maybe I was afraid I did. After what went down at the Dixie Club, I’d joined her in the car, from which she shouldn’t have been able to see anything. We had driven back to Memphis and she’d been very quiet, sitting with her seat belt off and hugging her legs, heels of her feet on the Mustang’s bucket seat. No radio, but also no conversation. The ninety-minute drive had been surreal, as we wove through a ghostly moon-swept night haunted by kudzu beasts. If that weren’t frightening enough, we’d stayed at the airport Motel 6. There we’d shared a bed, but no conversation.
In the morning, I’d used a rubber (as was my habit with her) for some missionary sex, which proved fast, athletic and draining. She had a way of extracting a fuck out of a guy the way a dentist does a tooth.
Still, she’d seemed fine on the plane coming back. Or anyway she’d seemed that same painfully pretty shapely little thing with a hidden interior life.
We were at my motel room door. I had to ask. “What was so ‘awesome’ about it?”
She glanced to her right and her hair swung left. She glanced to her left and her hair swung right. Then she looked up at me and there was life in the eyes and she was smiling. “The way you saved that poor little man. That was awesome.”
Then she got on her toes and kissed me lightly on the mouth. We’d had various kinds of sex any number of times, but this was the first kiss. She dropped back down on the soles of her feet, or anyway those cork heels, got her room key from a little leather purse, dangled it at me, and hustled to the next door down and went in, tossing me a little smile first.
Shit.
* * *
Once again, I was ushered into Jack Killian’s office in his top-floor Tropical living quarters. This time he got up behind his aircraft-carrier desk and extended a hand for me to shake. I did so, and settled into one of two comfy waiting visitors’ chairs as he returned to his swivel one.
His smile was an angular thing that emphasized the oddly Asian cast of the eyes in that pale handsome oblong oval. Black hair brushed back, in a fresh dark Italian suit with a pale yellow shirt and gold tie, he looked like something from a European issue of GQ.
Or maybe the Asp in Little Orphan Annie.
“The suit suits you,” he said, nodding toward my new duds.
“Your other guys,” I said, risking a smile, “seem to be in off-the-rack numbers. Why do I rate tailoring?”
The remark pleased him. He rocked gently, elbows close to his sides, fingers tented. “Because I have big things in mind for you, Mr. Quarry. One meeting with you and I knew I had found just the man I needed.”
“Hope I don’t disappoint.”
He stopped rocking and his eyes met mine head-on. “You have already handily proven yourself. Since you’ve been in transit, you may not have seen or read any of the news.”
“No. I don’t suppose the war is over.” Or maybe they’d finally cancelled Gunsmoke.
“If you mean Vietnam, no. But I think you may have averted a potential other war. Josie ‘Dixie’ Dixon and her husband Randolph, and one of their employees, whose name escapes me, were shot and killed last night outside their club near Selmer, Tennessee. Nothing much more has been made public thus far, other than a recap of their colorful history and the various charges and rumors that have swirled about their notorious enterprise.”
“Did you want details of. . .?”
“No. I don’t want to know.”
“Okay.”
“But I’m taking back-to-back meetings this afternoon, Mr. Quarry—the first will begin any moment now—and your presence may be helpful. . .to you and me both. These individuals are quite used to my having a bodyguard at such meetings, so you being here will raise no questions. Or hackles.”
I shrugged a well-tailored shoulder. “Okay. Do you mind my asking what my usual duties will be?”
He nodded, and now his hands were folded on his desk, as if he were about to say grace. “I don’t mind at all, but understand—you won’t be joining my staff here in the suite.”
“No?”
“No. Oh, you’ll stay here at the Tropical, for now at least, and be on call for special instances that may, that will, come up.”
“Fine.”
“You see, whenever I leave this well-armed cocoon of mine to go out—whether for business or relaxation—I don’t carry a large retinue. It sends the wrong signals.”
“I get that.”
He flipped a hand. “But I always travel with a driver and a bodyguard. Since you aren’t familiar with this area, you are obviously not suited for chauffeur service. You’ll act as my bodyguard. I need a deadly individual for that.”
“Cool.”
“My life, Mr. Quarry, will be in your capable hands.”
“I’m up for that.”
He twitched a smile. “There’s a manila envelope waiting for you at the desk. Be sure to pick it up.”
“I will.” What was that about?
A knock came and Killian said, “Yes?”
The door cracked open and the watchdog with the close-set eyes stuck his head in, like a jack-in-the-box. “The sheriff is here.”
That got my attention.
“Send him in,” Killian said, almost cheerfully. He gestured for me to move my chair and myself off to one side, which I did.
The man who entered was not in uniform, although he did have a big automatic on his hip and a Stetson-with-badge in his right hand. A tan heavyset six footer in a crisp brown suit with dark brown tie, he looked the part, uniform or no. His bucket head was home to short, neatly combed steel-gray hair, prominent ears, a broad flattened nose, and a wide, fleshy mouth.
“Jack,” the sheriff said, in a raspy tenor that did not suit the rest of the picture, nodding, smiling, to his host.
“Jeff,” Killian acknowledged, then gestured toward me. “This is my new man, John Quarry. Mr. Quarry, this is our good friend Sheriff Jefferson Davis Delmar.”
I didn’t know whether that “our” was editorial or if I was being included in this friendship.
Already on my feet, I said, “Sheriff,” and offered my hand, which he shook and squeezed, trying too hard.
He took the remaining visitor’s chair opposite Killian, then jerked a thumb my way. “Am I free to talk in front of Mr. Quarry here?”
“You are. He’s a direct referral from Woodrow.”
“Ah.” The sheriff turned to give me a nod. Then back to Killian: “I suppose you’ve heard about the trouble up at the state line.”
Killian’s face registered nothing. “Yes. Tragic. But who was it said, ‘Whatever one sows, so shall he reap?’ ”
“God or some shit,” the sheriff said with a shrug. He was turning his Stetson in big blunt hands. “I have to ask you, Jack, in my official capacity—did you have anything to do with this thing?”
“I did not.”
“And you don’t know who did?”
“No idea.”
The big head nodded twice. The Stetson kept turning like a wheel in the thick hands. “Now. I am gonna ask again, off the record, as a friend and business associate. Jack, did you have anything to do with this?”
“No.”
“Any idea who did?”
“None.” Killian’s slash of a mouth did its imitation of a smile as he opened a palm in the direction of the liquor cart. “Could I interest you in a drink, Jeff? I think you could stand to relax some.”
The sheriff gave the army of bottles a greedy look, then shook his head, saying, “Appreciate the offer, but I best keep the old noggin clear today. Lot of pressure comin’ down, Jack, from press and citizenry. . .and do I have to tell you? The mayor’s office.”
Killian gazed at the sheriff with hooded eyes. “What concern is it of the mayor if some white-trash outlaws posing as restaurateurs get their due and just reward?”
The sheriff shifted his big rear end in the chair. “His Honor is concerned, Jack, that you are changin’ the nature of the Biloxi Strip, particularly as to your expansion beyond our city limits.”
“I’ve always had a good relationship,” Killian said, “with His Honor. And with you, Jeff. We pay our tithe, don’t we? Haven’t we been more than generous?”
The sheriff raised a palm. “You have, you have. . .but in the past, you and Mr. Woody and your people, well, things have been. . .kind of spread around. Lot of small businesses, workin’ to cooperate with each other, and with local government. Accordin’ly, realizin’ the futility of tryin’ to legislate morality, we in public service have made mutually beneficial arrangements with you and others. We put our focus more on protectin’ the interests of the tourists who visit our little town, and of course our boys from the air base, and our own fine citizens. But when something happens like this mess at the Dixie Club, well. . .it sends up a kind of a. . .red flag.”
Killian’s eyebrows went up. “It does? And why is that?”
“You’ve gradually taken over nearly the whole strip yourself, Jack. But, all right, I understand that, that is after all the American way. However—expandin’ around the state, and even beyond state lines, into Tennessee. . .with talk of Alabama and Kentucky and Louisiana. . .that kind of consolidation can attract attention, Jack. FBI attention.”
Killian’s shrug was barely perceptible. “They’ve never been a problem for us.”
The sheriff sat forward. “They’ll start to be. They ain’t interested in a tithe from you fellas. They are interested in convictions, and million-dollar fuckin’ fines, and with all the power you’re gatherin’, Jack, and all the enemies you’re makin’, you are stickin’ your chin out beggin’ for a RICO violation.”
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Even a small fry like me knew about that. And what the sheriff was saying made sense.
“Jeff,” Killian said amiably, “I had nothing to do with what happened to the Dixons. Karma finally caught up with them, is all.”
The sheriff’s smile seemed a little sick. “That is a relief to hear, Jack. But there may be repercussions from the survivin’ family members.”
Though seated, Killian made a sort of half bow. “I will be reaching out to the Dixons to express my sympathy and give them my sincere assurance that I had nothing to do with their tragic loss.. . .Is there anything else, Jeff?”
The sheriff swallowed thickly. Many a wrongdoer must have sat across from Jefferson Davis Delmar and felt plenty intimidated. But right now it was the sheriff who was sitting in the principal’s office.
“Yes, Jack,” he said, and his tone was almost conciliatory. “There’s somethin’ Mayor Clayton and I would very much like you to consider. This is an election year. We won’t ask you to shut down, even temporarily, because everybody on both sides of the political fence knows what it takes to make a tourist town like Biloxi tick.”
“Good to hear.”
“But if you could help minimize the violence. . .as you say, you had nothing to do with what happened at the Dixie Club. . . but as for any other conflicts that might arise, here or elsewhere ’round the state? His Honor and I would very much appreciate you tampin’ down the fireworks.”
“You come in loud and clear.”
The sheriff forced a big grin. “Let’s keep the Strip a fun place for locals and out-of-towners alike to have a good ol’ time. And let’s keep the headlines free of any suggestion of. . .unpleasantness. Fair ’nuff?”
“Fair enough,” Killian said, and smiled, and stood, extending his hand again. This was his way of saying the meeting was over.
The sheriff got to his feet, shook Killian’s hand, nodded at me, and lumbered out, not looking very satisfied.
Killian’s expression was similarly sour. “They stuff their pockets with my money and then tell me how to run my business. Can you imagine?”
“No.” Actually, I could. Hypocritical politicians didn’t exactly come as a shock to me.
Killian gave the air a karate chop. “Why don’t they stick to what they’re good for? Looking the other way!”
Another knock came, but before Killian could grant permission, Mr. Woody rushed in, looking put out. He was in a blue-plaid polyester sportcoat with a light-blue wing-collar shirt and darker blue trousers. No tie, which was probably a breach of protocol.
“I waited,” Mr. Woody said, helping himself to the chair the sheriff vacated, “till Delmar was gone. He didn’t see me.”
“So what if he had?” Killian said. The meeting had barely begun and already he seemed bored.
Mr. Woody noticed me, nodded, and pressed on: “I didn’t want our esteemed sheriff to think we were in some kinda crisis mode over this Dixon debacle. Jesus Jones, Jackie—did you do this thing?”
“No.”
“Of course you didn’t do it yourself. But did you have it done? Not that the world isn’t a better place without them crazy assholes.”
“I did not. The Dixons had plenty of enemies closer to home. Decades of outrageous misconduct finally caught up with them.”
Mr. Woody was shaking his head, though his combover remained intact. “Maybe so, but it’ll come back on us. Isn’t that why Delmar was here?”
“Certainly.”
“What did you tell him?”
“What I told you.” Killian sat forward, his brow tense. “Now. Woodrow. Dix has a brother and some cousins who own clubs on both sides of the state line.”
“Right. Those are the only ones you don’t own along there, at this point.”
“I want you to call the Dixon boys and express our condolences.”
“Why don’t you do it? You’re the top of this here food chain.”
Killian shrugged. “You’ve been friendlier with them than I. They might take it wrong, coming from me. Send our sympathy, blah blah blah, and make an offer on the Dixie Club.”
“Oh, my God, how will they read that?”
“Make it a third again what we offered last time. They’ll read it as money, and they’ll read it as a way to get off the firing line.”
“So you did do it.”
“I didn’t say that. But of course I know I’ll be blamed. Fine. They won’t in future fuck with Biloxi. We have too much power, and too much firepower. Just do it, Woodrow.”
With a sigh, Mr. Woody got up and went over to the liquor cart and helped himself to some Scotch, filling a tumbler a third of the way, shaking a little as he did so.
Then he sat and sipped Scotch and mulled for a moment. “Well, hell, Jackie—we might as well make an offer on their clubs, too. A third more than last time?”
Killian shook his head once. “No. Same offer on theirs as we made before. Only up the ante on the Dixie. That should do the trick.”
“Christ. All right.” Mr. Woody emptied the tumbler down his gullet, rose, leaving the empty glass on the liquor cart.
He stopped at the door to add: “You mind if I borrow your boy Quarry for a moment, Jackie? I wanna see how the little gal I loaned him is workin’ out.”
Killian made a magnanimous open-handed gesture. “By all means. You know, I’m very satisfied with Mr. Quarry. That was a fine recommendation, Woodrow. He’s a capable, discreet man.”
I knew what “discreet” was code for: don’t tell Mr. Woody what you did at the state line last night. He needn’t have bothered.
As I was going out, Killian said, “Mr. Quarry, take the rest of the afternoon off. But stay handy. I may need you this evening.”
I nodded.
Mr. Woody and I walked through the wood-paneled bachelor-pad suite with its several guards in black suits positioned here and there, and out where two more watched the elevator. He and I hadn’t exchanged a word. We got on the elevator and went down.
Alone at last, Mr. Woody demanded, “Did you do that dirty work for Jackie at the Dixie?”
“No,” I said. What business was it of his?
He kept pressing: “Did you overhear anythin’? Did he send somebody?”
“Not that I know of. But what if he did? It sounds like these were horrible people who could cause you a lot of trouble.”
He let out a big sigh. “Well, they were. Fuckin’ monsters, and good riddance. But this has to be another Killian takeover move, in which case he’s courtin’ disaster for all of us. If Marcello don’t swat us like flies, the feds’ll slam our asses in the slammer.”
Which I believe is why they called it a slammer.
I said, “I’ll let you know what I see and hear.” Like hell.
We stepped off into the lobby, empty but for a young woman busy at the check-in desk. He walked me to one side, where we were well away from her.
“You seem to be nicely positioned on the inside,” Mr. Woody said, speaking low.
Keeping my voice down as well, I said, “Inside a fortress. I don’t relish shooting my way out.”
Eyes flared behind the big lenses. “Well, you need to act, man. Jackie is obviously spinnin’ out of control.”
Actually, Killian seemed far more in control of himself than Mr. Woody here.
He was saying, “How are you gon’ to do this thing?”
“I’m waiting for my window.”
“Well, how—”
“You’ve heard the old saying. What you don’t know can’t etcetera?” Really, I was thinking what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.
He sighed, nodded, bowing to my wisdom. “You know, Jackie thinks he has these politicians by the short and curlies, and maybe he does, but nobody’s immune from a bullet.”
“How does he have them that way? Short and curlies, I mean. Just because he pays them off?”
Mr. Woody smirked and shook his head. “No, Quarry, it’s more than pay-offs. Our Jackie’s one smart cookie. He’s got a fantasy hotel he uses. Down the Strip half a mile.”
“What’s a fantasy hotel?”
“It’s got theme rooms—you know, Roman times, spacecrafts, jungles, caverns, all with beds in them. Whenever a politician comes into office, here in town or around the state—and I mean high-rankin’—U.S. Senator included—Jackie gives ’em an invitation for an all-expenses-paid fantasy night with one of our girls.”
“So what?”
He grinned and raised a forefinger. “Them rooms are rigged with video cameras. He’s got tapes on you-wouldn’t-believe-how-many big shots. Startin’ with our sheriff starring in a Candid Camera porno with that little gal I loaned you, for instance.”
“No kidding.”
“And of course it’s been a real moneymaker for us, extendin’ to well-off civilians, as well. Lots of married fellas who check into Fantasy Sweets without the missus go home with a keep-sake that costs ’em plenty.”
I grunted a laugh. “A keepsake they are not likely to share with ‘the missus.’ ”
“Not hardly. It’s not home movies of the Grand Canyon. Well, sometimes it is. Depends on which girl.”
I walked him outside into sunshine and seventy-five degrees, the blue of the Gulf in our line of sight. Our talk of fantasy suites seemed to have cheered Mr. Woody up.
He put a hand on my shoulder, grinning at me. He smelled like Jade East. “Still enjoyin’ Lo?”
He meant Luann.
“She’s good company.”
Mr. Woody’s expression was reflective. “Nice girl. Sweet kid. I known her since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Her mom was a great gal, too. Died way too young—drank herself into an early grave. Fuckin’ tragic. Sometimes life ain’t fair.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
He waved as he headed into the parking lot.
At the front desk a manila envelope was, as promised, waiting for me. I didn’t look inside till I was back in my room.
Five grand in nice new hundreds.
So I didn’t have to worry about not getting paid by Killian before I whacked him.
That was good.