Somebody said once that it’s better to be lucky than smart. But the truth is, it’s best to be lucky and smart.
Last night I’d certainly been lucky. The hotel had been under-populated and even the desk clerk had been a ghost. But I’d been at least a little smart, too. When we arrived at the Fantasy Sweets last night, I left the Caddy unlocked, so that I could leave the car keys with Killian in the Caligula Suite and still be able to wipe my fingerprints off the steering wheel before hoofing it the three blocks to the Tropical.
From the phone booth across the highway, I’d called Mr. Woody at his club and said, “Just so you know, Jack Killian drove himself to the Fantasy Sweets around eight this evening. I had the night off.”
“So then. . .”
“So then you might want to have somebody at the hotel check on him. Like maybe you expected him to stop by Mr. Woody’s at ten or so but you haven’t heard from him.”
“It isn’t ten.”
Was he slow on the uptake or what?
Patiently, I said, “Wait till eleven and call the desk at the hotel. To check on Jackie boy. You know, if you haven’t heard from him.”
“All right. Sorry. I follow.”
“Good. Good night.”
“Quarry!”
“Yeah?”
“Listen, come around tomorrow mornin’. We should talk about the future.”
“What future?”
“Well, the comin’ days.”
“I’m out of here by noon.”
“No. Come see me first.”
“Where? Your club?”
“My home. Got a pad and somethin’ to write with?”
I wrote down the directions and said I’d see him at ten.
“Uh, Quarry. . .?”
“Yeah?”
“Just in case? You might talk to the girl.”
He meant Luann, getting her to cover for me. Talking murder on a possibly tapped phone was always a pain in the ass.
So this morning around eight I knocked on the connecting door between our rooms. I had to do it a couple of times before Luann opened it and stood there yawning, raising her hands over her head. She’d been sleeping in a Led Zeppelin t-shirt and the yawn pulled it up to reveal her triangular muff like a curtain rising at the start of a show.
I wasn’t in the mood for a show or anything else. I had no desire to hang around Biloxi for even a morning, and needed a clean break with my little companion here. But Mr. Woody had thrown a wrench in my works, maybe just a morning’s worth, but a wrench.
“Let’s get some breakfast,” I said.
“Okay. Give me fifteen.”
“Take twenty.”
We both showered and got dressed. She emerged through the connecting door in the red top and striped jeans from the Dixie Club trip. Out of habit, and as not to raise any suspicion if the wrong somebody noticed me, I got into my last clean black suit, a pale blue shirt and a red-and-navy tie. Mr. Conservative Businessman, that’s me.
I drove us to a nearby Waffle House where, just to be rebels, we had pancakes. Silver-dollar ones. This time I remembered to ask for unsweetened iced tea. Luann looked a little tired to me, puffy around the eyes.
“Rough night?” I asked.
“Watched TV too late. You?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t think it’ll come up, but if anybody asks, we watched TV together last night.”
“Oh. Okay. Like who would ask?”
“Cops maybe. Probably won’t happen.”
She frowned just a touch. “Should I tell you what I. . .what we watched?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
She told me what the movies were—The Impossible Years with David Niven and In the Cool of the Day with Hanoi Jane—and it turned out I’d seen them both first-run, so no synopses were required. Both terrible.
“You need to forget what I told you,” I said, “about where I was going and what I was doing last night.”
“You were watchin’ movies with me.”
“Good girl. Thanks.”
She shrugged and ate a forkful of pancakes. I had taken her so far off her diet there was no going back. Before she knew it, she’d be a big fat sloppy hundred-and-five.
“I have to work at Mr. Woody’s tonight,” she said. “A dancer called in sick.”
“Oh. Well, I guess you can’t loaf around with me forever.”
She smiled and licked maple syrup of her fork. “I’d like to, Johnny. I’m done at eleven. Out by eleven-fifteen.”
“Like me to pick you up?”
“If you want.”
“That’d be swell.”
She drank some orange juice. “You gonna stay around town a while?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“If you do, you can’t live in a motel forever.”
Killian had. Of course, forever hadn’t taken that long.
I said, “Neither can you, Luann.”
“Well. . .if you got an apartment, I wouldn’t mind movin’ out of mine. Be cool to live somewhere with no pot smoke and girls makin’ noise. When they’re making it. You know.”
“Luann. . .I don’t think I’ll be in Biloxi that long.”
She nodded. “Guess I gotta face up to it.”
“To what, honey?”
“That it’s back to Mr. Woody’s for me.” She shrugged. “Oh well. A couple three years, I can cash out and go somewhere’s else. Do somethin’ else.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
She shrugged. “Buy my own strip bar maybe.”
That was the problem, living in a particular bubble: you only saw the possibilities that were inside that bubble.
* * *
Judging by the upscale neighborhood Woodrow Colton lived in, running sleazy joints on Biloxi’s Strip paid very goddamn well. The rambling shades-of-brown-brick ranch-style, with its wide drive and double carport, perched on a tree-shaded, shrub-hugged, gently sloping lawn on Country Club Lane, which said it all.
I pulled my rental Chevelle in behind the two-tone brown Cadillac in the carport—the Dixie Mafia boys did love their Caddies. The vehicle looked like its colors had been selected to go with the house. Or maybe it was vice versa.
I felt like a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness in my black suit, going up the walk to the deeply recessed front door—all I lacked was Good Books. I rang the bell and Mr. Woody answered almost immediately, all magnified eyes and grinning teeth as usual. He was in khaki pants, an untucked cream-color cotton shirt, and sandals, a glass of Scotch in hand, though it was only late morning. He looked like a gardener who was sneaking a drink while the wealthy homeowner was away.
“Come in, come in,” he said, waving me to do so, and I did. He gave me a used-car salesman’s smile. “Let’s talk by the pool.”
The house we moved through was really something—rich wood floors, pastel plaster walls, open-beamed ceilings, modern kitchen, elaborate bar, all very open, giving a glimpse of a dining room here, living room with fieldstone fireplace there, tastefully selected Southern-landscape artwork on walls, and plush contemporary furnishings.
He led me into a pool area almost as expansive as the one at the Fantasy Sweets, only nicer. This screened-in cathedral overlooked a landscaped backyard that fell to a stream or a river or something—anyway, water enough to rate a dock and a motorboat. This was the kind of Olympic-sized pool I wished I owned.
He realized he had a drink in hand, and as he gestured me to a black wrought-iron chair at a black wrought-iron table, he asked, “Somethin’ to drink? Barq’s maybe?”
I sat. “Coke would be nice.”
He had a smaller bar out here, so that was no problem. He delivered a glass of the pop with ice and then settled next to me in his own black wrought-iron chair.
“Very safe to talk here,” he said, though the pool area made his words reverberate some. “I have it debugged now and then.”
“For microphones or cockroaches?”
He smiled a little as he sipped his Scotch. “Both. The mikes are small these days, Quarry, and the cockroaches are big.”
Enough small talk.
I said, “Why shouldn’t I leave town, Woody?”
“All sorts of reasons, son.” A hand brushed his silver comb-over, as if it needed help under that hairspray. “Startin’ with, you owe me that much.”
“Owe you? What do you have to do with it?”
“I recommended you. That’s known by more than just us and the late Jackie. If the new man, who I recommended, up and disappears, right after Jackie’s demise, how does that look?”
“What does it matter how it looks? Killian died accidentally. Drank too much red wine, fell asleep, and drowned in his own decadence.”
That was a line Killian might have appreciated. Possibly it was lost on Mr. Woody.
“Quarry, accidental drownin’ will no doubt be the official determination. As you might guess, I’ve spent considerable time, startin’ in the wee hours of last night and the early mornin’, in discussion with Sheriff Delmar. He will do everythin’ in his considerable power to see that this death goes down as a tragic mishap. Why, there won’t even be an autopsy.”
“I don’t think an autopsy would show anything. He really was asleep. I just helped him a little.”
He waved his free hand. “Be that as it may, among Jackie’s people are a number of loyal souls who simply must not suspect that I played a role, however minor, in the passin’ of the torch to my own self. So I would appreciate it very much if you would stick around for a while.”
“What’s ‘a while?’ ”
“Maybe a week. Shade more, shade less.” He leaned over and the magnified hazel eyes narrowed while his toothy smile expanded. “I can arrange for that little Lolita gal to keep you company as long as you’re here. Or if you’re bored with her, we can line up somebody else to tickle your fancy and wet your wick.”
“The girl is fine. She’s no trouble.”
He gave a heh-heh laugh. “Doesn’t surprise me. She’s a sweet young thing. I’ve known her a long time, Quarry. Long time.”
“Yeah. Since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. I remember.”
He frowned, seemingly in concern, not irritation. “Are you cross with me, son? Have I done somethin’ to offend? After all, I thought I’d been of considerable help to you.”
“You were. You are. I’m just. . .after a job, what I normally do? Is get the hell out. That’s the way it’s usually done, anyway. I really should already be gone.”
“But what is there about this job that’s been ‘usual?’ ”
He had a point.
“You just hang around the Tropical for a few days,” he said with a flip of the hand. “I’ll be movin’ my office into Jackie’s in that upstairs suite of his. I don’t really require the livin’ quarters, but it’ll be nice to have a little hideaway, ’way from home.” He leaned in conspiratorially, licking his lips, leaving them wet. “Never know when you might desire a night away from the little woman.”
“Yeah. Sure. You’re keeping Killian’s staff on?”
He nodded. “But I may loosen up the dress code. Let me give it some thought, over the next day or so, as to what exact role you’ll play durin’ this. . .transitional period.”
“Will I have to talk to cops? That sheriff or any deputies?”
He shook his head. “No one knows that you were at the Fantasy Sweets last night.”
“You know. I know.” Luann knew.
He half-smiled. “Well, it’s a funny thing. Jackie used to always talk about the basis of trust. He said—”
“I heard it.”
My host shrugged, had a last sip of Scotch. “Tell you what, Quarry. Agree to stay another week, and you’ll find ten grand in your stockin’, and you won’t even have to wait till Christmas.”
“Woody, that’s generous, more than generous. . .but I need to clear all this with the Broker. Like I said, he’ll be expecting me to be gone already.”
But Mr. Woody had begun shaking his head halfway through that. “Quarry, I’ve already discussed this with the Broker.”
“What? When?”
“This mornin’.”
“By phone?”
“Not by semaphore, son. You should call him yourself. See what his instructions are. I think you’ll find they mirror my own.”
A female voice behind us said, “Woody! Do you have a minute? Sorry to interrupt.. . .”
He turned to look at her, poised in the opening of glass doors, and so did I.
Woody had scored himself a fine-looking wife. Or at least I didn’t figure his housekeeper was a tall dark-blonde with the features of a model and the bosom of a centerfold. She was in a kind of half-sarong with a halter top, a tropical print of green and yellow and white. Her sandals were open-toed, with red nails. Her fingernails were red, too.
“You’re not interruptin’ anythin’ much, sweetheart,” he said, and rose, and presented her with a loving smile that held no indication of a desire for a getaway pad minus the “little woman.” Who was easily two inches taller than him.
She came hesitantly over and Mr. Woody said, “This is John Quarry, dear. He was workin’ for Jackie but he’s with me now.”
Her smile was quick. “I guess everyone is now.” She nodded. “Mr. Quarry. Pleasure.”
I was on my feet and took the hand she offered, not shaking it, just sort of holding and squeezing it a little. “Mrs. Colton.”
“Call me Wanda, please.” Then her attention went to her husband. “I’m goin’ out golfin’ this afternoon with my gal pals. Do you mind catchin’ dinner on your way to the club?”
“Not at all, darlin’,” he said, and beamed at her.
She nodded, smiled politely to me, and was gone.
But her eyes had confirmed that she’d recognized me just as I had recognized her. . .
. . .as the married woman I’d seen leaving the Caligula Suite last night.
* * *
Luann and I had lunch at The Dockside. Nothing of import occurred, although she was happy to hear I would be staying in Biloxi for a while.
I said, “Mr. Woody says you can stay on as my tour guide, if you like.”
“Is that what I am?”
“No. Much more, honey.”
But I really didn’t know what she was. I knew I liked her, and wasn’t having a fuck bunny on call the dream of every road-company Hefner? Only on some level, she was just one more aspect of this job that was off-kilter.
She had to go in to the club at two-thirty that afternoon. I dropped her off at the front door of Mr. Woody’s and promised to return at eleven-fifteen.
I parked the Chevelle in the space next to the outer door of my Tropical room but did not go in. Instead, I hiked across the highway to the phone booth that was becoming my home away from home.
I got the Broker right away.
I told him, in the necessarily elliptical fashion, that the Killian job was done but that Woody Colton expected me to hang around for a while, apparently to help cover his ass with the troops.
“He says,” I said, “that he talked to you about this.”
“He did,” the Broker said. “His reasoning is sound. But I would stay no longer than a week. I don’t want Woodrow getting used to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“A young man of your skills, your aptitude, would come in handy. Can’t have you stolen away from me.”
“Sweet talker.”
The conversation with the Broker went on a while after that, but covered nothing new. Oh, he promised me an extra five grand for staying another week. Nothing else of significance.
In the hotel room, I considered climbing into the hot tub to relax, but thought better of it, even though I hadn’t had any red wine. But at least I could get out of the tailored suit and tie and into something comfortable. I put on a blue t-shirt and jeans and flopped on the bed.
I’m not sure how long I’d been sleeping when the knock came. Oddly, it was from the door to the outside, by the parked Chevelle, not the hall one. I got the nine millimeter from the nightstand and went to the door, which had no night-latch, and cracked it.
A beautiful high-cheekboned female face looked at me plaintively, the dark blue eyes going surprisingly well with the lighter blue eye shadow.
“Please,” Mrs. Woodrow Colton said. Her hair was up, like it had been last night. “Might we talk?”
“Sure,” I said, and let her in, keeping the pistol behind my back.
She was in a light-blue pullover skirt that looked like a Polo shirt with a long tail, though in this case it made a short mini. A metallic belt was at her narrow waist. Too young an outfit for her, but I’m not a stickler about stuff like that.
She touched my shoulder, standing very near to me. She was as tall as me in her sandals with heels. Her narrow face was almost horsey, but the features were too finely carved for that to be a problem. She smelled great. My Sin, I think. Somebody’s sin.
In a breathy contralto, she said, “You were kind not to say anything in front of Woody.”
“You’re welcome.”
Her eyes popped. “No one can know I was there last night.”
“I get that.”
She nodded, then walked to the bed and sat on the foot, her knees together primly. Those legs were a little slender for my taste, but my God they went on and on.
“There’s nothing I can give you for your silence,” she stated.
“I don’t want anything.”
“Woody and me, all our money is in a joint account. If I withdrew somethin’, he’d know. Woody would know.”
“Not necessary.”
She shook her head and a few dark-blonde tendrils fled the pinned-up hair. “You don’t know him.”
“Sure I do.”
“You think he’s nice. You think he’s sweet.”
“I wouldn’t say sweet.”
“He can be brutal. He can be violent. He might. . .would you think I exaggerate if I said he might kill me?”
“No. People have been known to do that.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if. . .if he had Jack killed. If somebody came in after I left, somebody he hired, and drowned him or something.”
“Pretty far-fetched.” Was she fucking with me?
“Mr. Quarry. . .should I call you ‘Mr. Quarry?’ ”
“Just Quarry is fine. Most people call me that.”
“Your last name?”
“Yeah. Unless you want to call me ‘Jack.’ ”
“No! No.”
Didn’t think so.
She patted the bed next to her. I came over and sat, bringing the nine millimeter with me, draping it in my lap.
“What’s that for?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Surprises. What do you want, Mrs. Colton?”
“Call me Wanda.”
“Okay. What do you want, Wanda?”
But she didn’t answer, at least not directly.
“Quarry. . .I’ll try to get used to that. . .Quarry, have you talked to the police?”
“No. As far as they’re concerned, I wasn’t there last night.”
“But you were.”
“No. Mr. Killian drove himself.”
She thought about that. “So you can’t say a word about seein’ me there without. . .”
“That’s right. So you don’t really have anything to worry about.”
“That’s wonderful. Oh. . .I mean, nothing’s wonderful about it, but. . .thank you. Thank you so much.”
“It’s mutually beneficial, that’s all. Somebody once told me that trust is when two people each have something on the other.”
“I heard that somewhere, too.”
“So then we’re cool.”
“We’re. . .we’re cool. But I would still like to thank you.”
She stood. She undid the belt, tossed it with a clunk on the nearby bureau by where the TV squatted. “Put that gun somewhere.”
I got up and placed it on the nightstand, then turned to her and said, “I don’t need any thanks.”
“Do you have any protection?”
“Besides the gun?”
“Yes. Besides the gun.”
“You mean, like Trojans?”
“Yes. I mean like Trojans.”
I shook my head. “Not necessary.”
“Maybe my thanks aren’t. But a Trojan is.”
She pulled the Polo dress over her head and tossed it like a spent paper cup. Then the only thing she was wearing was a wicked smile. She was olive-complected and those legs didn’t stop till her neatly trimmed pubic triangle demanded it. The flare of her hips was emphasized by the narrowness of her waist, and the large full breasts drooped some, due to age and gravity, but were astonishing nonetheless, their areolae the size of silver-dollar pancakes at the Waffle House.
She shoved me onto the bed. I really didn’t need this. I’d been having so much sex with Luann lately I was raw.
She demanded, “The Trojans—where are they?”
It was like the demand of a Greek goddess.
I pointed to the opposite nightstand, the one without the gun. She found the rubbers, tossed one little package on the bed. There was an unsettling confidence about her—she moved like a man. Nothing mannish about her ass, though, which was beautifully shaped and dimpled. She came over, undid my belt and yanked my jeans and shorts down around my ankles. She snugged the Trojan onto the part of me currently doing my thinking. She piled two pillows against the headboard and said, “Get comfy.”
I got comfy.
She crawled up between my legs like a panther on the prowl and the eyes were cold as she said, “Just so you know—I don’t suck dick.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” I said.
She climbed onboard and fucked me like I was a steer she was trying to break, and she never got tossed. Her eyes and nostrils flared and her upper lip curled back over feral teeth and the long tips of the huge breasts shook at me like scolding fingers. I was breathing so hard I was wheezing, and then with me still in her, she rolled us over and wrapped the endless legs around me and squeezed and squeezed and churned her hips in rhythmic abandon. It was savage and it was intense and it was lustful as hell, without an ounce of tenderness. It was like fucking Hitler, if Hitler had great tits and a nice ass.
She got off me and went in the bathroom and washed up and came back and gave me a businesslike look, her head tilted. “So do we have an understandin’?”
“Sure.”
“I wasn’t there last night. You weren’t there last night.”
“Where?”
“Good,” she said. She gathered her purse and was about to go out the door, then turned and came over and gave me a little kiss on the forehead. I was still on my back with my dick wilting into the damp rubber.
“Bye, Quarry,” she said.
And was gone.
I went in and pitched the rubber in the crapper, making sure it flushed—couldn’t have my little hooker knowing I had cheated on her with Mrs. Caligula—and took a long, hot shower. I felt dirty. I never felt this way after killing somebody, but this was different. I’d come hard and long and I knew that over the years there would be nights when I would reflect on this wild, sudden, bizarre fuck and remember just how hard and long I’d come and how little I’d felt.
Christ, I wanted out of Biloxi. There was just too much killing and fucking going on in this goddamn town.
Even for me.