In no shape to make the six-hour drive down to Biloxi, I considered checking in somewhere to sleep and recuperate a little—somewhere other than the Dixie Motel, that is. The trousers I’d appropriated in Room 14 had a wallet with $152 in its left back pocket, so I felt pretty flush for a guy who’d begun this outing naked, battered and stuffed in a car trunk.
But I needed to get back to Biloxi as soon as possible—I had things to deal with there, including little Luann, last seen flung against the side of a hot tub, knocked silly. I thought about calling her, but going through the Tropical switchboard might not be wise. Nor was I sure what ultimately to do about her.
Getting back to Biloxi by car meant dealing with various roads and highways and maps, and the thought of that made my head hurt even worse. But I knew how to get to Memphis and found myself heading there. A plane was out this time, as I didn’t have the I.D. or the money.
At a gas station on the outskirts, I got directions to the bus depot, in whose lot I left the Fleetwood, after wiping it down for prints, trunk included. I left the keys in the ignition. A nice surprise for somebody.
A bus ticket to Biloxi cost me $22.50—the guy in the window goggled at my beat-to-shit countenance—and at a magazine stand I picked up two little tins of aspirin. A vending machine gave me stuff they claimed was Coke with floating shards they claimed was ice, and I washed down six tablets with the swill, then found a bench and waited for the 7:10 A.M. bus to Biloxi.
At the rear of the bus, I claimed the double seat, stretching out on my back, putting my knees up a little, tucking a complimentary pillow behind my head, which was aching less, thanks to the Bayer Company. A pleasant older woman in a floral dress approached me, holding a hand out tentatively, as if to a dog that needed help but might bite.
“Are you all right, young man?”
I knew I looked a horror, having washed up again in the bus station john, where I’d applied a cold compress of wet paper towels to my swollen eye. But I had on a dead man’s brown sportcoat, tan sportshirt and dark brown slacks, and the .38 was in a pocket, so I looked fairly respectable.
“I’m fine, ma’am, thanks. Are you going all the way to Biloxi?”
“I am. My daughter and her little ones are there.”
I nodded as if that mattered. “When we hit the city limits, could you wake me?”
“Certainly. Were you in an accident?”
“You should see the other guys.”
That made her smile a little. Good thing she couldn’t really see them.
She was true to her word and gently shook me awake when we hit town. The inside of my mouth thick as paste, I sat up slowly, the aching pretty bad. I’d gotten almost seven hours of sleep, though, and when I’d been up and around and moving for a while, it would be better.
A cab dropped me a block away from the Tropical Motel—I didn’t want to pull up and be let out in front. I came around through the alley, cutting through the parking lot. My rental Chevelle was still in its slot by the outside door to my room, and the slot next to Luann’s door remained vacant.
My hunch was she’d still be around. I thought for a moment about whether she’d be in her room or mine. Hers made more sense, but mine had the better TV.
With my left hand, I knocked on the outside door to my room—the snubnose .38 was in my right hand, down along my side. Working my voice up as much as I dared, I said, “Luann! Me.” Then I added: “Johnny.”
She cracked it open. I could hear the TV going—The Newlywed Game. She was barefoot in frayed jeans and a pink t-shirt. My nine millimeter was tight and huge in her small right hand. Her hair looked unwashed, her eyes red, her face sans make-up almost ghostly.
But seeing me seemed to transform her—she beamed, opening the door wider, and I slipped inside.
She hugged me and it ached like hell, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so let her keep at it. Looking past the girl, I took in my room—no one seemed to be here but us. That left the bathroom, and I pushed her away gently and checked it.
We really were alone.
The door between our rooms was shut but not locked. Snubnose in hand, I went quickly in and found it (and its bathroom) vacant as well. I returned to my room, where Luann was shutting off the TV. She’d set my nine millimeter on the dresser. It had the safety on. I wondered if she knew how that mechanism worked.
I asked her, “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Oh my God, look at you! What did they do to you, Johnny?”
“You hit that tub pretty hard. Did it knock you out?”
“Yes, but. . .” She raised a gentle hand, not quite touching my face. “. . .oh, they hurt you bad.”
I took her by that hand and we sat on the foot of the bed. “Have you been taking it easy? You could have a concussion. You should get checked out at an ER.”
“What about you, Johnny? Your face, it’s. . .”
“It’s all right. I was lucky. They don’t seem to have broken anything.”
“What happened? How did you get away from them?”
“Honey, you don’t need to know any of that. Let’s just say an ER wouldn’t help any of them at this point.”
She squeezed my hand and nodded, her chin crinkling. “Good. Good.”
“Have you been out of this room?”
“Just in here and mine.”
“No one’s tried to get in?”
“No. I put on the do-not-disturb.”
If only I’d thought of that last night.
“Luann, that’s not going to stop anybody who wants to come in and do you harm. Or me, if they know I’m alive.”
“Who did this?”
“I think you know.”
Her face hardened. “Mr. Woody.”
I sighed. “I wish I’d done what you asked me to, like right away.”
She nodded. “He called me.”
“Called you?”
She nodded some more and pointed a thumb toward the door to her room. “Not too long ago. He wants me to come in to the club tonight, and do the last shift, seven to three.”
“What else did he say?”
“That you were gone and the job was over. He meant me keepin’ you company and servicin’ you and stuff.”
“Yeah. I get that. That’s all he said about me, that I was ‘gone?’ ”
More nods.
I thought about that. “Did he say anything about you clearing out of your motel room?”
“No. He probably hasn’t thought of that. It’s nothin’ he’d check. I’m not important.”
I got up and walked around a little, thinking. She was right. As far as Mr. Woody knew, Luann was just another employee. Just the little whore he’d provided me. He wouldn’t even know—or it was very unlikely, anyway—that she’d been in my room when the Dixon boys and their helper barged in and dragged me away.
I went over and sat back down next to her. I took her hand again. “Luann, Mr. Woody doesn’t have any way of knowing that we’re. . .friends.”
“Is that what we are?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
She smiled. That seemed to be enough. “So he doesn’t suspect me of anythin’?”
“What of? All you did was show me around town a little and stay on call for when I got horny. He knows nothing about you accompanying me to the Dixie Club. Or following me to the Fantasy Sweets and making those video tapes. Could have no idea that you approached me to make him go away.”
“That’s a good way to put it,” she said with no irony. “But you know, it’s typical.”
“What is?”
She shrugged. “I’m nothin’ to him. Nobody, just a nice little piece of ass. To sell or use any way he feels like. He doesn’t know I have thoughts. Or feelings.”
Now I was nodding. “Well, if he does, I promise he doesn’t give a shit. But you’re not alone, Luann.”
“Huh?”
“He’s been using me, too.”
I was hungry. I’d bought a Snickers at one of the stops on the bus ride, but otherwise I was empty and my stomach was growling. The girl said she hadn’t eaten either, hadn’t even thought about it, but now that I was back “alive and everything,” she was starving.
I had her order some room service for us, to her room, while I took a long, hot shower, after which I made a general inspection of the bodily damage. My eye wasn’t so badly swollen now. My face had skinned patches where fist had met bone and skin, and my upper lip was a little puffy. Naked in the mirror I looked like Joseph’s coat of many colors, if those colors were purple, blue, red, yellow and variations thereof. You will be glad to know that my dick and balls were in mint condition, and all my poking at my sides did not reveal anything that might be a broken or even cracked rib.
But I still had a general achiness that expressed itself with every breath, and I knew I could use some rest, even if my mind was too active to let me get any more sleep.
So after we ate our room-service meal, more Dockside grub (cheeseburger and fries for her, a rare steak sandwich and fries for me), we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening just relaxing in the room. Most of the time we lay on the double bed with her snuggled next to me and watched whatever she wanted to on TV.
Around five-thirty, she started getting ready to go into the strip club, explaining that she did her stage make-up at work, just taking a shower and washing/drying her hair. That brought to an end a sleepy, lazy late afternoon, and you would never know that anything nasty hung over our heads but for the .38 on one nightstand and the nine millimeter on the other.
At one point I got off the bed and knelt by her canvas tote bag and removed the two bulky video cassettes; one had a label (blank) stuck on, the other didn’t. Which brought something to mind.
I asked her, “Is there any way to know which of these is which?”
She knelt on the bed like a cat about to spring. “What do you mean?”
“One has Mrs. Woody bonking Mr. Killian, the other has me—you know.”
“Oh. Yes. Actually, the one with the label is the one where you, uh, are doin’ what you did. I stuck that on to know which is which.”
“And why did you do that?”
“In case I needed to use the Mrs. Woody and Mr. Killian one on Mr. Woody.”
So she’d had a plan B, in case I didn’t come through for her. The kid did have a streak of the blackmailer in her, but in this instance I didn’t mind.
“Might come in handy at that,” I admitted.
Luann suggested applying some of her cosmetics to take the edge off my rough-and-tumble look. I said okay and, while the combination of pancake and liquid make-up seemed obvious under the harsh bathroom light, she assured me it would work just fine in the low-key lighting of a nightclub.
At six-thirty, I drove her within a block of Mr. Woody’s, not wanting to be seen dropping her off at the club itself. I told her I’d meet her later, and she nodded and frowned, but didn’t question me.
I did not feel like returning to the Tropical just now, so I drove over to the modernistic sprawl of the Broadwater Beach Hotel, where I treated myself to lobster in the Royal Terrace dining room. After that beating, I felt I deserved a decent meal, plus I was celebrating my imminent departure from this hellhole of a tourist paradise.
After a leisurely meal, I returned to my rental Chevelle in the Broadwater parking lot and got the video cassette with the blank label from the floor of the back seat. I placed the cassette snugly against the left rear tire, then got in the vehicle, started it up, and backed over the rectangle of plastic with a satisfying crunch. I pulled forward slightly, bumping over it again, and the crunching became more of a crackle.
I got out and retrieved the smashed, flattened cassette, its video-tape guts squishing out, pieces of plastic flaking off. I tucked the object under my arm and strolled around to the marina in front of the hotel. The night was rather dark and there were few lights out on the waters. At the end of a dock, I tossed the mangled video tape long and hard. Its splash seemed nicely distant.
Just before midnight, I sauntered into Mr. Woody’s as if I owned the place, and in a way I did. The big guy on the door frowned at me but said nothing as I moved into the smoky near-darkness. The stripper on stage was the short redhead with real breasts; this was early on in her routine, because both pasties and g-string were still in place as she worked it to Ike and Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.”
Weaving around the occasional waitresses in their white shirts and black minis, I made for the door that said PRIVATE—NO ENTRY. The shaved-head Tony Orlando-mustached brute again stood watch in that same bored genie crossed-arms stance. He raised an eyebrow at me. I wondered if that came natural or had taken practice. Either way, Leonard Nimoy had nothing to worry about.
I gave him a near smile and said, “Tell Mr. Woody that Quarry is here to see him.”
The raised eyebrow came down and a dumb-shit expression took over, indicating that maybe he was familiar with the name. But after a beat or two, he nodded, said, “Wait here,” and went in.
I waited.
Maybe thirty seconds passed, as Mr. Woody decided whether or not he wanted to see me. I didn’t blame him for needing time to think—after all, I’d had all afternoon to figure out how I would handle this.
The door opened and the big bald bouncer said, “I need to pat you down.”
I opened my leisure-suit jacket and showed him the nine millimeter in the shoulder holster. “That’s all I’m packing, and I’m not giving it to you.”
He thought about that.
“But you’re a big guy,” I said. “You might be able to take it off me.”
He thought about that.
“Look,” I said, “I work for Mr. Woody, too. He insists that I be armed.”
We were now officially dealing with concepts above his pay grade and all he could do was shrug and lumber back to his post while I headed down the hallway to the door marked MR. WOODY—PLEASE KNOCK.
I knocked, then went in.
He was already standing behind the steel desk. The room was as before, though the framed stripper posters were mostly gone, no doubt transferred to his new, nicer digs atop the Tropical. One remained, of Carol Doda, the girl who put fake tits on the map.
“My God, boy, am I relieved to see you,” he said, gesturing to a waiting visitor’s chair. “Sit! Please. Sit.”
I did, and he did.
He was, as always, all eyes and teeth, the silver-gray combover rigidly in place; his leisure suit was about the green of the lower half of the Fleetwood I’d abandoned this morning in downtown Memphis. His shirt, a lighter green, was unbuttoned some to reveal tan skin, gray chest hair, and gold chains.
“I thought you’d left town on me,” Mr. Woody said with a sideways grin. “I called and called your room at the Tropical, left message after message.”
This of course was a lie: he hadn’t considered that Luann would have been in my room to contradict him.
I said, “I had something of a narrow escape.”
He frowned at me. “Is that. . .make-up on your face? What. . .?”
“I got pretty badly beaten up last night. I had to plaster this stuff on to make myself presentable.”
He lifted his half-gone tumbler of Scotch in salute. “Can I get you somethin’, boy? Beat up, you say?”
I waved off the drink offer and said, “Three guys rushed into my room last night, around, oh, nine? They pulled me out bareass and dumped me in the trunk of a car.”
“What? Jesus! No! Go on.”
“Well, it was an interesting car to get dumped in the back of—a two-tone green Fleetwood Caddy.”
He squinted at me, as if seeing no significance to that. Sipped some Scotch, as he waited patiently for clarification.
“That’s the drive-by car,” I said, “from the Concort Inn. That nearly got the Broker and me?”
“Was it? Damn! Well, though, that makes sense.”
“Does it?”
Mr. Woody waved a hand. “My word yes. Remember, I said the shooter you took down, there in Davenport, had a cousin in the moonshine bidness? A cousin he recruited as his wheelman for the Broker run? Well, the cuz must’ve come lookin’ for you.”
“The man I killed didn’t look like any moonshiner.”
“You killed the man?” He shook his head. “What the hell happened, Quarry? Tell me your story.”
So I told him my story. I didn’t leave a damn thing out. I wanted him to hear what I’d done to Buck and Chuck and the man in Room 14. Every hammer blow, blowtorch swipe, and bullet in the back.
He finished his Scotch, got up, went to the liquor cart, and poured himself some more. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Quarry. That is one harrowin’ story. Sure I can’t get you anythin’? If not hard stuff, how about a Barq’s?”
“I’m fine.” I shifted in my chair. “Is this all such a surprise? Didn’t you hear what happened at the Dixie Club?”
He sat behind the desk again, nodding. “That the place burned down and some charred bodies turned up, yes. And that there’s an unfortunate, as yet unidentified, shot to shit and floatin’ in the motel pool.”
“I kind of figured you’d know,” I said, “since you mentioned to the sheriff yesterday how you’d made peace with the Dixons. Please tell me, Woody, that you didn’t betray me to those Hee-Haw rejects.”
He raised a palm, frowned in wounded displeasure. “Quarry, no. I am nothin’ if not loyal to my people.”
Just ask Jack Killian.
Mr. Woody was saying, “But I don’t have to tell you how crazy them inbred state-liners can be. I guess they just didn’t know who or what they was up against.”
“I guess.”
He swallowed. Rocked in his chair. “Well, you survived it, and that’s what counts. It just shows to go ya that my confidence in your potential was damn well-placed. More than ever I want you to stay on here as my top man.”
I shook my head. “No, Woody, I’m going to have to pass. When they start beating my bare ass senseless, and come at me with hammers and blowtorches, I draw the line. I’m heading home.”
He sighed. Rocked some more. “Can’t say as I blame you. You leave with my blessin’, son, and do give the Broker my best regards.” He extended his hand.
I raised a “stop” hand. “Woody, I’m not leaving just yet. We have a separate though related business matter to discuss first.”
“We do?” The extended hand seemed to wilt.
I nodded. “I’ve been put through the mill, I guess you could say. . .”
“I guess you could.”
“. . .and I feel I deserve some compensation.”
Eyebrows that needed trimming rose above the goggle-style glasses. “Well, I don’t know, Quarry—you pulled down some heavy bread from Jackie. I give you that little hooker on the house. Took care of your room tab, meals included. I’m sorry you got beat to shit, but that was not my doin’. . .if you’re fishin’ for some kind of severance pay, I don’t think I can help. I mean, you only worked for me a day or so, and ain’t done jack squat yet.”
“Oh, you don’t owe me anything in that regard.”
“Okay. Good. Agreed.”
I sat forward. “But I have something I’d like to offer you. Sell you.”
“Sell me? I don’t believe I’m in the market for much of anythin’.”
“You are this. It’s a videotape. One of those broadcast-type cassettes? Very high quality.”
He frowned. “And why would I want that?”
“Because it has your wife fucking Jack Killian on it. In the Caligula Suite. The night he was killed.”
His mouth pulled to the sides as if a smile was about to blossom, but instead froze in a fleshy-lipped grimace. Behind the thick lenses, the eyes were wide with the blankness that precedes rage.
“If,” I said, “you’re trying to decide whether to act surprised. . . maybe play cuckold or some shit. . .let me save you the trouble. It’s obvious that you put your wife in bed with Killian that night.”
“What? Why the hell would I—”
“To make it easier for me to get at him. She drugged his wine, too, didn’t she? Later you sent her around to fuck with me and my head. Whether she’s your partner in this or just your top whore, I wouldn’t hazard a guess.”
That round face went red as a ripe tomato.
“I guarantee you,” I said, “there are no copies. I know tape copies could be made, but I don’t know how, and don’t have access to anything or anyone who could.”
The red began to drain, lingering in his neck. I’d been hoping I might be treated to some nice deep purple, but this was more a whiter shade of pale.
He spluttered, “Who gives a diddly damn if you do have such a tape? Might be personally embarrassin’ to me and my Wanda, this little peccadillo, but—”
“This tape puts your wife in bed with Killian just minutes before his death. That raises very embarrassing questions. Now, your friend the sheriff might not ask those questions, but the T.B.I. well might.”
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. I admit that sounded a little like a TV show with a laugh track, but it got the right reaction out of Mr. Woody.
“How much, Quarry? How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
“You have a very peculiar sense of humor.”
“I have a very keen sense of what I’ve been put through.”
The fleshy upper lip formed a sneer. “You really think I keep that kind of money here at the club?”
“I have no idea what you do. Most of what you people down here do in this fucking swamp eludes me. But that’s my price. Fifty k.”
He drank some Scotch, slowly. His eyes were narrow and moving behind the lenses. He seemed to be settling down.
Finally: “I will need till tomorrow mornin’. Late mornin’. This requires a visit to a safe deposit box.”
“All right. You mind if I keep my room at the Tropical till then?”
He shrugged, overdoing it. “Why not? You’re still my guest. I can meet you at your room with the money, if you like.”
“Make it the parking lot. Noon?”
He nodded. “Noon’ll be jes’ fine.”
I grinned at him, getting up. “Don’t take it personally, Woody—it’s just ‘bidness.’ After all, I did rid you of Killian. Think what kind of money and power’ll come your way now.”
He was breathing heavily through about the most strained smile imaginable, saying nothing.
I went out.
Luann was on stage, bare as the day she came into the world, but sharing attributes that had come along much later. Every chair ringside was filled, though only a few tables were. The sound system was blaring Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World.”
I gave her a little nod and she gave me one back.