Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [21]
Really fine—after all, when you kill the contract killers, the guy who hired them might be miffed with you. So eliminating the buyer would be the best kind of contract to get—lucrative and self-interested.
“Should we discuss it?” he asked.
“Let’s discuss you. First things first. How many on your security staff?”
“Twelve.”
“I counted six.”
“Six working tonight.”
“Are you including the parking-lot deputy?”
“No.”
“Is he trustworthy, the deputy?”
“Of course not.”
“So what’s the story on law enforcement in Haydee’s Port?”
“There isn’t any, Mr. Quarry. There’s a county sheriff’s sub-station in Burris, which is ten miles from Haydee’s. They have half a dozen deputies and one very corrupt sheriff. All of them work for not only me but the other businesses in Haydee’s.”
“Like the Lucky Devil downtown?”
“That’s right. The Lucky Devil and all of the other low-rent dives.”
“When does the deputy go off duty?”
“You mean, off duty here?”
“Right—when does he stop babysitting your parking lot?”
“He’ll stay till the lot’s emptied out.”
“Which is?”
“Five-fifteen.”
“Latest he could still be around?”
“Five-thirty.”
“What’s your pattern? Do you stay here? You’ve got a bedroom.”
“Not usually. Sometimes on weekends, when I allow myself a little…latitude. Otherwise I maintain regular hours.”
“So, during the week, when do you leave here? And where do you go?”
“I leave, oh, about five-thirty or six. I live just down the road a few minutes.”
“What about…?” I was nodding toward the closed bedroom door.
“I don’t take my work home with me,” he said. “I’m separated, and my wife and I don’t live together right now, but, still, I wouldn’t insult her like that.”
He would fuck a little coke slut the floor above where she was singing her heart out, though. Good thing this guy had that English accent or I might think he was a shitheel.
“So when you leave at five-thirty or six, is the lot generally empty?”
“I’m the last out, yes.”
“Okay. Makes sense.”
“You mean…that’s when he’d do it? He’d…Jesus fucking…he’d run me down in my own parking lot?”
“Bingo.”
“How in God’s name is that not suspicious?”
“It’s a not a bullet in the head. It’s a guy who got run down in the parking lot of a place that serves drinks till dawn. Getting tire tracks on you from a drunk under those conditions isn’t suspicious at all, particularly in a county where the sheriff and his deputies are just possibly on the takey-poo.”
He thought about that. He was trying to go pale under the tan, and it was damn near working.
“Dickie, how subtle do I have to be about this?”
He blinked at me. The fucker could blink, after all. “Subtle?”
“Yeah. If I shoot this prick, will we have the law to answer to? If we have a dead body on our hands, one with a bullet or two in him, can you have him removed?”
He twitched a frown. “If a deputy shows up, we could handle it. Could be expensive. I mean, it would be right out in the open. You saying, if he was behind the wheel of his car, and you shot him, and we had a car with a bullet hole in the windshield and—”
“A driver with a bullet in his head, could you deal with it?”
He flinched. “Is there another way?”
“Might be. Might be.”
We both just sat there a while.
“You’re asking a lot,” he said.
“I know.”
“You come in with this wild story. It’s credible, in its way, and yet it’s fantastic.”
“I know.”
“Is there someone I could call?”
“You mean do I have references?”
“I guess that was a stupid question.”
“Well…funny thing is, I did a job like this for the guy who used to own this place. I was never here before—I met him at a much smaller operation, in Des Moines. Frank Tree. Did you buy this place from him?”
“No. I heard of him—he’s the guy who opened the Paddlewheel, turned it from a warehouse into a goldmine. It came to me through my Chicago friends. Gave me and my wife a chance to buy in. They’re silent partners.”
“Yeah. Silent until they get noisy.” I stood. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Just out to your parking lot.”
He