Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [4]
I pulled the Sunbird into a spot for restaurant patrons and went in. The place had a three-sided counter and booths along the windows; riverboat prints rode the rough-wood walls, and a big brown metal jukebox squatted near the entryway, with “Proud Mary” playing (the Creedence version).
A booth was waiting from which I could see the unit (Number 36) where Monahan’s green Buick Regal was pulled into the adjacent space. The Buick was a car he’d bought in Des Moines, by the way, leaving his own Oldsmobile Cutlass in long-term parking at the airport, though he hadn’t been flying anywhere.
I had a good view of that unit, and staring out the window wasn’t suspicious, because some good-looking women in their early twenties and skimpy bikinis were using the diving board and splashing around in the pool when they weren’t sunning themselves.
I hadn’t eaten for a while, so I ordered a Diet Coke and the Famous Wheelhouse Bacon Cheeseburger, which somehow I’d managed never to hear of. Just didn’t get around enough, I guess. The famous burger came with fries, which were worthy of fame, because they were hand-cut, not frozen.
These I fearlessly salted and dragged through ketchup and nibbled while I watched the unit; Dionne Warwick was singing “That’s What Friends Are For.” I’d felt lucky getting hand-cut french fries, but I got luckier yet: Monahan and a skinny blond kid I didn’t recognize (not a face in the Broker’s file, new blood) exited the motel room and they were walking and talking, casually, and heading my way.
Actually, the restaurant’s way. The place had enough patrons to make me inconspicuous, and when Monahan and the blond kid took a booth at the back, against the wall, where I had a good view of them, I managed not to smile.
I say the blond was a kid, but he could have been thirty. He had that blue-eyed Beach Boy look that makes you a kid your whole life (as long as you don’t get a gut), including shaggy soup-bowl hair and a tan that said he probably operated out of somewhere coastal. He was wearing a black Poison t-shirt with a skull and crossed guitars, so he was a metal head, despite his Mike Love demeanor.
In his short-sleeve light blue shirt with darker blue tie and navy polyester slacks, Monahan looked like the kid’s high school counselor. Or he would have if they both hadn’t been smoking. Christ, didn’t those two know that shit could kill you?
The hardest part was not staring, because they were close enough to lip read. Though surveillance had never been my specialty, I’d done enough of it to pick up the skill in a rudimentary way. What follows is part guess, but it’ll give you what I got out of it.
“Sunup,” Monahan said.
“Little soon, isn’t it?” the blond said, frowning.
“Sooner the better. This is too wide-open here.”
“The road?”
“No, the town. You can’t predict jack shit in a place like this.”
True, I thought, gaining respect for him. Smart.
“And too small,” the older man went on. “Where do you fuckin’ lay low? I don’t know how in hell you ain’t been spotted.”
I wondered if Monahan was one of these guys who reverted to tough-guy talk on the job. Surely he didn’t talk like that pretending to be an insurance salesman. I lost respect for him.
“No problems,” the kid was saying, grinning, waving it off. “I got a good set-up—farmhouse right across the way.”
I’m guessing about “the way,” because a waitress in a white-trimmed brown uniform got between us, taking their order.
So I watched the bikini girls for a while. Shit, there were eight or nine of the little dolls frolicking around. Must not have been much to do in Haydee’s Port before nightfall.
The waitress left, and the kid asked: “So, first thing, then? Where, do you think?”
Monahan’s response seemed a non-sequitur: “Only three minutes from that joint to the Interstate ramp.”
“That’s good.” The kid was grinning again. “Perfect from where I’m sittin’.”
They stopped talking about the job. Monahan asked the kid about how Heather