Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [57]
He saw the Firebird pulling in, and smiled, thinking it was Chrissy come to see him, which was sort of true. Then he made me behind the wheel and frowned, not in displeasure, just confusion. I stopped next to him and got out. He met me at the rear of the sporty red convertible.
“Something I want to show you,” I said.
The white crease lines formed in the too-tanned forehead. “What are you up to, love?”
“This is sort of where I came in,” I said, and unlocked the trunk.
The lid popped up to reveal, down in the well, the little yellow-permed Chrissy in her pink blouse (unknotted and loose now) and tight jeans and sandals, on her side fetally, front of her toward us as she craned her head to glare at me, the big dark-blue eyes popping over the wide slash of silver duct tape. She tried to call me something but I couldn’t quite make it out, though I think I got the gist.
I’d taped her wrists behind her and wrapped the stuff all over and around her little fists, in hopes that would keep her bound. Her ankles were taped tight, too. She didn’t seem to have budged, which either meant she wasn’t as ambitious or smart as I’d been on that boat, or maybe I had just done a better job of taping her up.
Cornell’s yap was hanging open. “What the bloody hell…?”
I shut the trunk, and took him by the elbow, walking him near the line of trees at that end of the lot.
“Little girls have big ears,” I said, keeping my voice low and raising a shush finger.
“I didn’t hire you to kill some innocent—”
“First of all, she’s about as innocent as Marilyn Chambers, and second, she’s still breathing. And I’m not going to make her stop, either. You can do what you want with her, from spank her to toss her dead in a ditch, but it’s not a job I want.”
I quickly explained that Chrissy had been Jerry G’s industrial espionage agent, and Cornell found this news predictably dismaying.
“I thought I was a better judge of character than that,” he said, shaking his head, the half-lidded, unblinking aqua eyes taking on a hurt, almost haunted quality.
“Dickie, you may be a good judge of character, but few heterosexual males are good judges of character when that character is attached to a tight little twenty-year-old pussy. If you’ll pardon my bluntness. Anyway, the job is done and maybe we can transfer that package to your trunk, and you can do whatever the fuck you—”
“What job is done?”
“Are you kidding? Jerry G is still warm but he’s not breathing.”
“…You did it. You really did it.”
“What did you think I was going to do? Performance art?”
“I mean…before, it seemed abstract…”
“That other body in the trunk I showed you, that seemed abstract to you?”
He was going pale despite the tan. “How…how did it go down?”
“I told you I don’t do details. How it’s perceived depends on Jerry G’s Chicago partners and the bent local cops. It’ll probably be one of two ways—a robbery/homicide, or a boating accident. Or even, with the right doctor, natural causes. My guess is, the last thing Jerry G’s associates want, and I include both Chicago and the county sheriff’s department, is a homicide that brings in state cops. That kind of investigation could shut down Haydee’s Port, you included, at least for a while.”
He didn’t contradict me. He seemed in shock.
“What should I do with her?” he said finally, nodding toward the trunk.
“I wouldn’t kill her.”
“Jesus! Neither would I!”
“Give her a second chance. Maybe make her work for her supper as a hostess or something. Or send her back to Chicago. She has friends there. Oh…” I got an envelope out of my windbreaker jacket pocket. The envelope came from the Wheelhouse Motel, and it was plump with hundred dollar bills—four grand worth. “Give this to Chrissy. I bought her car.”
A sick slice of white appeared in the dark face—a smile, technically anyway. “A little flashy for you, isn’t it, Quarry?”
“I don’t know. Bright red car might be a nice souvenir of my trip to Haydee’s. Or I might trade it in for something more suited to my part of the world.”
“Where is that?”
“You don’t