Quarry's Deal (14 page)

28

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A STAIRWAY OFF
the lobby took us to the second floor, where the living, quarters and offices were. That is, all of them except Ruthy’s; her small apartment was downstairs, in the basement of the place.

The door she led me to said PRIVATE on it. She knocked, a tenor voice within said, “Yeah,” and we went in, Ruthy first.

It was a small office, just big enough for a metal desk with wood top, a few files, a few chairs and several walls of plaques and framed citations and some signed photographs of moderately well-known actors. The only wall that wasn’t that way, besides the one with a door on it, was the bookcase wall, and the shelves of that were top-heavy with trophies. There were a few books, too, paperbacks mostly, and hardcovers on the careers of movie stars.

The woman was drinking orange juice, sitting behind the desk, which had nothing on it except a little brown box with a face the time appeared on, rolling along like the odometer of a car.

She was about thirty-five and looked about forty-five, a cadaverously thin woman with an intelligent, unattractive face; her dark brown, almost black eyes were penetrating, demanding of attention, although she kept them constantly stiffed, eyes so commanding they diverted from her sunken, pockmarked cheeks, hook nose and well-kept but painfully thin colorless brown hair, which she wisely wore short.

She was wearing a bathrobe, light blue and softly quilted and rather feminine, but not in the blatant way Ruthy’s tight jeans and plunging neckline were.

“I’m Christine Price, Mr. Wilson.”

She extended her arm across the desk like a spear. I took the hand she offered, shook it, gave it back. She had a firm grip. She was skinny but I wouldn’t want to arm wrestle her.

“Please call me Jack,” I said and took a chair.

“Jack, then. I prefer Christine, to Chris, and Ms. Wilson to Mrs. But you call me what you like.”

“Christine, then.”

“Good,” she smiled. A toothy white smile that was so honest and engaging I almost didn’t notice it was grotesque.

“I understand you do advertising work, here,” I said, and we were off and running.

Ruthy sat and listened quietly, palms pressed together and slipped down between her thighs against her box, a posture of innocence that evoked the opposite.

I told Christine Price that I imagined their clients had been largely in the Des Moines area itself, advertisers drawn to the Candle Lite production company, because it was an arm of the first professional theater group in Des Moines, whose good reputation and high visibility in the community were all the selling necessary, locally. She told me I was right. I told her how a man on the road could extend their market to the entire state, and probably to surrounding states as well. She wanted to know how. Various ways, I said. By playing tapes of radio commercials produced by Candle Lite to potential clients, and showing films or video tapes of television commercials; by accumulating letters of references from satisfied Des Moines clients, and having photographs to show taken during production of both radio and TV commercials, and perhaps some taken at the theater at a performance, showing off particularly impressive sets and a packed house, neither of which directly related to advertising work but both of which spoke of professionalism and were just generally impressive, especially in the hands of a good salesman. Which I claimed to be. It was a pretty good spiel. Christine Price seemed to think so, too. Anyway she leaned forward across her desk, listening.

She also smoked a skinny cigar that didn’t smell too terrific, but made her feel like an executive, I guess, so what the hell.

I was glad she seemed to believe me, because if she did, chances were Ruthy did, too. And all of this was more for Ruthy’s benefit than anybody else’s, as she would surely report this conversation to Lu, hopefully confirming me as a real person actually out looking for work, maybe making me a little less suspicious.

It also gave me an excuse to be here, at the Candle Lite, my real reason being to check up on Ruthy; but to do that properly I needed to get rid of her and talk to the boss lady in private. And I could see no way of doing that.

But then Christine Price did me a favor.

“Ruthy,” she said, “I believe your friend Jack, here, and I are going to talk some hard business. And I think we’d best be left alone for that, if you don’t mind.”

“I got some sets to paint,” Ruthy said cheerfully, leaning over and patting me on the upper thigh, and got up and left.

And her boss came around the desk and sat on top of it, crossing her legs, showing a knee and a couple of calves. She didn’t have bad legs for an ugly woman.

“What kind of experience have you had?” she asked.

“I had a nice childhood.”

She smiled coquettishly. “I mean as a salesman.”

“I was a salesman for five years. A little longer than that actually. Before that I was in Vietnam.”

“You must be about thirty.”

“About.”

“What did you sell? How many firms did you work for?”

“Just one firm. Ladies underwear.”

She liked that.

She said, “You look like somebody who wouldn’t have much trouble getting in a woman’s pants.”

So that was her game. She wanted to be a man, wanted to play the employer role, but she wanted it all the way: she wanted to sleep with her secretary like any good boss.

“Actually I don’t look that hot in women’s pants,” I said. “I don’t have the build for it.”

She gave me that toothy smile again and said, “Can I offer some friendly advice? It’s free.”

This was starting to sound familiar. “Price is right,” I shrugged.

“Ruthy.”

“What about her?”

“Be a little careful of her.”

“Just a little?”

“Maybe a lot. She says you met Frank Tree last night. That you play cards and may do some dealing for him.”

“That’s right. I prefer a selling job, though. That’s why I’m here.”

“Ruthy’s been thick with him, lately. How much do you know about him?”

“Frank Tree? Nothing.”

“He’s got some connections.”

“Is that why I should be careful of Ruthy?”

“No. Not really. She’s got some connections herself.”

Something happened in her face, then; something turned it blank.

But only for a moment, after which she uncrossed her legs and lowered them to the floor and leaned her butt against the desk and folded her arms. The intense, businesslike look was back on her face.

“I like your idea,” she said. “I think I could use you.”

I’ll bet.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

“Let me sleep on it Get back to me tomorrow, or sometime later this week and we’ll talk it all out. Here. Here’s my card, with my personal number.”

She gave me a business card and I put it away.

“I’m sure we’ll work something out,” she said.

“Fine.”

There was an awkward silence and I realized, suddenly, I’d been dismissed.

“Well,” I said. “Thanks for the advice.”

She went behind the desk and smiled flatly and looked down at its smooth empty surface, as if there were invisible papers that needed straightening.

I left, wondering what exactly had unnerved her. Made her cut short both business interview and seduction attempt. I hadn’t said enough myself to cause that. It had to be something she said. Something she let slip . . .

In the lobby, on my way out, I saw Martha on the way to the ladies’ john.

I blew her a kiss.

“What was that for?” she said, with a silly grin.

“That’ s for being the only female in this goddamn place that doesn’t think of me as a mere sex object.”

She said get outa here and I did.

29

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I WAS SITTING
in the same booth as that first night, in the Roy Rogers room upstairs at the Red Barn Club. It was just after six, and I’d again ordered the ribs and wondered idly if they’d be better than mediocre this time.

Lu had to be at work by six, and I hadn’t got back to the apartment till five, so there’d been no time to eat at home. She didn’t mind, as she claimed to be on a diet anyway (though there was no fat on her that I could see, at least none that I wanted her to be rid of), and she was downstairs working, presently, while I was upstairs eating.

I’d spent the afternoon further checking out the dope scene in Des Moines. I’d wandered the East Side some more, had risked my ass in a black pool hall in a section that came as close to being a ghetto as anything in the city and bordered the Drake campus area, where I tried some of the college hangouts. Finally I went to West Des Moines, a suburb whose downtown was dominated by antique shops and other oddball places of business, where hippie types were highly visible but not high. It was the same everywhere. Nothing to be had. Not a pill to pop, not a token toke. Oh, there was undoubtedly a small supply, accessible only to ingrained members of the local under- ground community. But the D.O.P.E. crackdown was real. Frank Tree really was something of a social reformer. It was enough to rekindle my beliefs in the basic goodness of America. Or make me want to throw up. One of the two.

When I was finished with the salad, a gimlet arrived, a practical joke sent up by my lady bartender, who had made it extra strong knowing I liked my gimlets just the opposite. I drank it anyway, and the ribs came and I started in on them and they were just as mediocre as the other time.

Mediocre or not, I ate all the food they put in front of me (Tree was picking up the tab, after all) and, as she cleared the table, had a peek down my characteristically busty Barn waitress’s blouse for dessert. Then I tried to open the shutters on the window next to me, before remembering too late they were permanently closed. I stood and parted the ruffled curtains above the shutters and looked out at the parking lot. It was too early for there to be many cars. One of the perhaps twenty that were out, there was a familiar-looking Chevelle.

I sat back down and thought about that, wondering if the Chevelle’s driver was downstairs right now, a guy with a nose recently remodeled by a garbage can lid.

I went down to find out.

Only a few of the green baise-covered cardtables were in use this early in the evening. A blackjack table, and the five-card stud table. Most of the action was at the bar, people getting a little oiled before getting down to it.

The guy I was looking for wasn’t in the room. But a probable friend of his was.

The sullen little cocksucker in glasses was sitting alone at the table where he nightly dealt draw, shuffling his cards.

I went over and sat down next to him.

“How’s it going?” I said.

His eyes flicked up at me, then returned to watching his hands work the cards.

“It’s going,” he said.

What a sweetheart.

“Mind if I take a little money from you tonight?” I asked.

“You can try.”

“Why should it be any harder tonight than any other night?”

He shrugged.

“You can go blind from that,” I said.

“From what.”

“From playing with yourself.”

He said nothing. Just shuffled.

“Practice up good, now,” I said, and left him.

I’d been trying to bait him, but he wasn’t biting. In the past I’d made a point of being at least noncommittal to him, sometimes treating him damn near friendly. This should have jolted him a little. That permanent foul mood of his usually flared when people got smart with him, and he normally would’ve fired a cutting remark back. Why had he remained so passive? Still not the friendliest fucker in the world, but he’d barely reacted. Was it because it was me? Or was it something else?

I went over to the bar and Lu said, “How’d you like your drink?”

“Terrific. It tasted like an alcohol rub.”

“We aim to please.”

“Is Tree in his office?”

“Yes, but weren’t you going to wait till after closing to talk to him?”

“I changed my mind.”

“Go ahead, then. It’s that door over to the right. Just knock.”

I did, and Tree’s voice behind the heavy wood door asked who it was and I told him.

He buzzed me in.

I shut the door behind me and sat in the chair in front of his desk, which had a portable color TV on it, some copies of
Playboy
,
Penthouse
, and
Hustler
, and a tall glass of what was apparently Scotch and maybe some water.

It was a plain, even drab office, with barnwood paneling, a room the size a doctor examines you in and with the same sort of warmth. Besides the big metal desk and the chairs we were sitting in, the room was bare. Except for a big old iron safe that squatted in the corner to the right of Tree like the fat lady at the circus.

Tree turned down the sound on the
Untouchables
rerun he was watching.

“Change of plans, Quarry?” he asked. “I thought we were going to talk later.”

“How much money do you keep in that thing?” I asked him, nodding at the cumbersome safe.

“A few thousand,” Tree said, a smile working at one corner of his mouth.

“A few thousand. A few thousand like thirty thousand? I figure that’s the minimum you need on hand at a place like this. Or maybe I’m off a little, maybe it’s twenty, twenty-five. But that kind of money.”

“I do have that kind of money, here. But not in that safe.”

“Where, then?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Then he evidently decided if he could trust his life to me, he could trust me with other things.

“There’s a small floor vault under the carpet,” he said. “In that corner over there.”

“I guess you need to take some precautions, with a place stuck out here in the country like this, right? What other kind of security measures do you have? Besides that window behind you.”

The window high on the wall behind Tree had a heavy metal grill on the outside and I assumed the glass to be shatterproof.

“I’m tied in with a security outfit in Des Moines,” he said, “and with the police station, such as it is, in West Lake. Lights go on in both places if anybody tries to break in. We’re five miles from West Lake. Fifteen from Des Moines. Takes four minutes for the West Lake man to get here. The security outfit, Vigilant Protective Service, can get here in twelve minutes. With the alarm system I got, nobody could get in and out with the money in that short a time.”

“You seem pretty sure.”

“So would you, if you had triple-bolted doors, alarms on all of them, on the windows too, and three back-up devices, including some in the floor of this room, under the carpet, that I switch on just as I’m leaving.”

“You’re usually the last one out of here?”

“Yeah. We close at two. It takes a while for the dealers to turn their money in, naturally. But by two-thirty, most nights, all the help’s out of here, and I’m gone by two-thirty-seven. A few nights lately I been cutting out early, to see Ruthy. I got a guy upstairs in the kitchen who closes up for me on nights like that.”

“What’s your arrangement with your dealers? How much do you pay them?”

Tree shrugged. “Percentage of winnings. That’s the only way to fly. Thirty percent, and that’s good and goddamn generous, as a place like this goes.”

“You start off each dealer with a set amount of cash, each night, then, which can be replenished if necessary . . .”

“Yeah, two thousand each, and that usually holds up, if they’re any good.”

“What if they aren’t?”

‘‘What?”

“Aren’t any good? What if they lose?”

“If a guy has a bad week, I come through for him. It can happen to anybody. I help him out, lay a few hundred on ’im. I keep my people happy, and that way they don’t try to pull anything on me.”

“What if somebody consistently loses?”

“Then I fire his ass, of course. What’s this all about?”

“The other night you said you were thinking of replacing a dealer. Did you say that just to have an excuse for giving me the job, or do you really have somebody worth getting rid of?”

“You tell me, Quarry. You played here for a week.”

“Then I’d say it’s the sour little asshole with the glasses. The college boy.”

“I’d say you’re right.”

“He loses heavily?”

“Not really. But he doesn’t win. He’s been with me a couple of months. Did okay at first, then had a real bad night and I think it kind of threw him for a loop. He’s never really recovered. He lost a few more times after that and then ever since he’s been just sort of breaking even.”

“He lost all the nights I played him.”

“Not according to him. He’s had at least two thousand to turn back in, at the end of the night.”

“He’s giving you money out of his own pocket, then.”

“Why in hell would he do that?”

“To postpone the inevitable . . . his getting canned.”

“It still doesn’t make any sense. If he’s losing, why would he want to hang onto his chair?”

“He could be a compulsive gambler, and’s hoping to recoup. Or he could be somebody who’s here to do something besides play cards.”

“Oh. Jesus. Is
that
what he is?”

“Possibly. I don’t know. I do know he’s one of the guys who worked me over a few nights back. The other one’s another college-boy type who’s been a regular here. Blond-haired kid with big ears?”

“I think I know who you mean.”

“Yeah, well the other night, before Lu and I joined you at DiPreta’s, I had a little run-in with that clown. He was following me, and I suckered him into an alley and put him to sleep. Temporarily, that is. He drives a Chevelle. It’s out in your lot right now. So is he, probably. I didn’t see him upstairs or down, but that’s no surprise. I broke his nose the other night and he probably doesn’t want to show what’s left of his face around here, where he might see me.”

“Then why’s he here at all?”

“I can think of a reason.”

That stopped him for a moment.

“This is it, then,” he said.

“Tonight’s the night, you mean? Shit, I don’t know. There’s too many things that just don’t track here. I’m starting to think this is something else entirely.”

“Like what?”

“I’m working on it. I think we better have an under- standing. If I get involved in something that is apart from our other business together, but something that turns out to be of benefit to you, can I expect to be rewarded accordingly?”

“You bet your ass.”

“Okay, then.”

And I got up and went to the door.

Went out to gamble.