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BOOK: Quarry's Deal

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SHE CAME IN
and sat on the couch. She seemed a little depressed. She was wearing that dark brown pants suit again. She slipped the jacket off and draped it over the coffee table and stretched, breasts straining at the yellow-and-tan stripe halter top.

“I heard about Ruthy,” I said, “Tree told me. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. It’s got me a little upset. I knew her for a long time.” She shook her head, put her feet on the table. “Well. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. I thought you’d be at the Barn, breaking in your table.”

“I just called Tree and quit . . . if you can quit a job before you start. You know that interview today? Got the job on the spot.”

“I’m glad, Jack. That’s such good news. I’m quitting myself. . . . After what happened to Ruthy, I just don’t feel like staying around this town anymore.”

“Yeah, well. I can’t blame you.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tonight. Right away. Got to be in Wisconsin tomorrow morning.”

“I think I’ll take off tonight, myself. Back to Florida.”

“I guess we both better start packing, then.”

“I guess. I guess I ought to change into something I can drive in, huh?”

She stood and undressed and let her clothes fall to the floor in a heap, and I took a long, memorizing look at that body. Then she went over and turned off the lights and went back to the couch and lay down and held out her arms to me.

We humped like a couple of teenagers in the back of a car, with a desperate, innocent horniness, as we might have if we’d met a long time ago, when we were different people. And I was still on top of her, still inside her, both of us breathing hard, sweating together, when I said, “Come with me.”

“Seems to me I just did.”

“You know what I mean, Lu.”

“Jack . . . thank you, Jack. Maybe . . . next time.”

We left the dirty dishes behind, and she got in her Stingray and followed me to the Interstate. She turned one way and I turned the other.

Maybe next time.

Afterword

_______________________________________________

THIS IS THE
third novel about my hitman hero Quarry, and it’s always been one of my favorites. I think it’s probably the best of the original four, although
Quarry
, the first book, has an integrity and freshness that no sequel can match. Still, as a series entry,
Quarry’s Deal
is a good example of what I was trying to accomplish.

The title of the novel’s original publication was
The Dealer
. This was my title, and I still like it. But I came up with it to try to fit a pattern created by some unknown editor at Berkley Books in the mid-1970s who decided to publish my novel
Quarry
as
The Broker
and its sequel as
The Broker’s Wife
(my title had been
Hit List
, and the book is now known as
Quarry’s List
) (available from Perfect Crime).

Donald E. Westlake, who was such an influence on both my Nolan and Quarry novels, revealed to me at the time that his title for the Parker novel
The Rare Coin Score
had been
The Dealer
. That seemed fitting somehow.

Anyway, Quarry was just a busted four-book paperback series from the ’70s, as far as I was concerned, and I had gone on about my business, writing other stuff, including the
Dick Tracy
comic strip. That the Quarry books had appeared and sunk like stones disappointed me, because I thought the concept and the character were strong, and reflected me at my best, at that stage anyway. The series had the potential to take off, but the publisher had blown it.

All writers feel this way about their work, however, so even I didn’t take such thoughts very seriously. We had a few nice reviews here and there (thank you, Jon Breen), but mostly the books were just cannon fodder . . . grist for the publishing mill.

So it was a pleasant surprise to have a cult following grow up around the character. I began getting mail in the late ’70s, and this continued well into the ’80s. The books became known enough by 1985 for a mystery specialist publisher, Foul Play Press, to bring out the first four books and commission a new one. All five of these have gone out of print and are now as rare as the original Berkley Books paperbacks. I’m pleased that John Boland’s Perfect Crime is bringing the first five books out again.

One of the reasons why I like this book is the notion of Quarry meeting up with a female version of himself. Talk about true love. I didn’t know whether he would wind up killing Lu or not—I always know the workings of the mysteries in the Quarry novels, but never plan how Quarry will behave in the final showdown (he’s an excitable boy, as Warren Zevon put it). So I was pleased he didn’t kill her. I may still bring her back, if this cult enthusiasm continues. Or are you people just screwing with me?

Max Allan Collins

August 2010

About the Author

Max Allan Collins, who created the graphic novel on which the Oscar-winning film
Road to Perdition
was based, has been writing hard-boiled mysteries since his college days in the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. Besides the books about killer-for-hire Quarry, he has written a popular series of historical mysteries featuring Nate Heller and many, many other novels. At last count, Collins’s books and short stories have been nominated for fifteen Shamus awards by the Private Eye Writers of America, winning for two Heller novels,
True Detective
and
Stolen Away
. He lives in Muscatine, Iowa with his wife, Barbara Collins, with whom he has collaborated on several novels and numerous short stories. The photo above shows Max in 1971, when he created Quarry.