I would keep that knowledge to myself, however — no need to show off, or show my hand.
I asked, “When somebody killed the Broker, did they divvy up his merry little band of butchers? Or did somebody take over as, what... regional manager?”
He was getting pissed off, which was fine by me, because that’s part of what I was going for — unsettling him.
“I’m asking the fucking questions, Quarry!... Another broker took over, yes. But some... talent... went elsewhere. That’s part of how you got away with it for so long.”
“Got away with what?”
“Whatever it is you’ve been doing. There are theories.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What does the ‘Envoy’ think? Do you two talk in his secret lair? Use the Cone of Silence, maybe?”
His eyebrows, on the other hand, furrowed. “Do you want to die, Quarry?”
“Not particularly. Not today. What is it you think I’ve done? Theories about what?”
He shifted a little on the cushion. We were around the campfire now.
“Since the Broker’s murder, almost ten years ago,” Simmons said, “something odd has been happening. Took a while to make itself clear — for a pattern to emerge out of you doing whatever it is you’re doing. But it finally did, and you might have got away with it, if you had only pursued this...” He shrugged. “...project of yours for a few years. Or perhaps only indulged yourself once a year.”
“Oh, I indulge myself practically every day. I subscribe to Hustler magazine. I even have the occasional hot fudge sundae.”
He let that slide. “We’re not exactly sure how you’ve gone about it, or even why, or whether it’s a moneymaking enterprise or just some kind of... We’ve speculated you are trying to atone for what you did, in your years working for the Broker.”
I started to laugh, genuinely laugh. “Stop. You’re killing me. Atone? Jesus!”
Simmons was working hard at staying calm. At not taking the bait. I would rate his results as just fair.
He said, “Took more than a couple of years for anybody to notice. But the talent roster kept getting thinned — people like us, Quarry, out in the field on a job, started dying mysteriously. Violently. And contracts got cancelled, after... when the clients themselves got cancelled. Also violently.”
I risked another little shrug. “I suppose once the client is out of the picture, so is the contract. Point becomes moot. What does that have to do with me?”
He was studying me but not getting anywhere. “All of the teams whose efforts have been disrupted — all of those killed out in the field under those violent, mysterious circumstances — once worked for the Broker. This strange, slow epidemic, which has raged on for damn near a decade, has not touched the other regions in any major way. But it got noticed, Quarry. Whatever it is you did, that you’re doing, it got noticed. You shouldn’t have been greedy.”
I held out an open palm. “Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say this Envoy character has valid suspicions, although you must admit they’re vague. What you do for a living — what I used to do for a living — it’s dangerous work. A man can get killed.”
“He can,” Simmons agreed.
“But I would be willing to assure you and, through you, assure your Envoy that I am happily settled here with a good, prosperous little business... I have a restaurant lodge I run, not far from here — maybe you noticed it? I have no desire to give that business up or my quiet life here, and will guarantee you and your business associate that I am not interested in doing anything else. Certainly nothing involving my previous... career. I won’t be hard to find. You can come back and plug me at your convenience. Isn’t that fair?”
Now he smiled. A sudden calm came over him and his smile became a narrow, reptilian thing.
“You misunderstand me, Quarry. Mind if I smoke?”
He could fucking burn, as far as I was concerned.
“Not at all,” I said. “Use the fireplace as an ashtray.”
“Thanks.” He’d worked up some ambidextrous skills, too, in his time; he got out a deck of Marlboros from a track suit pocket — must have liked to have a smoke while he jogged — and a lighter, too. Got a cigarette going.
I never smoked. That shit can kill you.
“Oh, the Envoy sent me to take you out, all right,” Simmons said cheerfully. We were just two guys in the same line of work swapping war stories now. “But I have my own agenda.”
“That right?”
He nodded. “I’ve been doing this work a long time. Since I got back from Vietnam. You served, right?”
“Yes.”
“Marine, wasn’t it?”
“Semper fi, Mac.”
“Sorry. I was regular army.” He let smoke out of his lungs to pollute my living room. “I’ve been at this over a dozen years.”
“Long time.”
“Too damn long. Few years ago I met a nice woman and something inside of me... rekindled.”
Maybe it was the smoking.
He went on: “Something human woke up in me. I met a girl in a bar. Not a girl, no — a young woman. Smart, funny, nice, beautiful.”
“Congratulations.”
“We have a kid. Little boy. Looks like me, they say.”
I hadn’t noticed.
“Anyway, I don’t want to be out playing with guns like this anymore.” He gestured with my nine mil in hand again. “I’ve had it with that shit.”
“So go straight.”
He made a face. “And do fucking what? You think I got a college degree over in the Nam? I own a little business, but I can’t live the way I want from it. And I don’t want to get killed in the line of duty, either, particularly since that duty is just wasting some cheating wife or crooked business partner or mob guy when they want somebody from outside to do their dirty work.”
“Tell me about it.”
This time he offered up the one-shoulder shrug. “So I need something lucrative. And you can help me on that score.”
“I can?”
“You can. I am even willing to cut you in for a healthy taste. Twenty-five percent just for sitting here in your nice cottage on this nice lake.”
On my nice ass. Right. That would happen.
“Twenty-five percent,” I asked, “of what?”
“I figure you have names. Addresses. Information. All these brokers around the country have that shit. The Broker certainly had it. I figure that’s what you’ve been using, the Broker’s list.”
Uh-oh, like some long-dead lady on the I Love Lucy laugh track always said.
Simmons went on: “I don’t know exactly how you’re using the list, and I don’t care. But I know how I would use it.”
He didn’t go into that, though.
Finally I said, “Let’s say I know what you’re talking about. Just hypothetically.”
“Let’s,” he said.
“How — exactly — would you use this list?”
“Is that your concern?”
“If I get twenty-five percent it is.” Of course he had no intention of doing that, but I had to play along.
He mulled it some, or pretended to. Then he sat forward and almost whispered, as if we were in public and not in my living room.
“Okay, Quarry — I’ll really give you an opportunity. Ground-floor kinda deal. See, I know where the Envoy keeps his information. Very old-fashioned fella, the Envoy. Wall safe at home. His list of names, merged with the names you have, would be very lucrative.”
I nodded slightly, eyes narrowed, getting it, yet managing not to laugh at this shit. So he wanted out of the killing business, and his way of doing that was to become a magnate of murder, with an expansive stable of professional killers and an ongoing relationship with organized crime. The better to make a nice life for the little woman and his boy.