“Quarry, what are you talking about?”
“Peg.”
“I’m just a broad you shacked up with once. For a fucking day, at that. Why talk like it’s something else?”
“It is something else.”
“How do you know? How do you know you’re not just another one-night stand for me, huh? I’m a one-night stand sort of person, you know.”
“I feel something for you, Peg.”
“Oh, Quarry, goddamn you…”
“I want to see you again.”
“I don’t know.”
“What? You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know if I want to see you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been thinking, Quarry. I’ve been thinking about things that happened while you were in town. I’ve been thinking about certain things you said. I’ve been thinking about what’s been in the papers.”
“Forget all that.”
“Okay. Okay I will. But first I want you to tell me something. I want you to tell me what you do. What do you do, Quarry? You said you were like Frank. Something illegal. Okay. I can live with that. But be specific. What is it you do, Quarry?”
I kill people.
“You kill people, don’t you?” she said.
I said nothing.
“Good-bye, Quarry,” she said.
The line went dead.
I played with the shooting machine for another half an hour, and when I quit there were ten free games left on it. Then I went back to my A-frame and for the rest of the afternoon I swam.