“...I hope that will be enough.”
“I don’t know, Broker. I’m uncomfortable. So is Boyd. The contract’s been broken. We should tell him as much, keep the down payment, and book it.”
“Now, Quarry, just because our client was, shall we say, over-enthusiastic...”
“Our client, shall we say, is a fucking racist whack-job. You assured me this wasn’t ‘overtly’ political, Broker, but I beg to disagree. This I didn’t sign on for. This time, I would frankly rather fucking take the client out than the mark.”
“Please restrain your use of language.”
He wasn’t objecting to “fucking,” rather that I hadn’t been euphemistic enough to suit him.
His baritone tried soothing me. “I believe you’ve made some false assumptions. However this may look, I assure you it is not a racial matter. Rather, as I said before, this pertains to certain unsavory matters.”
A racial killing might seem fairly unsavory to you, but that word was the Broker’s code for crime. He was in his arch way again assuring me that the target had placed himself in our crosshairs by way of his drug-dealing activities.
What the hell. Maybe the Commander of the Christian Nazi Dickwads was in business with certain black devils to fund his enterprises. Dumber shit has happened.
“If as a byproduct,” he was saying, “distasteful prejudices of our client or associates of our client are also served, so be it.”
How I would have liked to sit the Broker down across from Zachary Taylor Starkweather and let them pompous each other to death.
Tightly, I said, “Be that as it may, Broker — Boyd and I are uneasy.”
A pause. Then: “Go on about your business, Quarry, but also ascertain whether this... well-intentioned but ill-advised surveillance, apparently initiated by our client, has ceased. If it has, continue with the commission.”
Shit. Fuck. Hell.
“Okay,” I said, against my better judgment. Of course, turning my nose up at twenty-five grand was also against my better judgment.
His tone shifted into a mundane business mode. “How long until you can set the date?”
That meant, how long before I could say what day the hit would go down. He wasn’t referring to me marrying Boyd or a white-supremacist waitress.
I said, “I’m not hanging around those headquarters any longer than I have to. There are trips today and tomorrow, and I’ll get an idea of whether a change of locale is helpful or not.” This was Saturday. “I’m going to say mid-week. I’ll let you know specifically as soon as I can.”
“Good.”
This was important to all concerned, because the final and largest payment was made the day (usually night) before the hit. The client would set a time and place and almost always make the drop himself — with a hired killing, you don’t delegate the payoff. These arrangements were made through the Broker and the information passed on to Boyd and me.
“Obviously,” he said, “if at any point you feel the job has been compromised, you have my blessing to pull the plug. Just keep in mind, it’s a lucrative plug to pull.”
“That’s why I’m still here, Broker.”
We hung up and I rejoined Boyd, who was having a second cup of coffee.
“We’re still on,” I said, “for now.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
Sometimes I could just slap him. He wasn’t on the firing line, like I was. The active half of a hit sometimes ran into fatal complications, but when did that ever happen to the passive half?
We walked back and I checked the apartment upstairs from us. It was locked but I opened the door with a credit card. My little waitress with the moist red muff and the hardcore black hate had packed up and moved out, leaving me with a mixed bag of memories.
So we’d go on with the job, as the Broker said. At the same time, I was working on an alternate plan, though not one I felt comfortable sharing with Boyd. Not yet. It was a plan that would be difficult to execute, so to speak, without risking my business arrangement with the Broker.
The thing was, I really, really would rather put a bullet in Commander Starkweather’s purported brain than take down that black guy across the street, hypocritical dope peddler though he may be.
Only... a guy in my business could not afford to be fussy or picky or any such shit where the clients were concerned. I fucking knew that. Like the targets, they were never stellar human beings.
But, goddamnit — Nazis just rubbed me the wrong way.
Normally — in the Impala or my Opel GT for instance — the drive from St. Louis, Missouri, to DeKalb, Illinois, would have taken maybe four and a half hours. But we were in a late ’40s-vintage former Greyhound bus, nicely refurbished though minus a lavatory, so stops were fairly frequent. Factoring in that and a food stop, we were talking closer to six hours.
The McGovern rally would be this evening, and we would stay overnight at DeKalb before another six-hour trip back to Missouri for another rally. That would be tomorrow afternoon, in Kirksville at the teacher’s college.
The big silver-and-blue bus was parked right outside the office and the engine was going, making a noise somewhere between a purr and a growl. On the vehicle’s side, where a greyhound once leapt, the words ST. LOUIS CIVIL RIGHTS COALITION were painted, though the red circular STOP tail-light centered at the rear still bore the airborne canine and its liner’s logo.
I guess the coalition staffers were more conscientious than me, because when I got there, a couple minutes late, the forty seats were mostly taken. A black Ralph Kramden was behind the big wheel — on the dash, it still said Greyhound Line as well — and he grinned at me and jerked a thumb to the rear. Just behind him sat the Reverend’s executive assistant, Harold Jackson, with his Isaac Hayes head and oversize mustache.
His little mouth made a big good-natured smile. “Mr. Blake! Pay attention to the man. Back of the bus!”
That made those who heard it laugh, including me. Well, it was kind of funny. Looking down the long aisle, I saw Ruth seated way back in that wide rear seat, alone.
Lugging my suitcase behind me, I headed down there, noticing that the staffers — with the exception of Jackson, who was in his standard Malcolm X-style suit and tie — were dressed casually, almost festively. On the guys were lots of brightly colored striped shirts, the occasional sweater vest, and bell bottoms; on the gals, lots of colorful psychedelic-print blouses and dresses, although plenty of them wore bells, too. The effect was kaleidoscopic.
I’d been told to dress casually — I was in the windbreaker, a solid dark-blue sportshirt, new jeans and sneakers — so this hadn’t come as a complete surprise. But I hadn’t been expecting Soul Train, particularly since only a third of the riders were black. Of course, even in the Midwest, kids on college campuses were dressing like this, though the hippie look hung on in some circles.
Ruth’s attire was the least garish of the lot. She wore a black silk long-sleeved blouse with small white polka dots on the cuffs and pointed collars; her bells were a matching black, her platform shoes black trimmed white.
After stuffing my suitcase up on an overhead rack, I turned to her, as she scooched over for me, and said, “What have you people been complaining about all these years, anyway?”
Ruth frowned. She didn’t know me well enough yet to anticipate where this was going.
Sitting beside her, I said, “Why, it’s nice and roomy in the back of the bus. Downright commodious. Even if there is no commode. Nice company, too.”
She was smiling now; the combination of Caucasian features and chocolate skin made her seem exotic somehow. Or maybe that was her spice-scented perfume.