“Somebody does, or they wouldn’t keep it secret.”
He leaned in conspiratorially. “You ask me, it’s some sick shit that defies human understandin’. They sneak around, keep the big affair a secret, then have sex back in his office? She does it all the time, man, she’s here two, three times a week, goin’ back there, like she gets a fuckin’ charge out of screwin’ ol’ Vernon under Max’s own roof. I mean, man, the marriage is over! Who cares who’s bangin’ who?”
“Leon, Max has been very generous to Dorrie. He’s not made an enemy out of her, at least in his eyes. If he finds out she’s having an affair with his cousin and business partner and best friend — who are all the same guy — it just might change his point of view. Toward both of them.”
One eyebrow climbed the endless forehead. “Might just.”
I sipped the Coors, nodded toward the back. “Speak of the devil, is Vernon here yet?”
“No, man, he don’t come in on Sundays.”
“Any idea where he is?”
He turned over a hand. “Sure. Cousin Vernon goes out to Mr. Max’s cabin every Sunday afternoon and stays the night with, well, I guess you know who.”
I had to laugh. “More of that banging the future ex-missus under her hubby’s nose?”
“More of that, yeah. Not that she ain’t worth screwin’, for an old broad. But they’s still one thing in this life I will never understand.”
“What’s that?”
“The mind of a fuckin’ cracker.”
As a Northern boy, I had no comment.
He gave me a look that asked if there was anything else, and I shook my head.
He was on his feet and just starting to head back to the bar, when I said, “Oh, Leon — is Max still out at stately Wayne Manor in Germantown?”
“No, he upstairs, in the penthouse,” Leon said, and gestured with a thumb. “Came in a couple hours ago. Hauled Miss Mavis with him. She was gone, man.”
“Well, she’s going to have it worse before it gets better.”
“Yeah, why that?”
“You’re cutting her off.”
He just thought about that for a moment, then shrugged, nodded and headed back behind the bar.
I had keys to the Yale locks separating the downstairs from the magazine office and penthouse above, and I used them.
As I had several days before, I came in through the kitchen, where as before a few empty Bud cans could be seen. I moved down the hall, past a partly open bedroom door that revealed Mavis zoned out on top of the big Victorian brass bed, covered with a blanket. It looked more like somebody in a coma than sleeping.
Max Climer was in the living room, a fresh Bud in hand, sunk down into one of the leather overstuffed chairs, looking only a little better than Mavis — not in a coma, but someone who just came out of one. He was in a purple-and-white track suit and trainers but had the puffy, slightly pudgy look of an individual who had never run farther than from the car to his house to get out of the rain.
The futuristic big-screen TV was on and a porn tape was playing, the sound down, a small blonde blowing John Holmes’ monster dick, but though Climer’s eyes were on the screen, he didn’t really seem to be watching it.
Hearing me, he glanced my way as I settled into a similar nearby chair. “Quarry. Sneakin’ up on me again. Glad you’re not the one tryin’ to get me.”
I nodded toward the big screen. “Don’t you ever get tired of sex?” Like I was anybody to talk.
“Rarely, but a guy does get jaded. Has to go for different things, bigger things. That’s what’s so great about Mavis.”
“What is?”
“She gets me. She knows monogamy isn’t my thing, and she doesn’t care. Doesn’t fuckin’ care. So... where are we? Am I still on the wrong end of the shootin’ gallery?”
Him and Mavis both. Just different kinds of shooting galleries.
“I’m not going to tell you the details,” I said. “But last night my partner and I took care of the two-man team sent to kill you.”
He tried to process that. His small mouth became an “O” and his unblinking baby blues narrowed. “So where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us with whoever hired it still in the game, obviously. And I need to take them out before they hire somebody else and the fun starts all over again.”
The unblinking eyes were droopy. “You said you’d been sniffin’ around. Talkin’ to people.”
“I have. And I’ve ruled a lot of people out. That egotistical minister loves having you around to be his villain. Those women’s libbers wouldn’t hurt a fly, and would call the Humane Society if anybody did. That Highland Strip association guy sells Climax Magazine himself down the street. You’re everybody’s favorite asshole.”
His smile was childish but rather winning. He raised the can of Bud. “Here’s to me.”
“I think I know who’s behind this, Max, and I think I know how to confirm it. But first you have to be comfortable with it.”
“Comfortable...?”
I told him.
“Jesus,” he said, the eyes suddenly both not droopy and blinking like crazy. “You’re sure? You’re goddamn sure?”
I nodded. “I will be. You don’t take this kind of step on a hunch. My question is... can you live with it?”
He sighed. Sipped his drink. Turned his eyes to the screen. “Will you look at the size of that thing! It’s like that little gal is swallowin’ an anaconda! You know, you can have all the money and success in the world, but only God can give you a cock like that.”
There was something he could take up with Reverend Lesser Weaver. A theological discussion to find some common ground.
I sat forward and put some edge in my voice. “Max. Can you live with it? If you can’t, you can take a chance and try to deal with this on a personal level, and maybe work things out, though I sure as hell don’t think so... but if you do? I’ll just go on to my next gig.”
Eyes still on the screen, he said, “But will you look at the bad production! The lousy lighting! And the acting! Why do they try to do stories? When I get my video line going, it’ll just be, you know, vignettes. Little situations that become big sex scenes!”
“Max. I need the go-ahead.”
He swallowed hard and his gaze, unblinking again, turned itself on me. “Quarry... do what you think is right.”
“Right isn’t the word. Necessary is.”
He swallowed. His lower lip was quivering. Was he trying not to cry?
“Do what’s necessary,” he said.
“Okay. Max?”
“Yes?”
“You surely realize that Mavis is back on the smack.”
He swallowed. “I don’t think so. She’s just smokin’ a little grass, doing a few lines...”
“Max. She’s using. Get her some help or she’ll be dead in a few months, if you don’t get caught up in a drug bust first that puts you out of business. I’ve already cut off her supply.”
One blink. “You have?”
I nodded. “It’s up to you, now. Oh — one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I need the key to your cabin.”
Fourteen
By the time I got to the gravel lane leading to the cabin, dusk had almost given in to night. The drive here had required more than my memory and, ironically, leaned on me glancing now and then at the original typed directions that Vernon Climer had provided me several days ago.
I had expected to encounter the blazing if friendly forest fire of color reminiscent of what I’d left back in Wisconsin. But traveling in twilight had muted those colors, and many of the trees were starting to show their skeletons through their gradually disappearing skins of red-orange-bronze-yellow-green, the occasional fat fir standing out in stark defiance.