Quarry In The Middle Part 8

"For killing mob guys. Consider it hazardous duty pay."

"And it's twenty-five if you determine which G hired the hit, and take care of only him."

"Yes. And that might prove a bargain, as it's maybe the harder job. I have to play undercover cop and snoop around and not get killed doing it. Just popping them both, if I could stage-manage the right circ.u.mstances, could be relatively simple. In and out."

The leather of his forehead grew grooves. "The Giovannis have a small army at the Lucky, you know. Bouncers and strongarms. No shortage of muscles and guns. You don't expect me to pay for anybody else else you have to take care of along the way." you have to take care of along the way."

"What, collateral damage? No. That's my problem. I don't charge for soldiers, only generals."

This he found amusing, the leathery flesh around the eyes crinkling with glee. His big white smile seemed genuine. Nice to know he had a sense of humor.

"d.i.c.kie," I said, "you're tied in with your wife's father, back in Chicago-Tony Giardelli. I need to know if you've consulted him about this."

He shook his head. "Uncle Tony expects me to take care of my own problems."

"But would he back you up, after the fact?"

"Oh yes. He knows very well what's at stake."

"What is is at stake?" at stake?"

That stopped him, and he thought for several long moments, then got up and gestured me to follow him.

Soon we were in his third-floor office-c.u.m-apartment. The little blonde, Chrissy, was in sheer panties and an athletic-style t-s.h.i.+rt with her bottom on the brown leather couch and her bare feet on the coffee table. She was watching The $25,000 Pyramid The $25,000 Pyramid, or anyway it was on-she was lacquering her fingernails, a joint making its musky fragrance known, smoldering in an ashtray, while on the big screen, d.i.c.k Clark loomed like an Easter Island statue.

Cornell did not speak to the girl as he led me past the viewing area into the bedroom, where a big round bed was unmade; a mirror was on the ceiling-it would be. The river view from here would have been magnificent, but black curtains blotted it out. He ushered me to a big gla.s.s table with black metal legs and gestured to an elaborate architectural model.

"That's the future, Mr. Quarry," he said. the future, Mr. Quarry," he said.

And it was, the future of Haydee's Port, anyway. The downtown buildings were intact, but remodeled into a quaint, family-friendly a.s.sembly of projected shops, an almost Disneyfied downtown out of the '20s or '30s with a drugstore, ice-cream emporium, movie house, antique shops, restaurants and more. The Lucky Devil and all the other fallen angels were out of business, in this particular future-only the Casey's General Store survived.

And the Paddlewheel, on its part of the mini-overview, now included a five-story hotel where the blond kid's farmhouse currently stood, and a riverboat sat next to the Paddlewheel on the blue strip on the model representing the Mississippi.

"We are very close to legal gambling in Illinois," Cornell said, "a few years away at most. It will likely require that the gambling take place on a state-sanctioned riverboat. And my operation will be ready, with a top-flight resort where couples and families and respectable folks of all sorts can come enjoy the quaint little river town of Haydee's Port."

"You really think you can turn h.e.l.l into paradise?"

"Haydee's Port wasn't always a den of sin. You know, it was named for fur trader Robert A. Haydee, who established a trading post on the land under us right now, back in 1827."

Somehow I didn't imagine Robert A. had cohabited with a c.o.ke-snorting vixen, but then I'm not that up on my history.

But Cornell went on with his sales pitch, letting me know that Haydee's Port had once been a thriving city, home to five thousand G.o.d-fearing residents, a port serving the surrounding farming community. G.o.d, unimpressed, had sent a flood in 1912 that wiped the town out, and the businesses that were able relocated across the river. What had grown up in its place was the mini-Sin City we all knew and loved, a population of less than two hundred with a dozen bars and two casinos.

I asked him, "You really think the Illinois state government is going to get in bed with the mob?"

"Are you kidding?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. That was pretty dumb."

He beamed down at his little play town. "My wife's father will think I'm the New Improved Jesus if I can find a way to put the Giovannis out of business in Haydee's Port."

"What will Tony's brother Vincent think?"

Cornell shrugged dismissively. "He'll have to go along. The mob backs a winner."

"My understanding is that Tony and Vincent Giardelli are rivals-two G.o.dfathers, each looking for a way to topple the other."

"Yes, but they can't go after each other frontally. They're brothers brothers-one family member, that high up in That Thing of Theirs, murder the other? No. They can pretend to peacefully co-exist, while trying to undermine each other, yes. But murdering your own blood...that just isn't done."

"That must be those family values I keep hearing about."

He gestured to his toy town. "You have to understand, Mr. Quarry-Haydee's Port is a microcosm of the situation in Chicago."

"What's a microcosm?"

"In this case, it's a big struggle reduced to one small battlefield. If I triumph here, Tony's stock rises in Chicago."

"Okay," I said, not giving a s.h.i.+t. "What do you want done?"

"Why don't we start with me giving you ten grand to play in that poker game?"

"What did you say the buy-in was?"

"A thousand."

"I can probably get by on five."

"Good. I have that in my office safe downstairs. Go get the lay of the land, Mr. Quarry, and come back to me with a recommendation."

"You mean, whether to pop pop, or his kid, or both?"

"You are a man of quiet eloquence, Mr. Quarry."

"f.u.c.kin' A."

So now I was in the dreary Lucky Devil casino, where I lost twenty bucks playing c.r.a.ps but won fifty at blackjack, the dealer of which was a redheaded gal with short permed hair and a trowel of well-arranged makeup on her almost pretty face.

"Is there any poker here?" I asked. I had her to myself at the moment.

She wore a black vest over a white s.h.i.+rt with a black string tie. "There's a private game. Strictly for high rollers."

I decided not to be a jerk and point out that there was no "rolling" in poker, high or low or otherwise, and said, "How much is the buy-in?"

She confirmed it as a thousand and I said, "I can make that happen. How do you make the game happen?"

"Doesn't start till one. Goes all night."

"Define 'all night.' "

"Dawn or so. Usually breaks up around six."

"Just one table?"

"Yeah. The boss himself deals."

"Just deals?"

"No, he plays, too. He says the house always has an advantage, and his advantage is, he always deals."

"But does he always win?"

"No. It's a straight game. Would I lie to you?"

I showed her a hundred. "Would you?"

She took it. "No. What's your name?"

"Jack Gibson."

"In five minutes, I take a break. You're lucky-Wednesday's the only weeknight there's a game. I'll put your name in then, if there's an opening. I'll let you know."

I played an ancient slot till she came over and said, "You're in," giving me a white chip with a magic-marker checkmark on it. "Go in at quarter till." She nodded toward a door next to one of the lifeguard-stand bouncers.

This meant I had around two hours to kill, and I wanted to relax, so I wandered back through the Southern Rock dance club into the center bar and on through another set of double doors into the Lucky Devil's strip club.

It was pretty basic-the music here, courtesy of an idiot DJ in a booth who was also flas.h.i.+ng disco lights over the stage, consisted of relatively current hits-"Talking in Your Sleep" by the Romantics was going right now, and the short busty brunette in a cowboy hat and fringed vest and g-string was into it, working one of two poles on the single long narrow stage around which all the chairs were taken. Males of every variety, except gay, were seated there-young, old, blue-collar, college-kid, bank president, janitor, middle-aged, geezer, you name it, each with dollar in hand, eager for a stripper to come over, rub her t.i.ts in his face, and let him deposit the buck in her g-string.

I had no trouble finding a table toward the back. The room was lined in mirrors, which made it seem bigger and also put naked dancing female flesh everywhere, even though there was only one girl on stage at a time. Strippers in g-strings and pasties and feather boas and heels were trolling for guys to give table dances to, but not always succeeding, since that was five bucks not a single.

The girls were all under thirty, most closer to twenty, and seemed a mix of locals (possibly more of that community college talent) and gals on the circuit. I can't explain how I knew this, other than to say about half of the dancers were breast-enhanced, and the others weren't. Obviously, the road girls had the fake t.i.ts and the locals what G.o.d have given them. Most of the customers hooted and hollered and even invested in table dances, when the girls had big enough fake t.i.ts.

I had zero interest in fake t.i.ts, but to each his own. The girl I did find of interest, which is to say who hard-ened my d.i.c.k, was clearly local-she was very pretty, blue-eyed, pouty of mouth, with straight blonde, seemingly natural hair, modified by a Farrah Fawcett flip that was a decade or so out of date. She had a pert dimpled a.s.s that defied gravity, and wonderful pale creamy flesh, but her b.o.o.bs were too small for the room.

They were just right for me. They perched on her rib cage with tip-tilting authority, perfect handfuls that these other cretins couldn't appreciate. This cretin and his throbbing d.i.c.k were most appreciative. I was on my third beer, by the way.

And in fact, I had just gotten rid of it or anyway its predecessors and was heading back from the john for my table when I felt a hand on my arm, and turned to look right into the little stripper's big blue eyes.

"Can you do me a favor?"

She was either actually asking for a favor, or d.a.m.n good. No, I didn't think she was in love with me...

"See that guy over there-stuffing a dollar into Heather's g-string? Be subtle."

I flicked a glance at a beefy, make that fat, biker with a leather cap and more facial hair than two Grateful Dead band members-kind of an awful hair color, too, a yellow that tried to be red but didn't make it.

"He'll want a table dance," she said. "I have to work the room or get fired, so I can't, you know, turn him down or just disappear."

"You want me to buy a table dance, I'll buy a table dance."

This was not nearly as hard as she was making it. Not that she wasn't making it hard...

"He's been here before," she said. "He's persistent. He puts his hand down in my front. I don't do that. I'm not that kind of dancer."

This was interesting to hear, since the Lucky Devil's strip club was raunchy indeed-the girls took off their pasties and g-strings at the end of their first song. And they danced to three songs...

"How can I help?"

"We have a V.I.P. room. We can go in there and stay for a while, and maybe he'll go away or settle for some-body else or something."

"I do want to help, but what's the V.I.P. room cost?"

"I'm not going to charge you anything! You're helping me."

So I helped her.

She took me into the back room, which was a bunch of easy chairs in open cubicles. No f.u.c.king was going on or anything overt; this was not about b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs or even hand jobs. This was good, clean, all-American fun, like the so-called dry humps healthy teens used to have under the bleachers at ball games. And I presume they still do, if they have a lick of sense.

The girls kept their pasties on and their g-strings, in the V.I.P. room, but otherwise were naked, and danced for a guy for a song (ten bucks for one, I gathered, twenty-five for three), most of it grinding in his lap or shoving her fake t.i.tties in his face and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing some more.

My little blonde did rub her cupcakes in my face a couple times, but mostly she just danced, or straddled my lap and didn't really grind. We just talked. Here's some of it, shouted over loud piped-in music: "What's your name?"

"Candy."

Bow Wow Wow was doing "I Want Candy." I swear.

"Stage name?"

"Real. Candace."

"You go to school, Candace?"

"I wish. I wanna go to beauty college, but it's expensive."

"You local or on the road?"

"Local. Can't travel. I got a kid."

"Really?"

"Uh huh. Little boy."

"What's his name?"

"Sam. He's five. He goes to kindergarten next year."

"His daddy looking after him?"

"He doesn't have one. A girl who works days, at the grain elevator? She sits with Sam till she goes to work."