Quarry's Choice Read Free

like a guy who’d read Shakespeare when to the rest of us English literature meant Ian Fleming.
    “So,” I said, “four jobs last year, and the one last month. That par for the course?”
    He nodded. “Your advance should be paid in full by the end of this year. With that off the books, you’ll have a very tidy income for a relative handful of jobs per annum.”
    “Jobs that carry with them a high degree of risk.”
    “Nothing in life is free, Quarry.”
    “Hey, I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck.”
    A smile twitched below the mustache. “So, they have turnip trucks in Ohio, do they?”
    “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been on a farm in my life. Strictly a townie.” I leaned in. “Listen, Broker, I appreciate the free meal. . .keeping in mind nothing is free, like you said. . .but if you have no objection, I’m going to head home now.”
    He gestured like a Price Is Right model to a curtain opening onto a grand prize. “You’re welcome to stay another night, my young friend. Several nights, if you like. You’ve earned a rest and a. . .bonus, perhaps? Possibly by way of a working girl? Something young and clean? Check out the redhead and the brunette, there at the end of the bar.. . .”
    “No thanks, Broker.” He seemed unusually generous tonight. “I just want to head back.”
    “But it’s eight o’clock, and so many miles before you sleep.”
    I shrugged. “I like to drive at night. Why, is there something else you want to go over?”
    It had felt throughout the meal that something more was hanging in the air than the question of Boyd as my official passive partner.
    He lowered his head while raising his eyes to me. There was something careful, even cautious about it. Very quietly, though no one was seated anywhere near us, he asked, “How do you feel about a contract involving. . .a woman?”
    With a shrug, I said, “I don’t care who hires me. Hell, I don’t even know who hires me, thanks to you.”
    “Not what I mean, Quarry.”
    I grinned at him. “Yeah, I knew that. Just rattling your chain, Broker.”
    He sighed, weight-of-the-world. “You know, I really should resent your insolence. Your impertinence. Your insubordination.”
    “Is that all? Can’t you think of anything else that starts with an ‘I’?”
    That made him smile. Maybe a little sense of humor at that. “Such a rascal.”
    “Not to mention scamp.”
    Now he raised his head and lowered his eyes to me. Still very quiet, as if hunting wabbits. “I mean, if the. . .person you were dispatched to dislodge were of the female persuasion. Would that trouble you?”
    That was arch even for the Broker.
    I said, “I don’t think it’s possible to persuade anybody to be a female. Maybe you should check with Boyd on that one.”
    “Quarry. . .a straight answer please.”
    “You won’t get one of those out of Boyd.”
    He frowned, very disapproving now.
    I pawed the air. “Okay, okay. No clowning. No, I have no problem with ‘dislodging’ the fairer sex. It’s been my experience that women are human beings, and human beings are miserable creatures, so what the heck. Sure.”
    He nodded like a priest who’d just heard a confessor agree to a dozen Hail Marys. “Good to know. Good to know. Now, Quarry, there may be upon occasion jobs in the offing. . .so to speak. . .that might require a willingness to perform as you’ve indicated.”
    Jesus. I couldn’t navigate that sentence with a fucking sextant. So I just nodded.
    “May I say that I admire your technique. I don’t wish to embarrass you, Quarry, but you have a certain almost surgical skill. . .”
    That’s what they said about Jack the Ripper.
    “. . .minimizing discomfort for our. . .subjects.”
    “Stop,” I said. “I’ll blush.”
    He leaned back in the booth. “Not everyone came back from their terrible overseas ordeal as well-adjusted as you, Quarry. Some of my boys have real problems.”
    “Imagine that. I’d like some dessert, if that’s