The Last Quarry E-Book

Max Allan Collins

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 267

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Notorious hitman Quarry, star of the Cinemax series, comes out of retirement for one last assignment when a media mogul hires him to assassinate a beautiful young…librarian? Twists and sexy surprises abound as Quarry delivers justice in his violent but principled fashion. QUARRY'S BACK – FOR HIS TOUGHEST JOB EVER. The ruthless professional killer known as Quarry long ago disappeared into a well-earned retirement. But now a media magnate has lured the restless hitman into tackling one last lucrative assignment. The target is an unlikely one: Why, Quarry wonders, would anyone want a beautiful young librarian dead? And why in hell does he care? On the 30th anniversary of the enigmatic assassin's first appearance, bestselling author Max Allan Collins brings him back for a dark and deadly mission where the last quarry may turn out to be Quarry himself.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Acclaim For the Work of Max Allan Collins

Hard Case Crime Books by Max Allan Collins

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Author’s Afterword

Guest Services

Quarry’s Luck

The Big Bundle

The Consummata

The Nolan Novels

The Quarry Novels

The Cocktail Waitress

Acclaim For the Work of

MAX ALLAN COLLINS!

“Crime fiction aficionados are in for a treat…a neo-pulp noir classic.”

—Chicago Tribune

“No one can twist you through a maze with as much intensity and suspense as Max Allan Collins.”

—Clive Cussler

“Collins never misses a beat…All the stand-up pleasures of dime-store pulp with a beguiling level of complexity.”

—Booklist

“Collins has an outwardly artless style that conceals a great deal of art.”

—New York Times Book Review

“Max Allan Collins is the closest thing we have to a 21st-century Mickey Spillane and…will please any fan of old-school, hardboiled crime fiction.”

—This Week

“A suspenseful, wild night’s ride [from] one of the finest writers of crime fiction that the U.S. has produced.”

—Book Reporter

“This book is about as perfect a page turner as you’ll find.”

—Library Journal

“Bristling with suspense and sexuality, this book is a welcome addition to the Hard Case Crime library.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A total delight…fast, surprising, and well-told.”

—Deadly Pleasures

“Strong and compelling reading.”

—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“Max Allan Collins [is] like no other writer.”

—Andrew Vachss

“Collins breaks out a really good one, knocking over the hard-boiled competition (Parker and Leonard for sure, maybe even Puzo) with a one-two punch: a feisty storyline told bittersweet and wry…nice and taut…the book is unputdownable. Never done better.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Rippling with brutal violence and surprising sexuality…I savored every turn.”

—Bookgasm

“Masterful.”

—Jeffery Deaver

“Collins has a gift for creating low-life believable characters …a sharply focused action story that keeps the reader guessing till the slam-bang ending. A consummate thriller from one of the new masters of the genre.”

—Atlanta Journal Constitution

“For fans of the hardboiled crime novel…this is powerful and highly enjoyable reading, fast moving and very, very tough.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Entertaining…full of colorful characters…a stirring conclusion.”

—Detroit Free Press

“Collins makes it sound as though it really happened.”

—New York Daily News

“An exceptional storyteller.”

—San Diego Union Tribune

“Nobody does it better than Max Allan Collins.”

—John Lutz

The ex-gangster walked into the trees, heading toward the yawning white expanse of frozen water. I followed behind, nine millimeter in one hand, sawed-off in the other.

As we wound through the pines, the snow got deeper, ankle deep in places. Finally, at the snowy edge of the wooded shore, Harry came to a stop, and half turned.

“Go on, Harry.”

Harry frowned. “Go on? What the fuck, ‘go on?’”

“Keep walking.”

“Where?”

I gestured with the shotgun, toward the lake.

Harry followed the gesture, eyes tight, and it took a few seconds for him to absorb the meaning. Somehow, though, he couldn’t turn his confusion and apprehension into words.

Harry looked at the lake, then at me; the lake, me.

His voice seemed even higher pitched than before, almost childish, his wide eyes buggy behind the lenses. “What…what if the ice gives, under me? I mean…it’s gonna get thin, farther out I get.…”

“We’ll keep the stress to a minimum.”

“How?”

“I’ll stay put,” I said…

HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS

BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS:

QUARRY

QUARRY’S LIST

QUARRY’S DEAL

QUARRY’S CUT

QUARRY’S VOTE

THE LAST QUARRY

THE FIRST QUARRY

QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE

QUARRY’S EX

THE WRONG QUARRY

QUARRY’S CHOICE

QUARRY IN THE BLACK

QUARRY’S CLIMAX

QUARRY’S WAR (graphic novel)

KILLING QUARRY

QUARRY’S BLOOD

QUARRY’S RETURN

TWO FOR THE MONEY

DOUBLE DOWN

TOUGH TENDER

MAD MONEY

SKIM DEEP

DEADLY BELOVED

SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT

DEAD STREET(with Mickey Spillane)

THE CONSUMMATA(with Mickey Spillane)

MIKE HAMMER: THE NIGHT I DIED

(graphic novel with Mickey Spillane)

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A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-023-R)

First Hard Case Crime edition: April 2025

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 2006 by Max Allan Collins. This novel draws and expands upon material originally published in the short stories “A Matter of Principal,” copyright © 1989 by Max Allan Collins, and “Guest Services,” copyright © 1994 by Max Allan Collins. “Quarry’s Luck” copyright © 1994 by Max Allan Collins

Cover painting copyright © 2006 by Robert McGinnis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-1-83541-177-3

E-book ISBN 978-1-83541-299-2

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.signalfoundry.com

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

For Jeffrey Goodman— who brought my killer to life

“Any victim demands allegiance.”

GRAHAM GREENE

THE LAST QUARRY

One

It had been a long time since I’d had any trouble sleeping.

Not since the fucking shelling was keeping me awake, a lifetime or two ago. I’m not by nature an insomniac. You might think killing people for a living would give you some bad nights. Truth is, guys in the killing biz? Just aren’t the type to be bothered.

I was no exception. I hadn’t gone into retirement because my conscience was bothering me. I retired because I had enough money put away to live comfortably without working, so I did. And for a while that retirement had gone well. I’d invested a little and was living off the gravy; I’d even been married for a while, which had worked out fine.

For a while.

Currently I was deposited in an A-frame cottage with a deck onto the frozen expanse of Sylvan Lake, somewhere in Minnesota, only it’s not called Sylvan Lake and maybe it’s not Minnesota, either. I was staying at the only resort on this side of the lake, Sylvan Lodge, but I was not a guest—I ran the place. Or, anyway, did when it wasn’t off-season.

Once upon a time I had owned a resort in Wisconsin not unlike this—not near the acreage, of course, and not near the occupancy; but I had owned the place, whereas here I was just the manager.

Of course I didn’t have anything to complain about. I was lucky to have the job. When I ran into Gary Petersen in Milwaukee, where he was attending a convention and I was making a one-night stopover to remove some emergency funds from several bank deposit boxes, I was at the loosest of loose ends. The name I’d lived under for over a decade was unusable; my past had caught up with me, back at Paradise Lake, where everything went to hell in an instant: my straight business yanked from under me, my wife (who’d had not a clue of my prior existence) murdered in her sleep.

Gary, however, had recognized me in the hotel bar and called out a name I hadn’t used since the early ’70s: my real one.

“Jack!” he said, only that wasn’t the name. For the purposes of this narrative, however, we’ll say my real name is Jack Keller.

“Gary,” I said, surprised by the warmth creeping into my voice. “You son of a bitch…you’re still alive.”

Gary was a huge man—six six, weighing in at somewhere between three hundred pounds and a ton; his face was masked in a bristly brown beard, his skull exposed by hair loss, his dark eyes bright, his smile friendly, in a goofy, almost childlike way.

“Thanks to you, asshole,” he said.

We’d been in Vietnam together.

“What the hell have you been doing all these years, Jack?”

“Mostly killing people.”

He boomed a laugh. “Yeah, right!”

“Don’t believe me, then.”

I was, incidentally, pretty drunk. I don’t drink often, but I’d been through the mill lately.

“Are you crying, Jack?”

“Fuck no,” I said.

But I was.

Gary slipped his arm around my shoulder; it was like getting cuddled by God. “Bro—what’s the deal? What shit have you been through?”

“They killed my wife,” I said, and blubbered drunkenly into his shoulder.

“Jesus, Jack—who…?”

“Fucking assholes…fucking assholes.…”

We went to his suite. He was supposed to play poker with some buddies but he called it off.

I was very drunk and very morose and Gary was, at one time anyway, my closest friend, and during the most desperate of days.

I told him everything.

I told him how after I got back from Nam, I found my wife— my first wife—shacked up with some guy, some fucking auto mechanic, who was working under a car when I kicked the jack out. The jury let me off, but I was finished in my hometown, and I drifted until the Broker found me. The Broker, who gave me the name Quarry, was the conduit through whom the murder-for-hire contracts came, and, what? Ten years later the Broker was dead, by my hand, and I was out of the killing business and took my savings and went to Paradise Lake in Wisconsin, where eventually I met a pleasant, attractive, not terribly bright woman and she and I were in the lodge business until the past came looking for me, and suddenly she was dead, and I was without a life or even identity. I had managed to kill the fuckers responsible for my wife’s killing—political assholes, not wiseguys—but otherwise I had nothing. Nothing left but some money stashed away, that I was now retrieving.

I told Gary all this, through the night, in considerably more detail though probably even less coherently, although coherently enough that when I woke up the next morning, where Gary had laid me out on the extra bed, I knew I’d told him too much.

He was still asleep. Like me, he was in the same clothes we’d worn to that bar; like me, he smelled of booze, only he also reeked of cigarette smoke. I reeked a little, too, but it was Gary’s smoke: I never picked up the habit. Bad for you.

He looked like a big dead animal, except for his barrel-like chest heaving with breath. I looked at this man—like me, he was somewhere near or past fifty, not the kids we’d been before the war made us worse than just men.

I still had liquor in me, but I was sober now. Too deadly fucking sober. I studied my best-friend-of-long-ago and wondered if I had to kill him.

I was standing over him, staring down at him, mulling that over, when his eyes opened suddenly, like a timer turning on the lights in a house to fend off burglars. He smiled a little, then it faded, his eyes narrowed, and he said, “Morning, Jack.”

“Morning, Gary.”

“You’ve got that look.”

“What look is that?”

“The cold one. The one I first saw a long time ago.”

I swallowed and took my eyes off him. Sat on the edge of the bed across from him and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

He plopped down across from me with those big paws on his big knees and said, “How the hell d’you manage it?”

“What?”

“Hauling my fat ass onto that Medivac.”

I grunted a laugh. “The same way a little mother lifts a Buick off her big baby.”

“In my case, you lifted the Buick onto the baby. Let me buy you breakfast.”

“Okay.”

In the hotel coffee shop, he said, “Funny…what you told me last night…about the business you used to be in?”

I sipped my coffee; I didn’t look at him—didn’t show him my eyes. “Yeah?”

“I’m in the same game.”

Now I looked at him; I winced with disbelief. “What…?”

He corrected my initial thought. “The tourist game, I mean. I run a lodge near Brainerd.”

“No kidding.”

“That’s what this convention is. Northern Resort Owners Association.”

“I heard of it,” I said, nodding. “Never bothered to join, myself.”

Not by nature much of a joiner.

“I’m a past president,” he said, obviously proud of that. “Anyway, I run a place called Sylvan Lodge. My third and current, and I swear to God everlasting wife, Ruth Ann? Maybe I mentioned her last night? Anyway, Ruthie inherited it from her late parents, God rest their hardworking Republican souls.”

None of this came as a surprise to me. Grizzly bear Gary had always drawn women like a great big magnet—usually good-looking little women who wanted a father figure, Papa Bear variety. Even in Bangkok on R & R, Gary never had to pay for pussy, as we used to delicately phrase it.

“I’m happy for you,” I said. “I always figured you’d manage to marry for money.”

“My ass! I really love Ruth Ann. You should see the knockers on the child.”

“A touching testimonial if I ever heard one. Listen…about that bullshit I was spouting last night…”

His dark eyes became slits, the smile in his brushy face disappeared. “We’ll never speak of that again. Understood? Never.”

He reached out and squeezed my forearm.

I sighed and smiled tightly and nodded, relieved. Killing Gary would have been no fun at all.

He continued, though. “My sorry fat ass wouldn’t even be on this planet, if it wasn’t for you. I owe you big time.”

“Bullshit,” I said, but not very convincingly.

“I’ve had a good life, at least the last ten years or so, since I met Ruthie. You’ve been swimming in Shit River long enough. Let me help you out.”

“Gary, I…”

“Actually, I want you to help me.”

“Help you?”

Gary’s business was such a thriving one that he had recently invested in a second lodge, one across the way from his Gull Lake resort. He had quickly discovered he couldn’t run both places himself, at least not “without running my fat ass off.” He offered me the job of managing Sylvan.

“We’ll start you at 50K, with free housing. You can make a tidy buck with damn near no overhead, and you can tap into at least one of your marketable skills, and at the same time be out of the way. Keep as low a profile as you like. You don’t even have to deal with the tourists, to speak of—we have a social director for that. You just keep the boat afloat. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and we shook hands.

Goddamn I was glad I hadn’t killed him.…

Two

Now, here I was a little more than six months into the job, and a month into the first winter—off-season, settled in. My quarters, despite the rustic trappings of the cabin-like exterior, were modern—pine paneling skirting the room with pale yellow pastel walls rising to a high pointed ceiling. Just one A-frame room with bath and kitchenette, but a big room, facing the lake, which was a mere hundred yards from the deck that was my back porch. Couch, Dish TV, plenty of closet space, a comfortable bed. I didn’t need anything more.

During off-season like this, I could’ve moved into more spacious digs if I liked, but I hadn’t bothered. My first summer and fall at Sylvan Lodge had been a real pleasure. Just a short jog across the way was an indoor swimming pool with hot tub and sauna, plus a tennis court; a golf course, shared with Gary’s other lodge, was an easy drive. My duties were constant, but mostly consisted of delegating authority, and the gay chef of our gourmet restaurant made sure I ate well and free, and I’d been banging Nikki, the college girl who had the social director position for the summer, so my staff relations were solid.

But the cold months had come, and in this part of the world that was fucking cold indeed. Everyone except a maintenance guy, José, was gone, and even he didn’t live on site; Nikki was back blowing frat boys and probably posing for a Playboy college-girl spread, and I didn’t even want to know what my gay chef was up to. Gary was off with Ruth Ann down in Florida, where his “winter” home was, and I was up here, keeping an eye on things—like making sure a moose didn’t get inside the restaurant and take a dump or something.

In short, I had nothing to do. The only managerial instruction I’d given José since we closed for the season was to keep the pool and hot tub and sauna going, for my personal use.

So for the past month, boredom had started to itch at me…and for the past few nights I’d had trouble sleeping. I sat up all night watching satellite TV and reading paperback westerns; then I’d drag around the next day, maybe drifting to sleep in the afternoon just long enough to fuck up my sleep cycle again that night.

It was getting irritating.

At about three-thirty in the morning on the fourth night of this shit, I decided eating might do the trick. Fill my gut with junk food and the blood could rush down from my head and warm my belly and I’d get the fuck sleepy, finally. I hadn’t tried this before because I’d been getting a trifle paunchy, with this easy job, even more so since winter kicked in.

In the summer, at least, I could swim in the lake every day and get some exercise and keep the fucking spare tire off. But with winter here, I’d just let my beard go and belt size, too. I tried to make myself do laps in the pool across the way, but mostly I sat in the hot tub and drank Coca-Cola and thought about my past. I wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t the kind of past you got anywhere with by thinking about it. The only thing I knew for sure was, this winter was making me fat and lazy and, now, fucking sleepless.

The cupboard was bare so I threw on my thermal jacket and— since I was alone on my stretch of Sylvan Lake—took the ten-mile ride to the nearest junk food. At this time of night a shabby little convenience store, Ray’s Mart, with its one self-service gas pump, was the only thing open fifteen miles in either direction.

The clerk was a heavyset brunette named Cindy from Brainerd. She was maybe twenty years old and a little surly, but she worked all night, so who could blame her.

“Mr. Ryan,” she said, flatly, as I came in, the bell over the door jingling. She was engrossed in a telephone conversation and this effusive greeting had been both an effort and a concession to a regular customer.

“Cindy,” I said, with a nod, and I began prowling the place, three narrow aisles parallel to the front of the building. None of the snacks appealed to me—chips and crackers and Twinkies and other preservative-packed delights—and the frozen food case ran mostly to ice-cream sandwiches and popsicles. In this weather, that was a joke.

I was giving a box of Chef Boyardee lasagna an intent once-over, like it was a car I was considering buying, when the bell over the door jingled again. I glanced up and saw a well-dressed, heavyset man—heavyset enough to make Cindy look svelte— with a pockmarked, Uncle Fester-ish face and black-rimmed glasses that fogged up as soon as he stepped in.

He wore an expensive topcoat—a tan Burberry number with a red-and-black plaid scarf, the sort of pricey ensemble that required a small mortgage—and his shoes had a bright black city shine, barely flecked with ice and snow. His name was Harry Something-the-fuck, and he was from Chicago. I knew him, in my former life.

I turned my back.

If he saw me, I’d have to kill him—I was bored, but not that bored.

Predictably, Harry Something went straight for the potato chips; he also rustled around the area where cookies were shelved. I risked a glimpse and saw him, not two minutes after he entered, with his arms full of junk food, heading for the front counter.

“Excuse me, miss,” Harry Something said, depositing his groceries before Cindy like an offering on an altar. His voice was nasal and high-pitched; a funny, childish voice for a man his size—it went well with the Uncle Fester face. “Could you direct me to the sanitary napkins?”

Cindy winced, phone in hand, annoyed by this intrusion. Harry was not a regular customer.

She said, “You mean Tampax?”

“Whatever.”

“Toiletries is just over there.”

Now this was curious, and I’ll tell you why. I had met Harry Something around ten years before, when I was doing a job for the Outfit boys in Chicago. I was never a mob guy, mind you, strictly a freelancer, but their money was as good as anybody’s. What that job was isn’t important, but Harry and his partner Louis were the locals who had fucked up, making my outsider’s presence necessary. Harry and Louis had not been friendly toward me. They had threatened me, in fact. They had beaten the hell out of me in my hotel room, when the job was over, for making them look bad.

I had never taken any sort of revenge out on them. I occasionally do take revenge, but at my convenience, and only when a score strikes me as worth settling. Harry and Louis had really just pushed me around a little, bloodied my nose, tried to earn back a little self-respect. So I didn’t hold a grudge. Not a major grudge. Fuck it.

As to why Harry Something purchasing Tampax in the middle of the night at some backwoods convenience store was curious, well, Harry and Louis were gay. Like my old man used to say, queer as a three-dollar bill. Mob muscle who worked as a pair, and played as a pair.

And I don’t mean to be critical. To each his own. I’d rather cut off my dick than insert it in any orifice of a repulsive fat slob like Harry Something. But, hey, that’s just me.

Now while I’m as naturally curious as the next guy, I’m sure as hell not nosy, not even inquisitive, really. But when a faggot buys Tampax, you have to wonder why.

“Excuse me,” Harry Something said, brushing by me.

He hadn’t seen my face (had he?)—and he might not recognize me, in any case. Ten years and a beard and twenty pounds later, I wasn’t as easy to peg as Harry was, who had changed goddamn little.

Harry, having stocked up on cookies and chips and Tampax, was now buying milk and packaged macaroni and cheese and provisions in general. He was shopping.

Stocking up.

And now I was starting to get a handle on what he might be up to.…

I nodded to surly Cindy, who bid me goodbye by flickering her eyelids in casual contempt, and went out to my car, a steel-gray Jag I’d purchased recently. I wished I’d had the Lodge’s four-wheel drive, or anything less conspicuous, but I didn’t. I sat in the car, scooched down low; I did not turn on the engine. I just sat in the cold car in the cold night and waited.

Harry Something came out with two armloads of groceries —Tampax included, I presumed—and he put them in the front seat of a brown rental Ford Taurus. Louis was not waiting in the car for him.

Harry was alone.

Which further confirmed my suspicions.…

I waited for him to pull out onto the road, hung back till he took the road’s curve, then started up my Jag and glided out after him. He had turned left, toward Brainerd. That made sense, only I figured he wouldn’t wind up there—he’d likely light out for the boonies somewhere.

I knew what Harry was up to, vaguely at least. He sure as shit wasn’t here to ski—that lardass couldn’t stand up on a pair of skis. And he wasn’t here to go ice-fishing, either. A city boy like Harry Something had no business in a touristy area like this, in the off-season…

…unless Harry was hiding out, holing up somewhere.

This would be the perfect area for that.

Only Harry didn’t use Tampax.

He turned off on a side road, into a heavily wooded area that wound back toward Sylvan Lake.

Good. That was very good.

I went on by. I drove a mile, turned into a farmhouse gravel drive and headed back without lights. I slowed as I reached the mouth of the side road, and could see Harry’s taillights wink off.

I knew the cabin at the end of that road. There was only one, and its owner only used it during the summer; Harry was either a renter, or a squatter.

I glided on by and went back home.

I left the Jag next to the deck and walked up the steps and into the A-frame. The nine millimeter Browning was in the nightstand drawer. The gun hadn’t been shot in months— Christ, maybe over a year. But I cleaned and oiled it regularly, because you never know.

It would do nicely.

So would my black turtleneck, black jeans, black leather bomber jacket, and this black moonless night. I slipped a spare .38 revolver in the bomber jacket right side pocket, and clipped a hunting knife to my belt. The knife was razor sharp with a sword point; I sent for it out of the back of one of those dumbass mercenary magazines—which are worthless except for mail-ordering weapons.

I walked along the edge of the lake, my running shoes crunching the brittle ground, layered as it was with snow and ice and leaves. The only light came from a gentle scattering of stars, a handful of diamonds flung on black velvet; the frozen lake was a dark presence that you could sense but not really see, the surrounding trees even darker. The occasional cabin or cottage or house I passed was empty. I was one of only a handful of residents on this side of Sylvan Lake who were staying year-round.

But the lights were on in one cabin. Not many lights, but lights. And its chimney was trailing smoke.

The cabin was small, a traditional log cabin of the Abe Lincoln and syrup variety, only with a satellite dish. Probably two bedrooms, a living room, kitchenette and a can or two. Only one car—the brown rental Ford.

My footsteps were lighter now; I was staying on the balls of my feet and the crunching under them was faint. I approached with caution and gun in hand and peeked in a window on the right front side.

Harry Something was sitting on the couch, eating corn curls, giving himself an orange mustache in the process. His feet were up on a coffee table. More food and a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun were on the couch next to him. He wore a colorful Hawaiian shirt; he looked like Don Ho puked on him, actually.

In the nearby kitchenette, which was open onto the living room, Louis was fussing as he put the food away—a small, skinny, bald ferret of man, who wore jeans and a black shirt and a white tie. I couldn’t tell whether he was trying for trendy or gangster, and frankly didn’t give a shit.

Physically, all the two men had in common was pockmarks and a desire for the other’s ugly body.

And neither one of them seemed to need a tampon, though a towelette would’ve come in handy for Harry Something. Jesus. Imagine having a Burberry topcoat like that and a Hawaiian shirt underneath; they can make gay marriage legit if they want to, but that should be fucking illegal.

I could hear them talking—muffled but audible through the window, the sound of the television, some old movie, underneath.

From the couch Harry said, “Chip me!”

From the kitchenette Louis said, “With your cholesterol? Isn’t a bag of cheese curls enough?”

“Don’t mama me!…I wanna Coke, too.”

“I thought you were off caffeine!”

“Not when you expect me to sit up all fuckin’ night.”

Louis was in the living room now. “I’m the one dealing with her—what a spoiled little cunt she is!”

Harry laughed; the laugh was like Uncle Fester, too. “That’s why daddy’ll pay up, sweet cheeks!”

I peeked at them—Louis was delivering barbecue chips and Harry took them with a “Thank you,” and they interrupted their bickering to exchange fond expressions. Then Harry worked at adding a new shade of orange to his junk-food mustache.

Me, I huddled back down beneath the window, wondering what I was doing here.

Boredom, for sure.

Curiosity, maybe.

I shrugged. Time to look in another window or two.

Because Harry and Louis clearly had a captive, and a female one at that. That’s what they were doing in the boonies. That’s why they were stocking up on supplies at a convenience store in the middle of night and nowhere. That’s why they were in the market for Tampax.

And through a back window, I saw her.

She was on a single bed in the small rustic room, naked but for white panties—a wrist cuffed to a nearby bedpost, sitting on the edge of the bed, bending over in obvious discomfort, crying…a dark-haired, creamy-fleshed beauty in her early twenties, suffering menstrual cramps.

Obviously, Harry and Louis had nothing sexual in mind for this captive; the reason for her nudity was to help prevent her fleeing. The bed was heavy with blankets, and she’d clearly been keeping under the covers, but right now she was sitting and doubling over and crying. Right now was a bad period for her any way you sliced it.

Thing was, I recognized this young woman. Like Harry, I spent a lot of hours during cold nights like this with my eyes frozen to a TV screen. And that’s where I’d seen her: on the tube.

Not an actress, no—an heiress. Jonah Green’s daughter— “Daddy” was a Chicago media magnate whose name you’d recognize if I was using his real one, a guy who inherited money and wheeled-and-dealed his way into more, including one of the satellite superstations I’d been wasting my eyes on lately. The Windy City’s answer to Ted Turner, right down to sailboating and baseball teams and womanizing.

His daughter was a little wild—seen in the company of rock stars (she had a tattoo of a star—not Justin Timberlake, a five-pointed star—on her white left breast, which I could see from the window) and was a Betty Ford clinic drop-out. Nonetheless, she was said to be the apple of her daddy’s eye, even if that apple was a tad wormy.

So Harry and Louis had put the snatch on the snatch; fair enough. Question was, was it their own idea, or something the Outfit put them up to?

I heard a door open, and peeked in carefully, just barely able to hear the muffled speech through the window.

Louis came in and tossed the box of Tampax in her lap.

The girl snarled, “You took long enough!”

“We’re being nice—you be nice.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you!…I need the bathroom.”

A clearly disgusted Louis dug a handcuff key out of his pocket, and worked at undoing her wrist.

The girl, a spoiled brat even in the presence of kidnappers, said, “Hurry the fuck up, faggot! You want blood everywhere?”

He looked at her coldly. “Do you?”

That sobered her a little.

Maybe Daddy should’ve tried some of Louis’s brand of psychology.

Then Louis walked her off somewhere as the girl clutched the Tampax box like treasure.

I dropped down from the window, hidden there in the dark in my dark clothes with a gun in my hand and my back to the log cabin, and I smiled.