Quarry in the Black Read Online Free

was thick, curly and brown, with eyebrows and mustache to match; he looked like a cross between a boxer and an Italian organ grinder.
    “Quarry,” he said, a smile in his voice as well as on his face. “Missed you, man.”
    We hadn’t done a job in several months.
    “Swordfish,” I said.
    “Huh?”
    “That’s the password. Let me the fuck in. I been driving all day.”
    “Sure, sure, sure,” the slice of his face said, and he unlatched the door and opened it for me.
    I stepped inside and put my suitcase down and found myself in a decent apartment.
    This was a spacious living room, furnished—Sears or Montgomery Ward stuff, dating to the early ’60s—with a row of windows on the street that made a perfect lookout post. A cushion appropriated from the couch made a seat for him by the window at farthest right, like a sultan might sit on, with a bedroom pillow propped against the wall, so he could lean back there and stare out sideways.
    Near the cushion were binoculars, for closer looks at those coming and going. A .38 long-barreled Smith and Wesson Model 29 revolver was on the floor near his cushion—a good weapon, but you can’t silence revolvers, so I stick to nine millimeters, despite occasional jamming.
    A console TV (
Kung Fu
on screen now, sound low) was against the wall at left, near the windows, so he could have it on while he worked, if he kept his eyes on the street. Probably he didn’t turn it on while he was on the job, though, as he’d placed a portable radio near his post. He’d have the radio on an easy-listening station, no doubt—he was a good ten years older than me, though his age never came up.
    I had a look around. The layout was boxcar—a bedroom, another bedroom, and a small kitchen, each opening onto the other. Boyd had taken the first bedroom—the bed unmade, a paperback on the nightstand called
Midtown Queen
with a bodybuilder on the cover (your job is to figure out Boyd’s sexual preference and then get back to me)—which left the adjacent bedroom for me. Each bedroom had a dresser and a double bed. Nothing fancy, but relatively speaking the Ritz, since more commonly we got stuck with unfurnished shitholes and had to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags, like fucking Boy Scouts.
    I tossed my suitcase on the bed and went on into the kitchen.
    “Jesus,” I said, looking in the refrigerator, which was stocked with cold cuts, sliced cheese and Budweiser, “this really isn’t bad.”
    Boyd had tagged after. He was in his undershirt and brown bellbottoms and bare feet, a solidly built guy who could take care of himself in a brawl. But his dark eyes had long lashes that were almost pretty and made women love him. For what good it did them.
    “We can cook here,” he said.
    I gestured to the Wonder Bread on the counter. “Stick with sandwiches. Please don’t stink the place with your cooking. This place has the ventilation of a coffin.”
    “Okay. Plenty of places around here to grab a bite, starting with that bar-and-grill next-door below. And all my stakeout work is by day.”
    He’d been nice enough to buy some cans of Coke. I took one and popped the top. I shut the fridge door and asked him, “You’re not staking out the mark’s residence?”
    He shook his head. “No. Broker said don’t bother. We’re talking a colored neighborhood. Pretty nice. But my white mug would stand out.”
    I gave him a look. “Boyd, they don’t say ‘colored’ anymore.”
    A shrug. “Okay, then. Negro.”
    “Welcome to 1956.”
    “Huh?”
    “Nothing.”
    I sat at the Formica-topped table. It dated at least to the year I’d just mentioned, though the appliances had come in with the furniture a decade or so ago. He joined me, sitting across, leaning forward eagerly. He had been working this job for three weeks and he was starved for human company. Technically I qualified.
    I asked, “You’re just working days, then?”
    He nodded toward the front of the apartment. “Sometimes they