Quarry's Deal by Max Allan Collins

was out hustling my ass, making my goddamn fortune. Maybe that’s why she put up such a good front, those first couple years. She must’ve known I had it in me to make it, and figured to stick with me till I did. We weren’t married three years before I had my place on the river, across from Burlington, and it made money from day one, right away they were calling it Little Las Vegas, that little town we took over. I owned my own place and a piece of everybody else’s on the street. The only help I had was the DiPretas. My old bosses backed me, at the start, but they stayed out of my way. You want another drink?”
    “No.”
    He did.
    This was hard for him and the lubrication was a must. Still, he seemed to feel the need to tell me all this, and not just because someone wanted him dead and to stop it I needed background. That was part of it, but important too was his need to tell somebody , to purge himself of memories too personal to tell anyone except a stranger.
    He came back with a third double, drank it, and went on.
    “She waited,” he said, “waited till things were going real good for me, and then she filed the papers. She socked me for a ton of alimony, let me tell you, and child support, only that I didn’t mind so much, the bitch. She took my kid and drained the fuck out of me, and my opinion of marriage ever since went down a little, you know? Never again. Anyway, she raised the kid, or her sister did. She was screwing a lot of guys, never did get married again, but then that’d stop the money, right? I’ll never figure out why she was such a good mother at first and then just turned the kid over to that senile sister of hers. The only thing I can say for the twat is she let me see the kid, couple of weeks in the summer, Christmas, some other holiday, usually. I’d take him camping, ball game, things like that. I was a good father to him, good as I could be, considering what little chance I got. And he looked up to me. He really did. That made me feel good, and I’m not ashamed to say it. Another drink?”
    “Not me,” I said. “You have to drive back, remember.”
    “One more won’t hurt.”
    Well, if it did, he sure didn’t seem to feel it. He showed it only in the increased speed and ease of his speech, which wasn’t slurred in the least.
    “She turned into a sort of a lush, after a while,” he said, his own glass empty now. “You get soft living on somebody else’s money all the time, never working a day, you know? She never worked a day. Last fucking job she ever had was when she was a cocktail waitress at Harold’s, in Reno, which is where I met her, the whore. That’s what she turned into, only she gave it away. With all the money of mine she had, you’d think she’d at least go around fucking the country club set or something, but no. Lowlifes. That’s what she was and who she liked to be around. Just pick up some goddamn factory worker in a bar and ball him and blow him and Jesus. Anyway, she got hit by a car about five, six, years ago. Drunk. And Frank Jr. came to live with me. He was torn, though, I think, you know? That sister-in-law of mine was the closest thing to a mother Frank ever had, and how can you blame him for feeling something for the old douche bag? Listen, I got to have a beer chaser, that’s all there is to it. You?”
    “Okay. Make it a gimlet, though.”
    He did, and he sipped some beer before starting up again.
    “He was a quiet kid, Frank Jr. He wasn’t too active, not in sports or any of those high school things. I think I maybe disappointed him, a little, because I was more strict than he thought I’d be. I wanted to know where he was going, what time he’d be in, things like that. I wanted to know what crowd he was running with, would check out the kids, their parents. He had some friends I didn’t much approve of, but I finally gave up on that. He was his mother’s son, after all, what’re you gonna do? The biggest blow-up we ever had was over