Free Quarry's Choice by Max Allan Collins

dinner-theater show biz types, all personally inscribed. A brown leather couch rode the wall at right and a liquor cart no bigger than a Dodge Dart was parked opposite.
    Behind a big mahogany desk, and between dark-wood filing cabinets, the wall space was consumed by a vertical color photo of the Biloxi Strip at night, likely taken from a boat in the Gulf far enough out to turn that ribbon of sin into a sparkling abstraction.
    Behind that desk sat the man who had to be Jack Killian. No military crew cut for him: glistening black hair was combed back revealing the widow’s peak over the narrow oval of a face whose dark, lidded eyes had an almost Asian cast. He had a narrow, finely carved nose over a thin-lipped slash, as if he’d been born without a mouth and a doctor had to cut him one.
    That suit was definitely not-off-the-rack: Italian, I’d guess, though I’m no expert. He wore gold-nugget cufflinks and a gold-nugget ring on his left hand.
    Did he wear that suit every evening? I wondered. Or just when he had a business meeting?
    Rising from his high-backed leather swivel chair, he didn’t offer a hand to shake—tough to reach across that aircraft carrier of a desk—merely gestured to two brown-leather visitors’ chairs. I picked one and gave him a tight smile and a nod.
    “Mr. Quarry,” he said. He had a smooth baritone, like a radio announcer or maybe the golf pro at the country club who was fucking your wife.
    “Mr. Killian.”
    “Would you like a cigarette? Or maybe you prefer your own?” He indicated the smoke he had going in an ameba-shaped modern-art ashtray. Little else was on the glass-topped desk, just a multi-extension phone and a pencil/pen cup.
    “I don’t smoke, sir.”
    “Good to hear. Are you a drinking man?”
    “Not really, sir.”
    “ ‘Sir’ isn’t necessary. ‘Mr. Killian’ will do fine.”
    “All right, Mr. Killian.” I shifted in the chair. “May I ask a question?”
    “Sure.”
    “Is this a job interview? I was under the impression I already had this position.”
    A black eyebrow arched. “Do you know what that position is, Mr. Quarry?”
    “Other than I’ll be working for you in some capacity, no.”
    The slash in his face turned upward on one side. “Then you don’t already have the job, do you?”
    I risked a small smile. “I guess I don’t.”
    He had a drag on his cigarette. From the smell of the room, he didn’t stint on them. “Woodrow sometimes oversteps. But he’s a good man, our Mr. Woody, and I take his recommendation seriously. How much did he tell you?”
    “Just that there’d been a fatality on your staff, and a slot needed filling.”
    He nodded twice. “What’s your background, Mr. Quarry? Let’s start with military.”
    “Marines. Vietnam. Three tours.”
    “What did you do there?”
    “Sniper mostly. I was in some fire fights.”
    “Medals?”
    “Yes.”
    That I’d not been specific sent the slash upward on the other side of his face; counting the last time, that made one whole smile. “And post-Vietnam, where did you work?”
    “Detroit.”
    “Who did you work for and what did you do there?”
    I shook my head. “With all due respect, sir. . .Mr. Killian. . . that’s all I’m going to say on that subject.”
    His eyebrows tensed. “You think that’s wise?”
    “Very. Someday I may not be working for you. And when somebody asks me who I worked for last, and what did I do for him? I’m not going to say. Because I don’t think your business is anybody else’s.”
    The eyes were open almost all the way—he clearly liked that response. He took a few puffs from the cigarette, sent it back to the odd ashtray.
    “How many people have you killed, Mr. Quarry?”
    “Here or overseas?”
    “Anywhere.”
    “Under a hundred.”
    He damn near blinked. “I would guess a sniper gets pretty cold-blooded about it.”
    “Killing from a distance can get easy. I’ve done up close and personal, too. It’s messier. Mr. Killian, where is