Quarry's Vote (aka. Primary Target) by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Literary, Mystery & Detective, Hard-Boiled
ISBN: 9781935797050
Google: hTuacQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1935797050
Publisher: Perfect Crime Books
Published: 2010-11-07T11:00:00+00:00

11

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I’D BEEN DOWN this road before. But it had been years ago, and the road had been dark then and was darker now. The moon, just a faint blur in an overcast sky, was no help; only my headlights lit the world, which is to say the stretch of concrete immediately before me.

This was the River Road, the road in question being narrow two-lane Highway 22, the river the Mississippi, although its presence over at my left—not at all far away—couldn’t be proved by me. A blackness of trees, beyond the railroad tracks, obscured any river view.

Soon—not far from Davenport, really—the quarry began, or signs of it anyway: dunes of crushed rock rose at my right like monstrous anthills; my headlights caught swirls of powder, which built into a modest but steady dust storm. Then, at left, skeletal steel buildings and machinery mingled with silo-like structures, awash in a greenish-gray glow, amber lights winking here and there, white billowing smokestacks lathering the dark sky, tempting God’s razor.

And now on my right was the vast quarry, acres of emptiness, beautiful in its barrenness, a natural wonder enduring this ongoing invasion stoically. An enclosed conveyor mechanism slashed across the sky diagonally, from the plant to the quarry, going again and again to this limestone well to make little bags of cement, and bigger bags of money.

Beyond the mile-long quarry was Buffalo, a village whose small business section—a few unpretentious restaurants, antique shop, gas station—was scattered along the right, with railroad tracks and, finally, the visible Mississippi at left, its surface reflecting the gray filtering of moonlight.

And beyond Buffalo was another quarry, an abandoned one, filled with water now, put there by man or nature or somebody, so that it was, in effect, a lake. And on that lake, above its shimmering surface, above the ledges of limestone, was a house. It was not small; its lines were modern in the Frank Lloyd Wright sense, with the central part of the house a story taller than the rest. A few lights were on, glowing yellowly behind sheer curtains. From the highway, looking across the expanse of what for lack of a better term I’ll call Lake Quarry, it seemed not just distant, but abstract.

Behind the house, the bluff rose, thick with trees; those trees were bare, but no matter—tonight they were an ebony blot against the charcoal sky. The home—the estate—of Preston Freed was seemingly impregnable. Fuck it; I was going calling, anyway.

Half a mile or so down, there was a road—two narrow lanes of gravel—that seemed the most likely access to the Freed estate. My Sunbird stirred up dust, climbing the bluff until it leveled out, and dipped and farmland began appearing on my left; but on my right was forest, and barbed wire with signs that said, PRIVATE PROPERTY— TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. Added to one of the signs, by somebody unimpressed by these cornfield threats, was: AND EATEN.

Soon, off to my right, a paved driveway materialized, blocked by a heavy, unpainted steel gate—nothing fancy, just formidable.

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