Half Pint
Chapatrap
Tlaloc
Festive
Mixtape Ghost N
Morden Man
Simple Unicycle
Eviledd1984
Plank Sinatra
IzurichBaldwin, Missouri
November, 1977
Quarry was listening to some soul station while he drove the little rental car down the back country road. Glady Knight and the Pips sang about a midnight train to Georgia over the static as Quarry bounced over another pothole. Broker told him the underground casino was in Kansas City, but upon his arrival in town Quarry discovered it was in the Podunk backwoods of Baldwin, some 45 miles outside the city. After a drive out to Baldwin, he’d stopped at a service station and asked for directions to the Barn. The old man working the pumps rattled off directions like he’d done it for decades. He probably had, thought Quarry. An out of towner asking directions to the Barn was probably nothing new for him.
The Barn lived up to its name, thought Quarry. He pulled into the gravel parking lot. A giant red barn that stretched back across an empty field. An unlit neon sign bedside the road advertised it as “Missouri’s Best Watering Hole.” Quarry’s car was just one of a half dozen or so in the parking lot. He checked his watch and saw it was just before five. The place was technically open, but he would be one of the first customers of the day. A place like this didn’t really heat up until after dark, when that neon sign came on and the people from Kansas City came down to party.
Mick McKiernan looked at Quarry warily. Or maybe Quarry was just projecting thanks to McKiernan’s black eyes. Several days had passed since the assault, but his eyes were still black and purple. Otherwise the middle aged man looked to be in good health. Overweight and at that age where muscle begins to turn to fat, though the suit and tie he wore still seemed to fit well enough. Quarry figured he was an ex-cop before becoming security for the Barn. Someone in the Outfit had called ahead and told McKiernan to expect a “guy of theirs” to come in and look around. McKiernan, even if he wasn’t an ex-cop, had to know who Quarry was and what he would do to the thieves.
The two men sat at the bar in the lounge area. Only a few people were set up at the bar, one or two in the lounge chairs and couches stretched across the room. A bandstand on the far wall held musical instruments and a baby grand piano. Over their shoulder were double doors that looked like they were made of some sort of metal. He guessed through those doors was the casino portion of the Barn. As rustic as it looked on the outside, the inside of the Barn was well designed in a sort of retro aesthetic that to Quarry looked like it was early 30’s. He could see why the place was popular. If it were closer to actual civilization it may have been an even bigger operation.
“So there were three guys,” asked Quarry. “What’d they look like?”
“The two with shotguns, one was a tall redhead with bad acne and one was a short guy with dark hair and a fucking weasel face. Weasel-face was a lefty, the redhead was right-handed.”
Quarry lit up a cigarette. He at least had the observation skills of a cop.
“And the leader?”
McKiernan laughed bitterly as Quarry exhaled smoke.
“His face was gruesome. Like those old Boris Karloff movies, and he was big. Six foot five at least.”
“Someone told me that one of your guys here recognized the big guy, and said he went by Parker.”
McKiernan nodded. “Yeah. Raul, our piano player. He’s bounced around places like this over the years. Said he was in New Orleans back in ‘68 and big ugly was part of a crew that robbed a riverboat he was working on.”
“Ten years,” said Quarry. “That’s a hell of a long time to be an active thief like that.”
McKiernan pointed a finger at Quarry. “I worked Kansas City PD for thirty years, half of that time I was a robbery cop. These days most robbers are goddamn junkies. But these guys were real pros, a throwback to the guys back in the day. You gotta be a pro to stay alive and out of jail for that long.”
Quarry nodded and took another drag off his cigarette.
“They came in on a Sunday night, right? How much did they end up taking?”
McKiernan glanced at Quarry before his eyes darted out across the lounge. He sighed.
“We got a local bank we drop off to, but it’s closed on weekends. They took all the take from Friday and Saturday nights, along with what we had so far on Sunday. Based on receipts we’re talking somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty thousand.”
Quarry let out a low whistle. Fifty grand split for the three men. Or maybe less if there was a silent partner. Even still not a bad haul at all. Hell he was only getting paid twelve grand a body for this job.
“Anybody call out the night of the robbery or act unusual?” he asked.
McKiernan looked Quarry in the eyes and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I’m not going down that road.”
“I just need you to answer the question,” said Quarry. “I’ll form my own conclusions. It’s my job.”
“No, okay,” McKiernan spat. “Or at least not from my back of the house people, the ones who would have helped those fucks get in. Front of the house – the cocktail waitresses and bartenders and cooks – they come and go like nothing. But back of the house, the security people, I hand picked them. They’ve been here at the Barn since I started five years ago. All ex-law enforcement. They know the real people who own this place, the ones you’re working for, and they know double crossing them is the worst decisions they could ever make because it brings fuckers like you out of the woodwork.”
Quarry let the silence between them linger. He actually admired McKiernan’s loyalty. It seemed to be a rare trait these days for any sort of manager or boss to go to bat for their employees. But even still, McKiernan had a job to do.
“Can I please get the names of the security people who worked that night?” he asked. “Along with a full list of all employees, front of the house and back, and their schedules?”
McKiernan glowered at Quarry. He slowly slid off his stool and made his way towards a door on the other side of the room. Quarry knew he couldn’t say no to him. He’d been given explicit instructions by the Outfit boys to let Quarry have full access to the place. The taking his sweet time was as much of a fuck you as he could safely muster. He came back five minutes later with four pages of names and work schedules. Quarry took them and said his thanks. McKiernan stared at him as he looked over the names. Quarry could feel his eyes on him but didn’t bother to look up.
“Were you Army or Marines?” McKiernan finally asked.
Quarry looked up at the older man. He saw a softening around McKiernan’s eyes.
"You carry yourself like ex-military. I know with that fucking long hair and mustache you ain't ex-cop."
“Marine,” Quarry said softly. “Three tours as an STA.”
“Scout sniper,” McKiernan nodded. “Tough work.”
“It was Vietnam,” he replied. “It was all ‘tough work’.”
McKiernan rolled up his right sleeve to show off a USMC tattoo on his forearm. ”I fought the Japs in the Pacific. You know, you boys got a raw deal over there and back home.”
“Yeah,” said Quarry. “Nobody ever spit on me and called me a baby killer… but I’m doing this kind of work now for a reason. Uncle Sam flicked the killer switch, and didn’t really give a damn about turning it off.”
Quarry looked up at McKiernan.
"Is Baldwin where I can find the closest payphone?"
It was a little after two in the morning when Quarry saw Mick McKiernan’s Cadillac pull out of the Barn parking lot and onto the rural route. Quarry finally sat up in the front seat of his car and stretched his back. He started his car and waited thirty seconds before pulling on to the road. McKiernan's Caddy had a half mile head start by the time Quarry started after him.
After getting the list of names of Barn employees, he’d gone into town to find a payphone. Quarry called in some favors from one of the many people inside Broker’s information network. The voice on the other end of the static filled line couldn’t tell him anything about Parker, but when he asked about McKiernan himself he got loads of information. The man had been KCPD for sure, but eight years ago got run out for corruption. That didn’t surprise Quarry. He was sure all the guys at the Barn had been ex-cops formerly on the take. But with McKiernan his scam was charging protection and passage to independent thieves who wished to operate in Kansas City. He’d been fingered by Peter and Baxter Edgemont, two brothers who had paid McKiernan and still gotten arrested.
The scandal that followed was covered in the papers. McKiernan resigned and eventually went to trial, where a deadlock jury couldn't find him guilty or not guilty. That state cut its losses after the mistrial and didn't retry McKiernan again. Quarry asked his source to dig deeper on the two brothers and, sure enough, one article described Pete Edgemont as tall, redheaded, and with a pockmarked face. Bax Edgemont, meanwhile, was short and “rotund.” Quarry was sure the papers had struggled on if they should describe his weasel face or not. So Parker’s two partners were the two men who had ruined McKiernan’s career… and he hadn’t thought to mention that to Quarry? After his phone call, Quarry had gotten a burger for dinner and drove back to the Barn, hiding his car in the now almost full parking lot. He settled in and watched the door and waited. According to the schedules McKiernan would be there until a little after two.
Quarry rounded a corner that came to a long stretch of road. He could see McKiernan’s car still in the distance. Close tails were impossible on these backroads so he had to trust Mick was headed back to Kansas City for the night. If he darted down a side road or took another path while Quarry was out of view then he’d lose him. It took Quarry a few miles to realize they weren’t heading towards Kansas City, but instead further east. He felt his skin prickle at the thought. His info on McKiernan said he lived in Independence, Missouri, just outside KC proper. Where in the hell were they going?
After what felt like thirty miles he saw McKiernan’s car pull down a side road. Quarry killed his lights and slowly drove down the road in the dark. He squinted as he came up on where McKiernan had turned. It looked like a gravel road. In the dark there was no way to tell how far it stretched, but he could just make out a light not too far away. Quarry pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine. He grabbed his pistol out of the glovebox, along with his leather gloves, and quietly got out of his car. He closed the door softly and started down the gravel road.
Even in the darkness he could see some kind of house down the end of the road. There were a few lights, just enough to see the outline of cars that came into view as he approached the house. He could see McKiernan’s caddy parked there along with a burnt orange Ford pickup. He crept up to the pickup and glanced in. He saw a heavy wooden nightstick resting on the pickup’s seat.
He turned towards the house and continued to slowly walk towards it. As he approached he could hear voices, McKiernan’s among them. Crosstalk with a few different people. One of the voices was gruff. That had to be Parker. Quarry got on his stomach and slowly crawled to a window. He slowly lifted his head to look inside.
There was McKiernan along with the Edgemont brothers. McKiernan had one hand on his hip while his other hand gestured towards a coffee table where three duffle bags rested. The two brothers sat on a couch facing the bags while Parker, in all his gruesome glory, stood closest to it while he faced McKiernan and talked, his arms crossed.
Quarry had to figure a way to get inside, take down all four of them, and get away with the money. Maybe it would be as simple as just waiting outside and picking them off one by one? He did have a sniper rifle in the car. He could just camp at a distance and blow them all away. He didn’t see any guns in the room, but the two shotguns McKiernan said the Edgemont brothers used were nowhere to be seen in the pickup. And there was no way in hell guys like McKiernan or Parker did anything without a gun nearby.
“We need to split it up now!” Quarry heard McKiernan say through the windows. “These are serious people we took off and they’ve already sent a guy to find us all out. The sooner we take the money and get out of here the better we’ll be.”
Parker said something Quarry couldn’t make out, but whatever it was it pissed McKiernan off. He started towards the big man. One of the Edgemont brothers shouted something as Quarry looked to his right and saw the two brothers staring at him through the window, Bax pointing with a stubby finger. He saw Parker turn around and look. His eyes, as cold as an icebox in December, fell on Quarry.
And that was when McKiernan pulled his gun and all hell broke loose.
