Quarry Steps Up

In 2004, a young Mexican boy is separated from his mother while attempting to cross the border into the United States. Their betrayal at the hands of Tercero Colina, a shadowy, amoral figure, sets in motion a story of redemption.Three years later, Tony Quarry finds the boy, Primo Estrada, hiding behind his barn. Primo has been under the control of the treacherous Colina since, used as an unpaid agricultural worker.At first Quarry's reluctant to get involved in Primo's plight. He's rebuilt his life in a small North Carolina town after serving a prison term for the accidental death of a college student in a barroom brawl.After defending a local farmer's son against a bullying trucker, Quarry bought an old farmhouse from the grateful farmer, has restored it, and lives there peacefully with his golden retriever. He has risen to a position of respect at his company, and has no desire to get involved in more trouble - especially after meeting Tempestad Ordinario, the attractive social worker assigned to Primo's case.But when Colina - supported by his employer, wealthy local tycoon Jimmy-Jim Granderson - attempts to reclaim Primo, Quarry decides there's no going back and assumes Primo's protection. Granderson becomes enraged when an attempt to secure Primo through the court system fails and inadvertently gives Colina permission to seek redress beyond the law. Colina hires a couple of Salvadoran criminals, Martillo and Clavo Cuña - "the Hammer and the Nail."Confrontations between Quarry and Granderson's hulking older son, Bubba Jim, as well as between Quarry and the Cuñas when they attempt to kidnap Primo, awaken Granderson to the reality of Colina's lies. The growing appreciation for Quarry on the part of Granderson's wife and younger son, Grady, helps the tycoon recalibrate his opinion of Quarry.Assisted by Francis X. "Father Red" Powers, a local priest, and Johnny "Badface" Malacara, a former cellmate whose life Quarry saved while in prison, Quarry battles escalating threats to Primo. At the same time, as a friendship develops between Quarry and Tempestad, the two search for Primo's mother, pursuing her by the thread of a necklace she wove for Primo.Quarry is no superhero. He is more an ordinary man called to cause by extraordinary events (much like George Pelecanos's Lorenzo Brown in Drama City). Heroism emerges in his effort to overcome hesitation, in finding a way to do "the right thing." And to do it, he is willing to use his self-defense ability (karate) to help others in peril.Ultimately, Quarry's forced to draw on all his resources, while risking everything he values, when the Cuñas raise the stakes, culminating in a violent confrontation at Quarry's farmhouse.Quarry Steps Up, with its protagonist, Tony Quarry, is projected as the first in a series. The second story has already been completed in outline and is under revision.