His name was Jerry Castile.
I glanced at the cover. It was dated May, of this year. Meaning it was the current issue.
I wondered if the story Turner had told me, about his being here to kill Jerry Castile, had been a spur of the moment thing, fabricated out of Turner’s recent memory of having seen this particular article. The page where it began had its upper right corner folded down. Perhaps this was part of Turner’s research into the mark…
What the hell. I’d already looked at all the pictures.
I leaned back and read.
Associate Editor Rick Marshall conducted the following mini-interview with porno director JERRY CASTILE during a lull in the shooting of Castile’s current flick, BLUE MOON. Marshall: Jerry, I think our readers would agree that you’re one of the biggest names in porno today. Like Damian, the Mitchell Brothers and a few others, your films have had not only box office impact but critical acclaim that has helped hardcore skin flicks reach beyond the raincoat-in-the-lap audience, to a younger crowd, including many couples. Now we hear a rumor that you’re planning to leave the field, to direct films for a major studio. Has all the critical acclaim gone to your head? Or have you simply “said it all,” as far as hardcore sex flicks are concerned? Castile: Maybe I had an offer I couldn’t refuse. Seriously, several major studios have made me offers, and in August I’ll be doing a film for American International. Marshall: Then better money lured you away? Castile: Partially. And I’ll have bigger budgets, and can make better, and more varied kinds of movies. Marshall: Does that mean you’re bored or tired of porno movies? Castile: No, but in porno these days, a lot of risks are involved. The Supreme Court ruling, giving locals the power to pass and pursue their own anti-smut laws, has made it rough to stay alive. It costs money to fight those fucking court cases, costs money to stay in business and out of jail. There’s a lot of repression in the air, and I for one find it scary as hell. Marshall: So we can safely assume you won’t be doing porn for any major studio? Castile: Nothing hardcore, certainly. It’ll be R-rated stuff. A hard R, but nothing X, and certainly nothing triple X. Marshall: Does that mean that Blue Moon is your hardcore swan song? Castile: No. I have one other commitment to fulfill. I’ll be going to the Midwest in April, to do a film called Snow Ball. We’ve already done some location shooting, here in the East. The rest of the film will be shot in a ski lodge, a wild place, octagonal building, great for camera angles. Marshall: I didn’t know any major porno was being produced in the Midwest. Aren’t there a lot of hassles involved with shooting porn in that part of the country, particularly in Chicago? Castile: Frankly, yes. It’s very underground. A lot of minor stuff is done there, loops, that sort of thing. Actually, I wouldn’t be shooting a film in the Midwest at all, except that’s where the financing is. And, I was offered that great place to shoot it in, that octagonal ski lodge. Marshall: Who do you have lined up for the film? Castile: We were hoping for Harry Reems, but he’s not going to be available. We’ve got Frankie Waddsworth, and also Candy Floss. Marshall: Is she still in as good a form as she was in Sensuous Esophagus? That bit with her giving head and singing at the same time was remarkable. Castile: We already filmed a scene with her and Waddsworth in a ski lift where she yodels and gives head. Marshall: Versatile girl. Sounds like Snow Ball ought to be a terrific way to bring down the curtain on your hardcore career. Castile: Well, I won’t be going out with a whimper.
12
The temperature seemed to be dropping by the second, and the initial layer of heavy, wet snow, which I had assumed would melt quickly away, was starting to freeze, and now more snow, lighter snow, the stuff that drifts are made of, was covering it over.
Under normal conditions it would have taken fifteen minutes to get to the Mountain. I was lucky to make it there in half an hour. Even in perfect weather these narrow, winding roads were unkind; today they were downright sadistic. And, of course, visibility was next to nil, though I did have the roads pretty much to myself, as very few others were moronic enough to go out in this.
I was, however, able to see the gate that closed off the driveway that started up the huge hill, disappearing into the thickness of fir trees that covered the slope, one or two thousand trees assembled on the hillside like little men waiting for something, this storm maybe, or maybe the Second Coming. I slowed and stopped and was able to make out the sign on the gate, reading MOUNTAIN LODGE, and then another sign, reading CLOSED, and a third, NO TRESPASSING. The gate was barnwood, and so was the fence that extended from either side of the gate, extending along the frontage of the Mountain Lodge property, down to where some non-fir trees separated the Lodge land from the beginning of the yard of a two-story, somewhat rundown clapboard farmhouse. Both the barnwood fencing, and the old farmhouse, looked rustically attractive in the falling snow, like something Hallmark set up for the front of a card. Only in this case it would have to be April Fool’s.
The farmhouse had a driveway, too, but it wasn’t blocked off by a locked gate. There wasn’t any gate, nor much of anything else, except the obviously deserted farmhouse, its windows Xed with wood slats, its paint beginning to peel, its yard overgrown to such an extent the several inches of snow couldn’t hide the fact.
I pulled into the driveway, which was loose gravel, and drove around behind the house, where the barn was. The barn was red faded to a coppery orange, except for the side facing the highway, and this at one time had been painted into a billboard for some product, but the lettering and the picture below the lettering were obscured by the years, and the snow.
I got out to see if the barn was locked. Snow kept tossing itself in my face, like handfuls of powdered glass, and the wind pushing me around had teeth in it. But I had on a quilted thermal jacket and an arm to put in front of my face and was protected, though it would’ve taken an Eskimo suit to really do the job. The nine-millimeter, with its silencer, was stuck down in my belt; the thermal jacket was short-waisted and if I wanted to I could slip a hand easily up onto the butt of the gun. I wanted to, and did. There was a possibility I might find Turner’s blue-gray Chevy parked inside the barn, and if so, I might be needing the gun. Soon.
The barn was unlocked. I took a look around, and found it warm, comparatively speaking, and obviously still in use: no expensive equipment in view, but plenty of hay. I would’ve been surprised had the barn not been in use: a farmhouse might logically be deserted, but the adjacent land wouldn’t be. Not in this part of the country. This was apparently one of the many small farms that have been swallowed up by larger ones, leaving the farmhouses vacant, although considering the nearness of the Lake Geneva and Twin Lakes vacation centers, the house was probably rented out in summer.
And possibly in winter, but not now. Not in the off season, in the spring, if this was spring: any robins in the neighborhood when the storm hit were frozen dinners by now.
Turner’s Chevy wasn’t in the barn. And there wasn’t any indication any other vehicle had been, either, with the possible exception of a tractor or something. I would still need to check inside the house itself, I supposed, but the likelihood of Turner being in there, without his car in here, was slight.
But he would be holed up in one of the farmhouses nearby, that I felt sure of. He wasn’t smart enough to scratch the hit, to get the hell out, which he should’ve realized was necessary last night, the moment I showed up at Wilma’s to hold a gun on him and get him talking. And now that he’d had a fatal confrontation with Wilma, the hit would seem out of the question; but then he should’ve been gone before the scene with Wilma had a chance to happen, but he hadn’t. The fucking jerk.
I knew how he was thinking. His reasoning would be that neither my showing up, nor the unpleasantness with Wilma, had anything directly to do with the hit, so why not go on as planned? All that would be needed was for him to relocate. He had probably already been using a farmhouse around here as a stakeout point; he’d only been using the room at Wilma’s to sleep and bang the niece.
So he’d b
e around.
Me too.
But I did have one nagging thought: suppose Turner was smarter than I gave him credit for. Or somebody in back of Turner was directing his actions and anticipating mine. I’d become convinced that Turner really was in the area to hit Castile, thanks largely to that magazine he’d left behind, with its conveniently dog-eared page cueing me to the Castile interview, which had seemed to confirm the story Turner told me, under the gun.
It had been that article that led me here: the octagonal ski lodge mentioned in the interview as the location of Castile’s new film was obviously Mountain Lodge, a resort that had gone bankrupt before it opened, just a year or so ago. There had been a lot in the press about the place, and anyone living in the area would have to know about it. Of course Turner had given me one misleading piece of information-saying the lodge was “back deep in a wooded place,” which wasn’t entirely accurate-but otherwise I had to ask: had I found my way here, or been led? What if this entire series of events had been planned, and set in motion? What if I were still Turner’s target, as I’d originally thought, and this was some screwball, elaborate way of getting me in the sights of somebody’s sniperscope?
At any rate, here I was: ready to scale the Mountain and make contact with Jerry Castile.
13
The driveway, after making its forty-five degree angle up the tree-studded incline, opened out onto a wide, flat area at the top of the hill, so that when I emerged I was over on the right-hand side of the plateau. So was the lodge, rising in front of me, out of the blinding snow, like a mysterious modernistic silo.
The closer I got, however, the less mysterious the lodge looked, though it was unusual: the vertical barnwood siding, which made the four-story building seem taller, gave it a rustic quality; its eight geometric sides gave it a modern look. The result was an ungainly compromise, at best: a pioneer’s vision of a skyscraper; a barn designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
It had taken me fifteen minutes to get to this point, fifteen slow, cold minutes, walking into snow that was travelling much faster than I was, as I followed the steep, slick pathway the driveway provided, picking myself up after falling on the cement, and then picking myself up again, and finally deciding to walk on the ground alongside, between driveway and trees, instead.
And now I was at the crest of the hill, and seemed to be in a parking lot, the general shape of which was apparent, despite the snow-obscured landscape, thanks to the two sets of half a dozen streetlights that faced each other on either side of an area in front of the lodge, where three cars, their backs humped with snow, were parked. The lot could’ve handled perhaps several hundred cars, and these three made a small, strange assembly: an ash-gray Plymouth, a yellow Maverick and a silver-gray Mercedes.
Off to the far right of the parking lot was a small building, sort of a shed with aspirations (it too had vertical barnwood siding). A panel truck was parked alongside the shed. The panel truck was an indecisive blue-green color, with a splotch of red on the side where some lettering had been painted out.
No one in the lodge seemed to have noticed me approaching. Even if they’d been watching for me, I’d have been hard to make out in the heavy, blowing snow. All eight sides of the lodge had, on each floor, large quadruple windows, the center pair apparently sliding glass doors, opening onto shallow, unobtrusive balconies; this gave each room an attractive view, what with trees to the rear and ski slope to the fore, and that much anyway had been intelligent planning on the part of the architect. And right now all of those windows, at least those facing me, which was three and a half walls worth, had curtains closed. There was no reason to think anybody knew I was here.
Which was good, because I had some things to do.
I found the shed unlocked, and inside I found, covered by khaki canvas tarps, a snowmobile and a snow plow, the latter no larger than the former, being basically a little garden tractor with a plow stuck on the front. You’ve probably seen a snowmobile before, but if not, it’s a small open scooter, treads in back, skis in front. Both vehicles had pull starts, plastic handles on ropes, just like a power mower; and with both vehicles the motor could be reached by lifting the seat. I did, and used a small wrench I found in the shed, among various other tools in a trunk-like chest, and removed a pair of sparkplugs from both motors. That made four sparkplugs in all, and these I hid in a jar full of nails sitting high on a shelf in the shed. I put the tarps back over the snowmobile and plow. I hid my nine-millimeter and silencer down deep among the tools in the chest. As I did that, I noticed some wire-cutters and took them out. I looked on the several shelves in the shed and found a healthy roll of electrical tape. I dropped the roll of tape and the wire-cutters into a jacket pocket, where I’d already stowed a screwdriver.
It was warm in the shed, or anyway warmer than outside. Back at the A-frame, when I had dressed for the occasion, it had still been April, remember. The thermal jacket was doing a good job, but I hadn’t expected the storm to increase in intensity this way, nor for the temperature to have this nervous breakdown. The cold had been beginning to get to me; my hands were getting numb, and my face was starting to get that weird, hot feeling that precedes frostbite, my earlobes especially. I had some other things to do, out in the cold, so I looked around and came onto a second, smaller chest of tools, garden tools; down among them were some gardening gloves. I put them on.
I left the shed, and headed out into the parking lot. The streetlights were unlit, and the curtains in the lodge windows remained closed, and I felt invisible. I had about fifteen or twenty minutes of work to do; perhaps a little less, if I hurried, and didn’t let the snow slow me. One by one I lifted the hoods of the cars. Under each hood I used the screwdriver to undo the clip latches on the distributer cap and pull the rotor off the distributer. It’s a small thing, a rotor, a few inches long. But it’s a good trick to make a car run without one; and, once removed, it’s a good trick to figure out that that’s why a car isn’t working… that is, if the distributer cap has been put back in place, which of course I did in each instance.
I did the same thing on the panel truck, and slipped back in the shed and hid the rotors in the chest of garden tools.
It took me five minutes to find where the phone line went into the lodge. I went all around the building looking for the thing, and then ended up about where I began, near the parking lot, not far from the shed. Coaxial cable rose from the ground and entered a wall of the lodge, just above the cement of the foundation, into a little junction box. I hoped the ground wasn’t frozen, because I needed to yank the cable out a ways. I yanked, and yanked some more, and it finally pulled out a few inches. I cut it way down next to the ground, then put tape over both snipped ends, and taped them back together so that a casual glance, or even a less than casual tug, might not reveal that the black cable had been cut, and shoved the cable back into the ground and shaped snow around it a little, so it wouldn’t looked messed with. I probably needn’t have bothered: my footsteps had been following me in the snow, but more snow was coming down and the wind blowing it all around anyway, so in fifteen minutes all the tracks would be erased and/or covered.
The wire-cutters and tape and each glove I tossed, one at a time, over toward the shed. The snow would cover them, too.
I was getting cold again.
Time to go in.
14
The snow and wind were ganging up on me behind my back and there was nowhere to hide: I was on a porch of sorts, a landing, but it was very much open-air. I’d found several ways in, but this was obviously the main entrance-big double doors facing the parking lot-and I knocked on one of the twin slabs of thick dark wood and it drank up the sound and I knocked again, harder this time, hard enough for my knuckles to feel it, which considering how numb they were from the cold was pretty hard.
I didn’t have long to wait.
My insistent knocking got me an almost immediate answer: the door opened a crack and a sliver of face peeked out at me, in annoyance,
or maybe fear. Maybe both. In the sliver of face was an eye, a large round slightly bloodshot eye. Above the eye was a scraggly pale blond eyebrow. Also in the sliver of face was a piece of lip. Above the piece of lip I could see a piece of mustache. Scraggly pale blond mustache.
“We’re busy in here,” he said.
It sounded silly to me then, and it sounds silly to me now, but that’s what he said.
“We’re freezing out here,” I said.
“We?” he said.
“The editorial ‘we,’” I said. “And I can turn that into a pun, if you want to spell it o-u-i.”
“What?”
“I’m with Oui magazine. They sent me here to do a piece on the film you’re shooting.”
“What?”
“Some people at Lake Geneva, at the Playboy Club, called the office and said somebody ought to come over and do a piece on the fuck film you’re shooting. I’m the some- body they sent.”
“It’s snowing.”
“Out here it’s snowing. It’s probably nice weather, in where you are.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Look, can I come in? It wasn’t snowing when I left Chica- go, can I help it I got caught in this shit? Let me in. It’s cold.”
“Freeze your nuts off, smart ass. See if I give a shit.”
“Are you Castile? You aren’t Castile. Get Castile.”
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