“How do you feel about Charley?”
“I’ve been living with them… Wilma and Charley… for over a year. Since my folks split up. Charley’s been good to me. He’s a nice man.”
“Then help him put his life back together. Help him run that place across the street. For a year or two, and then go about the business of putting your own life together.”
“You’re a funny one.”
“Oh?”
“I think, my aunt was right about you. You come on strong, but you’re not so tough, really.”
“Anything you say. You going to be okay?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you later.”
“Will you? I’m going to see if I can’t get Charley to open for business again, in a day or so. Come in and maybe we can find out each other’s name.”
“Maybe. I probably won’t be in for at least a week, though.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve got some business to attend to.”
Some business named Turner.
11
I’d forgotten the cold, back when I was on the porch talking to Wilma’s niece, but as I walked home a chill wind blew in off the still half-frozen lake and reminded me. I’d been living in southern Wisconsin for four or five years now, and was used to winter extending itself well into what should’ve been spring; still, this was unusual weather: by the time I reached my A-frame I’d seen perhaps a dozen fat flakes of snow fall heavily to the ground, fat wet flakes that hit like bird droppings. Somebody didn’t know it was April.
It was cold inside the A-frame as well. I built a fire in the conical metal fireplace that took up the far corner and went over to the couch beneath the overhang of the loft and sat.
The stack of girlie magazines (the ones I’d found in Turner’s room) I’d been carrying rolled up and stuck under my arm. I now flopped them onto the coffee table in front of me, and a bare-breasted girl with dark hair and very brief bikini bottoms that didn’t completely conceal more dark hair was grinning at me with considerably more than friendship in mind, below the word Hustler. This was the cover of the magazine on top of half a dozen others, and I started flipping through them, and they were interesting, in a gynecological way, and in one of them I came across an interview with a director of pornographic films.
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,
