is going to bring in maybe ten grand. Ten grand for a little reel of fuckin’ film! It boggles the mind. So I was a middleman for the things, and one of them somehow got seen by this guy Meyers. It was the film that was getting the most attention, of the five or six I handled. Going for something like twelve grand a shot. That was because all the other films had Mexican girls in it. This one had an American. You know how those films go, don’t you? They’re regular porno loops. Except different. The girl thinks she’s just there for the regular sex stuff, sucking, fucking, but then after the sex stuff, right at the climax, the guy, and maybe some other guys who come in the room, takes a razor or something and kills the girl. Really kills her. On film. It’s something. In some of ’em they dismember the girl. It’s something.”
“Something,” I said.
“Well this guy Meyers, he sees the one with the American girl in it, and he’s outraged and he uses his own mob connections to track down the source of the film, and I’m the source, and so he puts the contract out on me.”
“The girl in the film?” I said.
“Yeah,” Castile said, the images from the TV wavering across his face, “you’re right. Just my luck. Meyers’s daughter.”
23
We talked about a number of things after that. One of them was money: I told him how I wanted to be paid- one thousand now, the rest later-and he liked that, liked the idea of not having to pay any more than that up front, since it showed I had faith in my ability to keep my end of the bargain, to keep him alive so that I would eventually get the rest of the money. I explained that while the later payments should be cash, the first thousand needed to be a check (it’s necessary for me to report some income to the IRS each year) and went into other details about how the check was to be handled, which I won’t go into here.
Another thing we discussed was what he’d been doing to protect himself.
“I’m carrying a gun,” he explained.
“Where?” I asked. Even in the dim light cast by the TV screen, it was apparent he wasn’t concealing a weapon in an outfit that still consisted of a sweatshirt with the word DIRECTOR on it and jeans, same as he’d been wearing when we met hours before.
“It’s in my suitcase,” he said, sheepishly. “I know what you’re thinking… lot of good it’s doing me there. I can see it now, me saying, ‘Excuse me, while I go get my gun out of my suitcase.’”
“Not at all. You can’t go around with a gun on you while you’re working on the film set. You wouldn’t need it, anyway.”
“Are you armed?”
“I left my gun outside.”
“Shouldn’t you get it?”
“Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”
“How can you know that?”
“Hey, I been through this with you before, Castile. Pay attention: we’re snowbound here, and unless Turner and his partner want to kill everybody in the place, you should be safe. And I can’t see Turner or any pro doing that.”
“He could sneak in during the night and then leave.”
“Then we’d be snowbound with a corpse and we’d all have to stick around while the authorities looked into it.”
“Why would that matter to this Turner?”
“Because he’d be leaving his partner behind. As a suspect. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take precautions. Turner’s an idiot, and he might try to fake your death to look like an accident or something.”
“Jesus. What can we do?”
“Wait a minute…”
“What…?”
Footsteps were echoing in the nearby open shaft area, and I put my hand up to silence Castile.
“Jack…?” The voice was Janet’s.
She was wearing a robe, a thin flowered robe that obscured her good figure, and she didn’t have her glasses on; she looked sleepy, as if she’d just woke up. Or somebody woke her up.
“Can I talk to you a moment, Jack?”
“Sure. Excuse me, Castile.”
I took Janet by the arm and walked her into the adjacent room, another living room area, where we stood in the darkness and spoke.
“I’m afraid,” she said.
“What?”
“Afraid. I don’t know why, exactly. I just woke up and was afraid.”
“What woke you?”
“I thought I heard voices.”
“Castile and I were talking.”
“I don’t think you’re what I heard. I know, I know, I’m only one level up from here, and the rooms are sort of open… but I don’t think you’re who I heard. The sound came from above.”
“Are some of the others sleeping on the upper floors?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s what it was. Somebody upstairs from you, talking.”
“Maybe I dreamed it. It sounded like… arguing.”
“Maybe it was. Harry and Richie and Waddsworth have a little triangle going, I understand.”
“I’ve noticed. So it was them, maybe.”
“Maybe. Probably.”
“Fine, but I’m scared. I woke up alone and was scared, that’s all. I expected you to be there. You said you’d be coming up.”
“It’s only been an hour or so since you went up, kiddo. I’ll be up soon.”
“Okay. I’m sorry to be a baby.” She gave me a kiss. A nice one. Just a little bit of tongue, this time, teasing.
“I’ll be up,” I said.
She touched me.
“You’re up now,” she said.
“You’re not scared, you’re just horny.”
“Maybe that’s it,” she said, and I could sense, if not entirely see in the unlit room, her pretty smile.
“Shoo,” I said.
She let go of my hand, slowly, and drifted reluctantly off, disappearing into the dark.
I rejoined Castile.
“What was that all about?” he said.
“She was just wondering when I was going to come up.”
“I see. Is there any possibility…”
“That she isn’t the sweet child she seems to be? Sure. I told you before: there are women in Turner’s business.”
“You don’t think she’s been listening or anything…”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”
“Are you sleeping with her tonight?”
“I’ll be in the same bed. I’m not going to be getting any more sleep tonight than you, though. Where’s your room, anyway?”
“Not near Janet’s. It’s on the third floor.”
