We searched the lodge and didn’t find Turner. Of course he could’ve been hiding in somebody’s room, specifically the somebody who was in this with him. But all of the rooms that were supposed to be empty were empty, as was the basement, which was nothing but cement walls and floor and a big furnace.
And so I sent Castile off to bed, to the room he’d moved himself and his wife to, just a few doors down from their old room, which I intended to sleep in. Or rather to not sleep in. To wait in, for Turner and/or somebody else to come dropping in to see Castile.
I had a good idea who that somebody was, too. I hadn’t told Castile, as I always like to keep some information to myself, to stay in control of things; but based upon the description Turner had given, under the gun, of his partner Burden (“Short guy, balding, on the heavy side… late forties, early fifties”), Harry the fat cameraman was it.
I’d thought about going after my nine-millimeter, but had decided against it. It would mean going outside, in the dark, and that would be putting myself on a platter for Turner. And I didn’t want to go waving a gun around in here: I was, after all, a writer for Oui magazine, as far as everybody but Castile was concerned, and it was a cover I didn’t want blown. Now that there had been a death there would be a certain amount of investigation by the sheriff’s office and it would be very difficult for me to fade into the background of that investigation once I’d gone waving an automatic around. So for the time being, the gun stayed hidden out in the tool chest in the shed.
Since I intended staying awake all night, I shouldn’t have any trouble, no matter who came calling. All I had to do was flick on a light before I got mistaken for Castile and killed; it was that simple. If it was Turner, he’d want to find out what the hell I was doing here, before he did anything else; if it was Turner’s partner, which is to say Harry, in all probability, he’d be confused seeing someone besides Castile and wife in that particular room, and while he was confused I could either talk or act.
So there was little immediate danger, which is one reason I decided to keep my commitment to Janet to spend the night with her. It was easier keeping my date with her than explaining my way out of it, and gave me the chance to keep a protective eye on her.
So I changed the sheets on the bed and otherwise made the room look like no one had been using it; Castile and his wife had taken their luggage with them, and that helped. It was my hope that Janet wouldn’t have paid any special attention to which room the Castiles had been sharing and would think this was simply another vacant room in the big lodge, especially since she’d be somewhat groggy from having already been asleep and wakened to move through the darkness of the place under my direction.
And it worked. I went in and woke her and told her to come with me, and led her into what used to be the Castiles’ room and got almost no complaint from her. Almost. She did question me as to why we were moving at all, which I expected her to, since she already had a perfectly good and identical room, as did I, but when I told her I changed because I liked the view, she bought it. There really was a view: the heat in the lodge was working well enough to defrost the windows a bit, and it had stopped snowing out there sometime during my long conversation with Castile, and the temperature was apparently rising somewhat, too.
At any rate, there was a view: the room faced the slope covered with trees, with that winding drive, and the farmhouse at the bottom, over to the left, where I had stowed my car in the barn. Of course I couldn’t see the farmhouse, but I could see something that might have been smoke coming from that direction. Smoke coming from the chimney of the farmhouse?
But I didn’t look at the view. Not for long. I got in the sack and quickly made what must have seemed like passionate love to Janet, but which was in reality the most paranoid sexual act I have committed since masturbating in an unlocked bathroom in my aunt’s house at age thirteen. It’s difficult to screw and look over your shoulder at the same time, but that’s about what the situation was: at any given moment, somebody might be coming through that unlocked door looking to kill Castile, and here I was in Castile’s room, in his bed, screwing instead of paying attention to not getting killed.
Anyway, it made for another memorable lovemaking session with Janet, if not a particularly enjoyable one, though I’m sure she liked it: it was a frenzied enough act to qualify as the sort of rape-with-permission that a lot of women seem to like.
“Oh Jack,” she said, cuddling to me, as I sat in bed, leaning back against the headboard, staring at the doorway in the near dark (I’d left a light on in the john, left the door open a crack). “I didn’t know it could be like this.”
“Me either.”
“I’m sorry I offended you before.”
“Huh?”
“When I accused you of… spying on me… for my father.”
“That’s okay.”
“I really have thought of you. Often. Well. Not often maybe. But I’ve thought of you.”
“I know, Janet.”
“I wish…”
“What?”
“I wish we had a chance to get to know each other better.”
“Janet, there was the three times that night at my place, and then there was this afternoon, and just now… how much better can we get to know each other, anyway?”
“You’re still mad at me. I can tell.”
“No. No I’m not.”
“Well you seem a little edgy.”
“I do at that.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t say things like you said.”
“What things?”
“Implying our relationship isn’t anything but sexual.”
“Oh.’’
“I just don’t think you’re that kind of person.”
“What kind of person is that?”
“Who thinks of a woman… of me… as a mere sex object. The kind of person that this silly film we’re making here is made for.”
“I thought you liked the film.”
“I like working on it. There’s a difference.”
‘‘Oh.”
“I hate the film. But I like working with Castile. He’s a real film-maker, and he’ll go on to better things… much better. I’m just being an opportunist, in trying to get in good with him and maybe work on his next film. The one for American International.”
“I kind of guessed that.”
“You think I’m just a shallow little girl, don’t you? An opportunistic little bitch? Maybe I am just a sex object to you… maybe I am just a… cunt.”
Her voice was trembling and I had a hunch the tears were not far behind, so I touched her face and said, “Don’t say that. It’s not true.”
And that did the trick. Despite the semidarkness, her smile was radiant. She snuggled up to me and said, “You can use me as a sex object, if you like. But someday we’ll get to know each other better. I just know we will.”
Frankly, I wouldn’t have minded that at all. She was flaky, yes, but she was as intelligent as she was pretty and was pleasant to be around. There was something appealing about the combination of career girl and sweet kid, opportunist and innocent, and I wouldn’t have minded spending some time with her some place else but here, in this goddamn lodge, a naked corpse downstairs and at least one killer running around the halls out there.
“Can I tell you the truth about something?” she asked.
“Okay.”
“You’re the first… you know, older guy I ever made it with.”
“Older?”
“Yeah, I know… you’re only, what? Thirty? But that’s still, like, eighty years older than me. I was only twenty when I got out of college, you know. And you’re a friend of my father’s, so… well that had something to do with why I came onto you, that time. I suppose it was something psychological. Like wanting to get back at my father for treating me like a kid-which he still does to this day-and also like a subconscious desire to sleep with my father, too. Which is a subconscious desire on everybody’s part.”
“Not mine.”
“Well, with you it’d be your mother, I guess. You know what I mean. Don’t make fun.”
“What you’re trying to say is I’m like a father to you. When we’re screwing, that is.”
She gave me a playful gouge in the ribs. “You’re mean.”
“And you’re a little crazy.”
Her smile lit the room up some more. “Do you mind?”
I was smiling, too. For real. “No I don’t,” I admitted. “I kind of like it.”
“Do you think we could get together… later?” she said. “After this is over?”
“I think so. But we won’t tell your father.”
“Aw, screw him.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
And she laughed, and I laughed a little, too, and there was a noise at the door.
I turned on the lamp by the bed, wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have gone after my nine-millimeter-after all.
Janet said, “What…?”
The door opened.
It was Harry, all right. Just like I thought it would be.
Only he looked strange. He was still wearing the CUBS sweatshirt, but he had no trousers on, just boxer shorts with a loud pattern. He was holding his throat. Red was seeping between his fingers. His eyes were large. His face was pale. He spread his hands and they were smeared with red, garish red, like Technicolor before it was perfected; and now more red was pouring down onto the CUBS shirt, staining it, soaking it, and he was moving his lips. He was trying to speak. He was having trouble.
His throat was cut.