I told him to go sit on the couch and he did. I turned on the lights and he asked me if he could put something on. I said no. I said I had something in common with his girl friends: I liked him better naked.
Actually, he wasn’t much to look at, no matter what sex you were. He was just a narrow-shouldered, skinny man, though he had a spare tire he was working on, and his thick, shaggy head of hair was like a fright wig, his flesh pasty white with occasional dark body hair, and his Nixon-like five o’clock shadow. He looked very worried, and confused, sitting there slump-shouldered, looking up at me like a kid worried about getting grounded by a particularly strict old man.
He waited a long time for me to talk. When I didn’t, he said, “I.. I don’t understand, Quarry. What are you doing here? What’s this all about?”
I went over by the window, leaned against the ledge in front of it, the Browning at my side. I looked out the window, toward my cottage.
“Quarry? Why don’t you say something?”
“Why don’t you?”
“What the fuck you think I been doing?”
“Stalling. Play-acting. Something.”
“Nothing. Nothing like that. I honest to Christ don’t know what this is about. Is it…”
“Is it what?”
“A contract? Somebody took a contract out on me? And… you’re here to fill it? Is… is that it?”
I said nothing.
“Who’d want to kill me? I don’t have an enemy in the world.”
“How about that sixteen-year-old’s aunt?”
“What’s the game, Quarry? I’m not actually supposed to believe you’re morally outraged by me humping some little piece of jail-bait, am I?”
“Am I here making a citizen’s arrest, you mean? No.”
“Then… why… what…?”
I said nothing.
“Jesus, Quarry. I… I mean. I haven’t thought of you in years. I haven’t seen you since that carnival thing.”
I said nothing.
“Are you listening to what I’m saying, Quarry? I am saying I honest to Christ don’t know what this is about. I don’t see you in five years and you show up in my hotel room and tear my fucking nuts half off, Jesus. It’s crazy. You’re crazy.”
“What are you doing here, Turner?”
“What do you mean?”
I said nothing.
“I’m here on business.”
“On what?”
“Business. I’m here on a job.”
“What sort of job.”
“Same. Same as when you and me worked together. What about you, Quarry? I heard you left the business.”
“And here I thought you hadn’t heard about me in five years.”
“I didn’t say that, exactly. I did hear about you.”
“Who from?”
“Guy I work with.”
“Name of?”
“Burden.”
“Don’t think I know him.”
“Short guy, balding, on the heavy side. In his late forties, early fifties.”
“Don’t know him.”
“He doesn’t know you, either.”
“He just tells people about me.”
“We were talking one time, we were talking about people we worked with. Your name come up. He heard about you from some other guy he worked with.”
“Name of?”
“Ash.”
“Ash I know.”
“Sure. You worked with Ash, right after Broker split you and me up, right?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s funny, what happened with the Broker, isn’t it.”
“A stitch.”
“I mean… I heard you was there.”
“I was.”
“Did you, uh, kill him or what?”
“Why not ask Burden?”
“I already did. He said Ash said maybe you killed Broker, maybe not. Probably not, he said.’’
“I was there when Broker bought it.”
“You were there.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger.”
“Oh. Who did? Anybody I know?”
“Kid named Carl. Bodyguard of Broker’s.”
“Don’t know him.”
“You won’t get the pleasure. Him I did kill.”
“Oh. Well. What line you in these days, anyway?”
“I’m the house dick here.”
“Funny. You’re still funny as a crutch, Quarry.”
“Well I’m not naked and stupid, which I admit makes it tougher to get the laughs. But then I have the gun. So I get to ask the questions, now that the small talk is out of the way. Once again. Why are you here?”
“On a job, I said.”
“Tell me about the mark.”
“The mark?”
“It’s a term meaning the poor son of a bitch you’re here to help snuff.”
“You don’t want to know about that.”
“I don’t.”
“You know you don’t. You know that’s something I can’t tell you. You know that better than me, that somebody in our line don’t go around spreading the mark’s name around.”
“Somebody in our line doesn’t fuck teenagers when he’s out on a job, when he’s supposed to be inconspicuously getting his work done.”
“Where do you think I was tonight for three hours? I was working.”
“Be more specific.”
“Quarry, be reasonable!”
“The mark, Turner. Tell me about him. Or her.”
“Him.”
“Okay. Him.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then I’ll ask the inside of your head, after it slides down the wall behind you.”
“You wouldn’t do that. You’re too careful for that kind of thing, Quarry. You don’t go around killing people without…”
“You have five seconds.”
“Bullshit.”
“One.”
“His name is Castile.”
“As in Spain.”
“Yeah. As in Spain. As in Captain from Castile. That’s an old movie you may have seen.”
“I’ve seen it. Tyrone Power’s in it. He’s dead. In a few seconds you can ask him what he thought of the film.”
“What, do you think I’m stalling?”
“Two.”
“Anyway, his name is Jerry Castile.”
“I heard that name some place.”
“Probably have. He makes movies.”
“What kind of movies?”
“The kind you’re thinking. Porno.”
“Go on.”
“He’s up here working on a film. A porno flick.”
“And?”
“And he’s here with some people who are staying at this ski lodge or hunting lodge or something. It’s off in the boonies.”
“How far off?”
“Just a few miles from here, actually. But it’s off the main roads. Back deep in a wooded place. They’re all staying there, cast and crew and everybody. At first they weren’t. They were at the Playboy Club, at Lake Geneva, that hotel or whatever the fuck over there. That was a week ago. Last five days they been at this lodge.”
“And the mark is Jerry Castile.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s not a bad story. Try again.”
“Try again? Quarry, you crazy fucker… you wave that goddamn Browning at me all night and count to five and count to five hundred and I won’t be able to give you any other story, except a lie, Quarry, and what good would that do you?”
The hell of it was I believed him. He simply wasn’t that good an actor, not that good a liar, either, to bluff this way, so thoroughly and so well. I’d been standing by the window, looking now and then toward my A-frame, and not a flicker, not a thing was going on in Turner’s face by way of reaction, and while his life depended on the quality of his acting, I knew from past experience he wasn’t up to this kind of performance. Unless he’d improved a hell of a lot in five years…
“I suppose you have notes,” I said.
“Little notebook in my jacket pocket,” he said.
The jacket was on the couch, nearby.
“Get it out.”
“Really?”
“Go ahead and get it.”
“I mean… aren’t you a little leery about me trying something?”
“Not at all. I’d like it.”
“I think maybe you would, Quarry. Here it is. Should I toss it?”
“No,” I said, and came and got it. I flipped through it, one-handed; the notes were sparse and not particularly thorough, making use of a number system I didn’t quite follow, though it obviously recorded the times of activities carried out by somebody. “I don’t see the name of Castile, anywhere.”
“It’s there. In code.”
“Code.”
“Yeah. He’s in there as ten dash three.”
I looked and saw “10-3” throughout.
“Any special reason for choosing that?”
“J is the tenth letter of the alphabet, C is the third. J.C. Jerry Castile.”
“Or Jesus Christ.”
“Ain’t you heard, Quarry? That sucker’s already dead.”
“Yeah, him and Tyrone Power both. It’s a goddamn epidemic. That’s some code. It’d probably take a Boy Scout a good two minutes to crack.”
“I had to explain it to you, didn’t I?”
“Well that’s true. You have me there. But I seem to have you.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“That’s a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I maybe believe you.”
“About Castile, you mean? Of course you believe me. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
“So what happens now?”
“I’m going to knock you out.”
“Do you have to?”
“You’re going to wake up again. What more do you want?”
“I want to reverse this situation sometime.”
“Maybe you will. Do me one favor.”
“What?”
“Don’t mess around with that little girl anymore.”
“Why? What’s it to you?”
“Boring.”
And I hit him with his Browning, and left the gun in his lap, empty, the clip in my pocket, but the box of slugs still in the dresser.