An hour passed. Two hours passed. I saw the young kid unlock the door and go inside. About a half hour later, I saw Mr. Charming come to the door. I’m sure he had a key, but he was apparently too lazy to dig it out so he just pressed the buzzer and then waited there for a few seconds, finishing his cigarette. When he finally went inside, I was left there to wait some more, and to start wondering if Clyde C. Wiley would ever show up.
Another hour passed. The sun tried to come out for a few seconds, but the clouds reassembled and then it was a normal Michigan sky again. Cars went by, one by one, kicking up slush. I stayed where I was, feeling like I was slipping into some sort of trance, but always with one eye on the side-view mirror.
Another hour passed. Certainly a mistake, this whole venture. Obviously and completely. No idea what I was thinking of. The man will never show up and I’ll have no clue what to do next.
Then finally, lunchtime. The young kid came out and made his way down the street. The same routine as the day before, go to that same shop, get two sandwiches, go back. I thought it over for all of five seconds and then came to a decision.
Time to switch my tactics here. Do things the Alex way, for better or worse.
I got out of the truck and followed the kid into the shop. As I opened the door, he was standing in front of the counter, looking up at the menu board. A bit of a surprise as you’d figure he had the thing pretty much memorized today, but maybe he was branching out into new sandwiches. Then I saw that the girl from the day before wasn’t behind the counter. Instead it was a man, thirty years older, wearing a big sloppy apron. Which explained why the kid was staring at the menu board today and not at the person making his sandwiches.
I went up and stood right next to him, and only then did he finally look at me. Another second passed before he recognized me and his polite smile disappeared.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“You’re the guy from yesterday. What do you want?”
“I told you. I want to ask you something.”
“I’m just getting sandwiches here, okay?”
“That won’t keep you from answering one question.”
“Just forget it,” he said to the man behind the counter. “I’ll come back later.”
He pushed by me and made for the door. As he was about to open it, I asked him my one question.
“Did you know that lying to a federal agent is an automatic felony?”
A bit of an exaggeration, maybe, but I didn’t have time for subtleties with this kid. He stopped dead in his tracks.
“No questions asked,” I said. “Doesn’t matter why, or where, or whether you’re under oath or not. If a federal agent asks you a question and you knowingly tell him something that you know to be untrue, you are committing a felony and are subject to prosecution and prison time.”
He didn’t look back at me. He put his hand on the door.
“If you walk out that door,” I said, “I can no longer help you.”
He took his hand off the door. His whole body slumped like somebody had just put an eighty pound bag of cement on his shoulders.
“Oh, man,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him.
“Give me five minutes, then I’ll help you. I promise.”
He turned around. I gestured to one of the three booths in the store. He came over and sat down. I slid in across from him. He was wearing a red sweatshirt today, getting closer to actual appropriate attire, at least. It looked like he had shaved since the day before. He almost looked like a nice, respectable kid now-even with the stupid ring through his eyebrow.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Sean.”
“Sean, pleased to meet you. My name is Alex McKnight. I’m a private investigator, and for the past few days I’ve been working directly with the FBI.”
Another exaggeration, but I had to keep him hooked.
“I understand that an agent came to visit you guys. When was that, a couple of days ago now?”
“Yeah, some guy named Davies.”
“What did he ask you?”
The kid looked away and shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”
“It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”
“He talked to CC first.”
“Who’s CC?”
“My grandfather. He doesn’t like me calling him Grandpa or whatever. He says it makes him feel too old.”
“Clyde C. Wiley. CC. I get it. Although I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize you were his grandson.”
“Don’t you see the resemblance?” He sounded disappointed.
“I can’t picture your grandfather in my mind, I’m sorry. But I’m sure the resemblance is there.”
“You should know him,” he said. “He’s one of the best actors who ever lived.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but you were saying… he was actually here when the agent came?”
“Yeah, he was here that day. This agent guy took him into one of the back rooms and asked him some questions. I didn’t know what was going on yet. When he came out, he asked me if he could ask me some questions, too. CC had a real funny look on his face, so I knew something was up. When this FBI guy got me alone, he asked me how much time CC had been spending in the studio. So right away, I figured, uh oh, this isn’t good. The old man’s about to go down again.”
“Go down for what?”
“For the usual. Possession of a controlled substance. Or whatever. Gun charge, maybe. Either way, I had to make a snap call, so I told this guy that CC had been living on the set, then in front of the console, cutting the movie. I got kind of worried because I wasn’t sure this guy was buying it, or hell, I don’t know, if that was even the same story he was getting from CC and my father.”
“Your father…”
“You met him yesterday. Conrad Wiley.”
“CC’s son. Okay, now I’m getting it. It’s a real family business, eh?”
“The last couple of years, yeah. It wasn’t always that way, believe me.”
“Okay, but keep going. You were spinning this little tale for the FBI agent.”
“I panicked, all right? I could see everything going down the tubes. The movie, the whole film company. Everything he came back here to build. After all those years, finally getting back together with his family…”
“You were looking out for your grandfather. Or at least you thought so. I understand.”
“CC means the world to me. No matter what else happens, you’ve got to believe that. Whatever he’s done over the years, he’s the greatest man I ever met.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking maybe that doesn’t say much for your father. Or else you need to get out of town a little more. “So I take it this agent was getting the same message from everybody?”
“Well, yeah, he was. CC told him he was too busy working on the movie to be off doing anything else. My father told him that. I told him that. It’s like we all agreed on the same story, without even having to talk about it beforehand.”
“They didn’t talk to anybody else?”
“Well, when we’re actually shooting, there might be like thirty people around…”
“All in that one building?”
“Coming and going, yeah. Grips and sound guys and pretty much anybody who wants to be a part of making a movie. CC loves having a lot of young people around, giving them something to work on, you know, showing them how to make their own movies someday. He says he’s trying to give people something he never had himself. Anyway, I think the agent said he’d try to track down a few of them, at least.”
“I don’t imagine any of them would be eager to drop a dime on your grandfather,” I said. “But you said those people are only around when you’re shooting?”
“Yeah, since we’ve been in post, it’s pretty much just the three of us now.”
“Okay, I get it. So the agent leaves and all three of you are congratulating yourselves on the snow job.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “It was more like we were all surprised as hell to find out what the agent was really here for. Apparently, some people in the UP ended up getting murdered or something. We were all like, damn, what the hell is that about?”