But everyone besides Janet, Castile and me had disappeared to private cubbyholes in the big lodge.
And after we had watched a second movie, a James Cagney gangster opus called Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, which was not directed by Howard Hawks (I asked Castile), Janet said she was getting sleepy and was going to head on up to her room. I gave her a look that told her I’d be up later. She gave me a look that told me she understood my look, and went on up.
“I didn’t know you were a movie buff,” Castile said.
The room was dark, except for the TV screen, which right now was between movies, and a long commercial about getting your car repainted was playing.
“I’m not,” I said. “But I stay up watching them all night sometimes. The box can be hypnotic.”
“It can at that.”
“I wonder if we could skip the next movie, though. I’d really like to take a few minutes and talk to you.”
“More interview material? Can’t that wait till tomorrow. We’ll probably be snowed in all day, plenty of time for that then. There’s another Cagney coming on in a few minutes…”
“This is something else. Something completely different than an article for Oui magazine. It’s something important.”
“Well. Go ahead, then.”
“The telephone isn’t out because of the storm.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I cut the wire.”
“You cut the wire?”
“I cut the wire.”
“What are you…”
“I’m just trying to make a point.”
“Which is?”
“How easy it was I got in here. How quick you’ve been to buy my story.”
“You’re not a writer.”
“No.”
“Who are you, then? You’re not a cop of any kind.”
“No, I’m not. I’m somebody can help you. That’s what I’m here for, really. To help you.”
“That’s funny. You don’t look humanitarian.”
“I’m not. I’d make a profit on this deal, hopefully.”
“This is the most convoluted approach to blackmail I ever heard of
…”
“It’s not blackmail, and it’s not a confidence game or anything like that, either. I’m here to offer you a service.”
“And that service is?”
“A kind of bodyguard, I guess. What would you say… and I know this may sound sort of crazy, but bear with me… what would you say if I told you someone was going to kill you? Not try to kill you.. but kill you. A professional job, bought and paid for. What would you say?”
“Is that what you are? You’re here to kill me?”
His reaction threw me a little: he was taking it so cool… apparently he didn’t believe me, thought I was a nutcase.
I tried to straighten him out.
I said, “If I were here to kill you, you’d be dead now.”
“I see.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Your question…?”
“What would you say if I told you someone was coming here to kill you? Probably tonight?”
And then he surprised me.
He said, “I’d say I believe you.”
21
“I guess we both have some explaining to do,” he said. His smile was natural, for a change; and he looked older, now, less like Andy Hardy and more like the nearly forty his wife said he was.
“Why don’t you start,” I suggested.
“I thought you might say that. Suppose I tell you some of it. And then you can tell me who you really are, and how you’ve come to be here.”
“Fair enough.”
He leaned back in the chair, looked toward the television. The second Cagney movie had begun, a western of some sort, from the 1950s, with Cagney looking heavy and somewhat long-in-the-tooth, and the sound was still on, and it made it a little difficult to hear what Castile was saying. But it was worth the effort.
“Six months ago I received a phone call,” he said. “Three o’clock in the morning, give or take a few minutes. As it happens I was up, working on one of my films, using a Movieola to check on some editing problems… a Movieola is a… well, never mind what it is. That’s not important. What’s important is the phone call.”
He paused. Swallowed. Went on.
“It was a man’s voice, on the other end. Very average sounding. Perhaps a little on the high-pitched order. And there was a tremor in the voice, but it wasn’t nervousness… it was something else. Something else.
“He said, ‘I’m sorry to wake you.’
“I said, ‘You didn’t. I was up already. Who is this?’
“He said, ‘I’m nobody you know. And we’ll never meet.’
“I didn’t know what to make of that. I said, ‘I’m hanging up…’
“He said, ‘Don’t. I have something to say that you’ll find… noteworthy.’
“I said, ‘What is it, then?’ Impatient.
“He said, ‘I killed you this afternoon.’
“And I said, ‘What?’ And then I said I was hanging up again.
“‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s true… I killed you. I arranged to have you killed, I should say. Took a contract out, just like the movies, just like TV. Hitmen. All of that.’
“I was frightened now. There was something in the voice that was.. real. It wasn’t a crank call. It was real. ‘Who is this?’ I said.
“And he laughed at me. I asked again, ‘Who is this?’
“‘My name is Meyers. You’ll see my name in the papers, tomorrow, perhaps.’
“‘I don’t know any Meyers,’ I said.
“‘I’m nobody. But I’m big enough a nobody to get my name in the papers, when I kill myself.’
“I didn’t say anything: I felt like somebody had hit me in the stomach. Hard.
“‘You heard right,’ he said. ‘I’m going to kill myself, tonight. In just a little while. I’ll still be on the phone with you, when I do it.’
“‘Please,’ I said. Not knowing what else to say.
“‘You’ll be dead, too, soon. The men I hired will kill you, one of these days. But you won’t know when. Tomorrow maybe. A week from tomorrow. A year from Christmas. One of these days. You’ll be dead. They’ll kill you. And I’ll be dead. We’ll all be dead.’
“‘Why?’ I asked. Out of breath, hardly getting it out. ‘Who am I to you? What have I done to you?’
“And he said, ‘I’m cutting my wrists now…’ and I heard him make little sounds in his throat; sounds of pain but it was weird, because they were sounds of contentment, too, and he said, ‘I’m bleeding now. I’ll be dead soon. Like you.’”
And Castile sat staring at the television, where Cagney was shouting at a ranch hand, the images on the screen making shadows on Castile’s face, putting emotion on a face that was otherwise a mask, at the moment, though his eyes flickered, moved, with something. Something.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Then he hung up.”
“I see. Was he in the papers, next day?”
“Yes. Boston papers. He was a mob guy. Fairly high-up. In his fifties. Glorified bookkeeper. He’d cut his wrists, all right. Story even said he was found with the phone receiver in his hands… they assumed he’d changed his mind, at the last moment, tried to call for help.”
“And he never said why? He never told you why he hired the contract?”
“No. But I found out. I put some people on it. I have a few connections, myself. My father was involved with mob people, peripherally, and I have some friends in those circles. New Jersey and New York people, but they could find things out for me, about Boston. They found out why the contract was taken out. They also found out it would be impossible to stop what Meyers put in motion. Or damn near impossible.”
“What was the reason, then?”
“For the contract? I’d prefer not to go into that. Not until I’ve heard something from you.”
It was my turn, and since he’d given me what was apparently the truth, I gave him the truth back… somewhat edited, of course.
“I’m here,” I said, “because I followed a man named Turner here. He’s the back-up for the person who’s going to hit you. Try to hit you, at any rate. With my help, you might be able to avoid that.”
Castile thought about that a second.
Then he said, “Where’s this Turner now?”