“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.
26
“Stop screaming,” I said, and Janet stopped screaming.
Harry was on the floor, on his belly, where he’d fallen, arms and legs splayed out, like he was something pinned down for a biology student to dissect. Blood oozed from either side of Harry’s head and made the carpet soggy; it was a puke-yellow shag, and Janet was over by the bed adding another layer. I didn’t bother bending down to check if Harry was dead or not. With his throat cut ear to ear, Harry wasn’t going to be making any miraculous recovery.
Janet had stopped retching, now, and was sitting on the bed, her face turned away from Harry, and from me, as well. Both hands were dug into her hair and she was pulling it, hurting herself, out of some instinct or other, to keep her from going into shock maybe, or perhaps to distract her from what she’d just seen.
A light had gone on out in the hall, shortly after Janet had begun screaming, and now Castile’s wife was in the doorway, in her green terry-cloth robe, her hair in curlers, her face white with some facial treatment. She looked a little worse than Harry.
“My God,” she said, in a small voice, as she touched a large breast with a medium-size hand. “Is that…”
“Harry,” I said.
“What…?”
“His throat’s been slashed. Where’s your husband?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“He heard something.”
“When? Where?”
“We were in bed… he heard something, he said… out in the hall… five minutes ago… ten minutes ago.”
“Shit.”
“He has a gun. He was nervous, went out to see what the noise was
… with the gun…”
“Shit. We have to find him. Where’s that kid Richie? Why didn’t Janet screaming get him out of bed, like it did you?”
“I don’t know. He must still be in his room.”
“Where’s that?”
“Couple doors down.”
“Let’s check on him.”
“I… I don’t…” Her eyes were staring to take on a glazed look.
“You’re coming with me, so snap out of it. You, too, Janet.” Janet was sitting on the bed, weeping. “Listen, Mrs. Castile… Millie.. your husband’s in danger. We all are, but especially him. It’s important we find him.”
She nodded. She was still in the doorway and I was over by the bed, by Janet. Harry was on the floor between. It wasn’t smelling good in there: Harry, like a lot of people, had shit his pants when he died; and then there was the stench from Janet puking.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Janet. She took my hand, and got on her feet, a little wobbly, but on her feet, and she carefully stepped around Harry, like somebody walking through a yard frequented by dogs. She got her jeans and sweater, slipped into them. I’d already made myself decent.
Once we were all in the hallway, Mrs. Castile said, “What about him?” She meant Harry.
“He’ll be fine,” I said, and closed the door.
And with the door closed, both women seemed relieved, but it didn’t last long: Janet soon spotted Waddsworth, doing his Naked and the Dead impression down at the bottom of the central shaft area, which this open hallway overlooked.
This time, however, Janet didn’t scream: she just pointed, her mouth open, but no words coming out, yet.
Mrs. Castile wasn’t reacting at all. Her eyes seemed glazed over again, or maybe she was getting numb. Or maybe she already knew about Waddsworth: maybe Castile hadn’t listened to my advice and had told his wife about Waddsworth’s fall.
“Is he…” Janet said.
“Yes.”
“When did this… happen?”
“Not long after you came down and asked me to come up to bed.”
“But you didn’t say anything…”
“I didn’t want to alarm you. We decided, Castile and I, when it happened, not to go waking everyone up and upsetting them.”
“But I was already awake… and we… we were together… when he was… down there, like that… and you… knew.. ” She shivered and turned away.
“There’s no time for that,” I said. “Waddsworth’s death could be an accident, but not Harry’s. I mean, he didn’t cut himself shaving. Somebody’s in this joint knocking people off, and we’ve got to get hold of ourselves and deal with that. Got me, Janet? Millie?”
Janet, still facing away, consented to nod.
Mrs. Castile said nothing; she just looked blank, remote in her white face and curlers and green robe, like an extra in a science-fiction film.