“Cree Indian,” Quirk said. “Single. No kids. Played football at Cal Wesleyan. Worked as a bouncer. Met Jumbo while he was bouncing in a club in L.A., and Jumbo hired him. Arrested a couple times for simple assault. No other record.”
“Where’d he grow up?” I said.
“Reservation in Montana,” Quirk said.
“He any good?” I said.
“No idea,” Quirk said. “He looks good.”
“He does,” I said. “Rita tells me he was in the living room of a hotel suite while Dawn Lopata was dying in the bedroom.”
“Yep,” Quirk said. “Heard no evil, saw no evil.”
“You believe him?” I said.
Quirk shrugged.
“I assume he’s sat outside a few bedrooms while Jumbo was in there,” Quirk said. “He probably didn’t hear anything he hadn’t heard before.”
“He won’t talk to you,” I said.
“No,” Quirk said.
We sat with our scotch and didn’t say anything. The rain made a quiet chatter on the windowpanes.
“Raining,” Quirk said.
“Yep.”
Quirk’s glass was empty. He held it out to me. I made us two more. And sat and we drank some.
“You gonna talk to him?” Quirk said.
“Yes.”
“How you gonna go about that,” Quirk said. “You go out to Wellesley, and Jumbo will have him throw you out again.”
“Thought I might visit him on the set,” I said.
“While Jumbo’s on camera,” Quirk said.
I nodded.
“Might work,” Quirk said. “Unless Zebulon bounces you on his own.”
“Maybe he can’t,” I said.
“Maybe,” Quirk said.
He tossed back the rest of his scotch, put on his hat and coat, and left.
10
In the morning, after breakfast, I called the Film Bureau and they told me that Jumbo Nelson’s movie was shooting all day today at the Park Street Station on Boston Common.
“What’s the name of the movie?” I said.
“Working title is Oink.”
“Perfect,” I said.
So, showered, shaved, and splashed with a bouquet of aftershave, I put on jeans and sneakers, a gray T-shirt, a .38 revolver, a leather jacket and a tweed scally cap, and headed out to confront Zebulon Sixkill. I was so clean and sweet-smelling that I decided to up my fee.
It was April 2, and it wasn’t raining, but it looked like it would, as I walked across the Public Garden and across Charles Street and through the Common. At the intersection of Park and Tremont Streets, across from the Park Street Church, a block from the State House, the Park Street Station area looked like the staging site for the invasion of Normandy. There were equipment trucks, lights, trailers, honey wagons, mobile homes, a craft-services truck, some cars, extras, grips, best boys, script girls, assistant directors, production assistants, a detail cop, and a mare’s nest of cables. Some spectators had gathered behind the barriers, and as I walked down into that scene, a limousine pulled up onto the corner of Tremont Street, and Jumbo Nelson, dressed like a street person, got out and walked slowly into the subway. A director yelled, “Cut!” Jumbo came back out. Got back into the limo. Shepherded by the detail cop, it backed up out of sight. Somebody held up a clacker board in front of the camera.
“Scene eighteen, take two,” she said.
Somebody else, probably an assistant director, said something that sounded like “Speed?”
“Quiet on the set.”
“Rolling for picture.”
“And action.”
The limo slid into view again as the camera tracked it. The director was looking at a small monitor as it rolled. The car stopped. Jumbo got out. An airplane went past overhead.
“Cut.”
“Scene eighteen, take three.”
Shepherded by the detail cop, the limo backed up out of sight. I’d been around movie sets before. They’d do this all morning. I asked a production assistant with a clipboard where I could find Zebulon Sixkill.
“He’s over there,” she said. “By the camera. He likes to watch the shot in the monitor.”
She had blond streaks in her hair and looked to be about twenty-three. I thanked her and started over.
“Z’s got kind of a short fuse.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said.
I walked over by the camera and stood silently beside Zebulon Sixkill while Jumbo did his walk for the fifth time.
When he disappeared into the subway entrance, the director said, “Cut. It’s a keeper.”
Jumbo came back out.
“For crissake, Vaughn, it was five takes to get a fucking walk?”
“Want to get it right, Jumbo,” the director said.
Jumbo looked at the spectators.
“Fucking directors,” he said, with a lot of projection. “Won’t do one take when five are almost as good.”
A few spectators tittered. The director ignored him. He was already conferring with the first assistant director about the next shot.
“I’m going to craft services,” Jumbo said. “Z?”
Zebulon Sixkill started after Jumbo. I went with him. As he had in Wellesley, he walked carefully, as if the ground was slippery.
“Zebulon?” I said.
He was watching Jumbo, in case some crazed fan jumped out and assaulted him for his autograph.
He said, “Call me Z.”
“Okay, Z, can we talk for a few minutes?”
He looked at me.
“You,” he said.
“Me.”
“What the fuck?” he said.
“Wanted to ask you what happened to Dawn Lopata,” I said.
“Don’t know shit. Now take a walk or I’ll mess you up.”
“You were in the next room when she died,” I said.
Jumbo saw me.
“Z, who you fucking talking to,” he said.
“The asshole I threw out of Wellesley,” Z said.
“So throw him off the set, too,” Jumbo said. “And throw him off hard. I’m sick of him.”
The detail cop was up Tremont Street, dealing with the traffic disruption that the drive up had caused. It was gonna be me and Z.
Z said, “Move it.”
He put both hands on my chest and shoved me. He was strong. I took a step back.
He took me by the lapels with both hands. Up close, he smelled of booze.
Ten-thirty in the morning?
“I told you, move,” he said.
I clamped my left forearm over both his hands, which pinned them to my chest. Then in a sort of leisurely way, I brought my right arm up and back and drove my elbow into his face. He bent backward. I brought the same right hand around and hit him on the right temple with the side of my clenched fist. His knees buckled. I let his hands go and pushed him away. He stumbled back a couple of steps. His head was down, and he shook it as if things weren’t in place. Then he lunged at me. I put out a straight left and he ran into it, and I followed with a right cross that put him down. He was on his hands and knees. Again, he shook his head a little and started to get up. I let him. When he was on his feet, I waited. He rocked a bit, and then came at me again with a wild right hand. I checked the punch with my left hand, blocked it with my right, and slid outside the punch. I kept hold of his arm with my right, holding him at the juncture of hand and wrist so he couldn’t twist loose. I pulled him slightly forward so he was off balance and hit him with three left hooks into his exposed kidney area. He gasped. I jerked him forward hard and he went down, face-first. He stayed there for a minute and then, painfully, he started to get up. I had to give him points for tough.
“Stay down,” I said. “You couldn’t beat me sober, and you got no chance drunk.”
He got himself onto his hands and knees, almost feeling for the ground as he started to inch one leg under him.
“Z,” I said. “So far I’ve just been discouraging you. You keep coming and I’m gonna have to hurt you.”