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  Pretty soon he starting snoring, and that’s when I got to my feet, ducking the metal pipe that cut across the closet, the empty hangers presenting a danger, if I bumped into them and rattled them together. But I didn’t, and the closet door eased open soundlessly and none of my bones creaked either, despite the cramped position they’d been in for two hours, and I started across the room.

  Some moonlight was filtering through the trees and in the window, bathing the room in semi-visibility. He was sleeping on his back, naked, on top of the blankets, possibly because the room was nice and warm from the radiator, or maybe he was still aglow from fucking his teenager.

  Sometimes I think stupidity is contagious. I was so used to Turner doing dumbass things that I forgot he was a professional. An asshole, an idiot, but a professional. Which meant don’t underestimate him. Which meant you had to expect anything could happen. You had to be ready for a snoring man to suddenly whip an arm out at you and knock you over against the wall, and then come diving toward you like a linebacker going for the quarterback.

  He buried his head in my chest and pinned me to the wall and threw some punches into my ribs and stomach and I batted him alongside his head with the Browning, caught some ear and got some blood going, and he stopped pummeling for a second and in that second must’ve realized I had his gun, or anyway a gun, and both his hands went for my gun arm, one hand around my wrist, the other catching me between shoulder and arm, his nails long and cutting the flesh of my wrist, a thumb digging up under into my armpit, and with his two hands he tried for a while to see if he couldn’t convince my right arm to abandon my body.

  But I still had a left hand, and with it I grabbed a handful of wilted, exposed balls and squeezed and squeezed some more and twisted too and he released his grip on my arm and opened his mouth to scream but I put him to sleep with another whap on the head with the Browning before the scream got going.

  He wasn’t out long. He would’ve been, maybe, if I hadn’t kicked him awake when he started in snoring again.

  He looked up at me, hands cupping himself, squinting up in the half-darkness, and said, “Jesus… it’s Quarry.”

  “I thought maybe you’d recognize me,” I said.

  6

  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.

  7

  Wilma was waiting downstairs, at the bar. She looked especially big, poised on the barstool like a magician’s balancing act. She also looked tired and not a little old, the oddly pretty blue eyes barely visible under heavy lids, the rows of chins hanging limp and loose, a cigarette drooping from her mouth like another tired appendage. The bartender, Charley, was putting glasses away nearby. He was bald and friendly looking but a hard-ass old guy who was also bouncer for the place. He and Wilma apparently had a thing, though nothing was ever said about it.

  “About gave up on you,” Wilma said.

  “I talked to him,” I said, taking a stool.

  “And?”

  “He’ll stay away from her.”

  “I think the son of a bitch was with her tonight.”

  “I know he was. But I think it’ll be the last night.”

  “Well. I owe you.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Shit if I don’t. Have Charley pour you one.”

  “No thanks. I’d take coffee, though.”

  “Sure. Charley?”

  He went after some coffee.

  “I do appreciate what you done. That pecker-head looked shifty to me, forty or better and her only sixteen, Jesus.”

  “The guy is shifty. Does he stay in his room most of the time?”

  “Not really. Comes and goes. Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Wilma. Just curious.”

  “Think he might be up to something on the shady side?”

  “Could be. I don’t know.”

  Charley came with a pot of coffee and poured Wilma and me a cup, and went back to wiping the glasses. He hovered nearby, listening, but not participating.

  “Let me give you some advice, Wilma.”

  “Sure.”

  “Stay away from the guy. I got him straightened out, I think. But at the same time keep an eye on him. And if he messes around with your niece anymore, you can let me know and I’ll talk to him again.”

  “You really think he’s some kind of crook or something, is that it?”

  “No, no. But keep your distance from him.”

  “And my eyes open?”

  “That’d be smart, I think.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Stop by for lunch tomorrow. It’ll be on the house.”

  “I just might take you up on that.”

  “You better.”

  “Goodnight, Wilma. Charley.”

  And I went home.

  8

  I went home and considered the things Turner had told me.

  And the more I considered them, the more likely it seemed they were true. I began to believe that Turner really was here on a job, to help rid the world of some porno movie mogul, that Turner’s presence here, a literal stone’s throw from my door, was sheer coincidence.

  But sheer coincidences are something I have always had trouble swallowing. This one was no exception. In my line of work, it pays to be skeptical, even paranoid, especially in the face of anything even vaguely coincidental. Otherwise you may find yourself dead. And death is nature’s way of telling you you fucked up.

  Still, there was reason to believe Turner, and not just because of his convincing performance: Wilma’s descript- ion of Turner coming and going did not fit the pattern of a guy doing stakeout duty. That suppor
ted the notion that the mark was someone other than me.

  I was considering all of this while sitting on the couch in the open loft that looks out on the living room of my A-frame cottage. Downstairs, under the loft, were two more bedrooms, a laundry room and a john. A kitchenette was off to one side of the living room. A modest, comfortable little place, with a beautiful lake at the edge of the front yard. It was a home, a life, worth fighting to keep.

  I was sitting with my nine-millimeter in my hand. The silencer was on. There was, I thought, at least some chance of my having to use the gun sometime tonight.

  If Turner had lied to me, if the real reason he was staying at Wilma’s Welcome Inn was to watch me and set me up for the kill, he and/or his partner would make their attempt tonight, or not at all. Possibly not at all, since I had seen him and talked to him and would be expecting him. And if they didn’t try tonight, the hit would be scratched and they would have to go back to the middleman who gave them the assignment and say that the mark (me) had made Turner, so the game was off. And the middleman would send somebody else, later, to try again.

  If the hit was scratched, Turner would of course expect me to try to follow him home. But I wouldn’t need to do that. I could wait a week or so and then pull Turner’s card from the Broker’s file and go to Turner’s home base and stake him out and wait for him to lead me to whoever his middleman was. From the middleman I could find out who took the contract out on me and do something about it.

  Turner didn’t know about the Broker’s file. It included fifty names, fifty entries, with extensive biographical information, current and past addresses, photos and a listing of specific jobs carried out. The fifty people in Broker’s file were the people who used to work through him. People like me. Like Turner. Killers for hire.

  I’d inherited the file, indirectly, after Broker was killed, earlier that year. I have recorded all of that in some detail, elsewhere, and won’t go into it again here.

  But I should explain what the file had come to mean in my life. The years of working through a middleman-a Broker-had ended in a series of doublecrosses that convinced me I would never put up with such an arrangement again, that I would work for myself, and only myself: my life in my hands… not the Broker’s.