Max Collins: Quarry's cut

It was cold inside the A-frame as well. I built a fire in the conical metal fireplace that took up the far corner and went over to the couch beneath the overhang of the loft and sat.

The stack of girlie magazines (the ones I’d found in Turner’s room) I’d been carrying rolled up and stuck under my arm. I now flopped them onto the coffee table in front of me, and a bare-breasted girl with dark hair and very brief bikini bottoms that didn’t completely conceal more dark hair was grinning at me with considerably more than friendship in mind, below the word Hustler. This was the cover of the magazine on top of half a dozen others, and I started flipping through them, and they were interesting, in a gynecological way, and in one of them I came across an interview with a director of pornographic films.

His name was Jerry Castile.

I glanced at the cover. It was dated May, of this year. Meaning it was the current issue.

I wondered if the story Turner had told me, about his being here to kill Jerry Castile, had been a spur of the moment thing, fabricated out of Turner’s recent memory of having seen this particular article. The page where it began had its upper right corner folded down. Perhaps this was part of Turner’s research into the mark…

What the hell. I’d already looked at all the pictures.

I leaned back and read.

Associate Editor Rick Marshall conducted the following mini-interview with porno director JERRY CASTILE during a lull in the shooting of Castile’s current flick, BLUE MOON. Marshall: Jerry, I think our readers would agree that you’re one of the biggest names in porno today. Like Damian, the Mitchell Brothers and a few others, your films have had not only box office impact but critical acclaim that has helped hardcore skin flicks reach beyond the raincoat-in-the-lap audience, to a younger crowd, including many couples. Now we hear a rumor that you’re planning to leave the field, to direct films for a major studio. Has all the critical acclaim gone to your head? Or have you simply “said it all,” as far as hardcore sex flicks are concerned? Castile: Maybe I had an offer I couldn’t refuse. Seriously, several major studios have made me offers, and in August I’ll be doing a film for American International. Marshall: Then better money lured you away? Castile: Partially. And I’ll have bigger budgets, and can make better, and more varied kinds of movies. Marshall: Does that mean you’re bored or tired of porno movies? Castile: No, but in porno these days, a lot of risks are involved. The Supreme Court ruling, giving locals the power to pass and pursue their own anti-smut laws, has made it rough to stay alive. It costs money to fight those fucking court cases, costs money to stay in business and out of jail. There’s a lot of repression in the air, and I for one find it scary as hell. Marshall: So we can safely assume you won’t be doing porn for any major studio? Castile: Nothing hardcore, certainly. It’ll be R-rated stuff. A hard R, but nothing X, and certainly nothing triple X. Marshall: Does that mean that Blue Moon is your hardcore swan song? Castile: No. I have one other commitment to fulfill. I’ll be going to the Midwest in April, to do a film called Snow Ball. We’ve already done some location shooting, here in the East. The rest of the film will be shot in a ski lodge, a wild place, octagonal building, great for camera angles. Marshall: I didn’t know any major porno was being produced in the Midwest. Aren’t there a lot of hassles involved with shooting porn in that part of the country, particularly in Chicago? Castile: Frankly, yes. It’s very underground. A lot of minor stuff is done there, loops, that sort of thing. Actually, I wouldn’t be shooting a film in the Midwest at all, except that’s where the financing is. And, I was offered that great place to shoot it in, that octagonal ski lodge. Marshall: Who do you have lined up for the film? Castile: We were hoping for Harry Reems, but he’s not going to be available. We’ve got Frankie Waddsworth, and also Candy Floss. Marshall: Is she still in as good a form as she was in Sensuous Esophagus? That bit with her giving head and singing at the same time was remarkable. Castile: We already filmed a scene with her and Waddsworth in a ski lift where she yodels and gives head. Marshall: Versatile girl. Sounds like Snow Ball ought to be a terrific way to bring down the curtain on your hardcore career. Castile: Well, I won’t be going out with a whimper.

The temperature seemed to be dropping by the second, and the initial layer of heavy, wet snow, which I had assumed would melt quickly away, was starting to freeze, and now more snow, lighter snow, the stuff that drifts are made of, was covering it over.

Under normal conditions it would have taken fifteen minutes to get to the Mountain. I was lucky to make it there in half an hour. Even in perfect weather these narrow, winding roads were unkind; today they were downright sadistic. And, of course, visibility was next to nil, though I did have the roads pretty much to myself, as very few others were moronic enough to go out in this.

I was, however, able to see the gate that closed off the driveway that started up the huge hill, disappearing into the thickness of fir trees that covered the slope, one or two thousand trees assembled on the hillside like little men waiting for something, this storm maybe, or maybe the Second Coming. I slowed and stopped and was able to make out the sign on the gate, reading MOUNTAIN LODGE, and then another sign, reading CLOSED, and a third, NO TRESPASSING. The gate was barnwood, and so was the fence that extended from either side of the gate, extending along the frontage of the Mountain Lodge property, down to where some non-fir trees separated the Lodge land from the beginning of the yard of a two-story, somewhat rundown clapboard farmhouse. Both the barnwood fencing, and the old farmhouse, looked rustically attractive in the falling snow, like something Hallmark set up for the front of a card. Only in this case it would have to be April Fool’s.

The farmhouse had a driveway, too, but it wasn’t blocked off by a locked gate. There wasn’t any gate, nor much of anything else, except the obviously deserted farmhouse, its windows Xed with wood slats, its paint beginning to peel, its yard overgrown to such an extent the several inches of snow couldn’t hide the fact.

I pulled into the driveway, which was loose gravel, and drove around behind the house, where the barn was. The barn was red faded to a coppery orange, except for the side facing the highway, and this at one time had been painted into a billboard for some product, but the lettering and the picture below the lettering were obscured by the years, and the snow.

I got out to see if the barn was locked. Snow kept tossing itself in my face, like handfuls of powdered glass, and the wind pushing me around had teeth in it. But I had on a quilted thermal jacket and an arm to put in front of my face and was protected, though it would’ve taken an Eskimo suit to really do the job. The nine-millimeter, with its silencer, was stuck down in my belt; the thermal jacket was short-waisted and if I wanted to I could slip a hand easily up onto the butt of the gun. I wanted to, and did. There was a possibility I might find Turner’s blue-gray Chevy parked inside the barn, and if so, I might be needing the gun. Soon.

The barn was unlocked. I took a look around, and found it warm, comparatively speaking, and obviously still in use: no expensive equipment in view, but plenty of hay. I would’ve been surprised had the barn not been in use: a farmhouse might logically be deserted, but the adjacent land wouldn’t be. Not in this part of the country. This was apparently one of the many small farms that have been swallowed up by larger ones, leaving the farmhouses vacant, although considering the nearness of the Lake Geneva and Twin Lakes vacation centers, the house was probably rented out in summer.