TAPE SEC-13JUL68-IM-4:24PM-149H. THIS WAS a Saturday.
INGRID: So … how is it you are here at this hour? You are not working?
ANDERSON: No. I’m off this weekend. I get every other weekend off.
INGRID: You should have called first. I might have been busy.
ANDERSON: Are you busy?
INGRID: No. I have been doing some mending. You would like a drink?
ANDERSON: I brought some Berliner Weisse and raspberry syrup.
INGRID: You darling! How wonderful! You remembered!
ANDERSON: You have big glasses?
INGRID: I will serve it in big brandy snifters I have. How wonderful! You remembered!
[Lapse of two minutes eighteen seconds.]
INGRID: Here you are. Such a beautiful color. Prosit.
ANDERSON: Prosit.
[Lapse of fourteen seconds.]
INGRID: Ah. So good, so good. Tell me, Duke—how are things with you?
ANDERSON: All right.
INGRID: That meet you had, the last time I spoke to you … that turned out well?
ANDERSON: Yes … Sort of.
INGRID: You are troubled, Schatzie? That is why you came? You want to get out?
ANDERSON: No. But I got to talk. I don’t mean that the way it sounds. I got to talk to you. You’re the smartest one I know. I want your opinion. Your advice.
INGRID: This is a job?
ANDERSON: Yes.
INGRID: I don’t want to know about it.
ANDERSON: Please. I don’t say please very often. I’m saying please to you.
[Lapse of thirteen seconds.]
INGRID: You know, Duke, I have a feeling about you. A very bad feeling.
ANDERSON: What is that?
INGRID: I have this feeling that through you I will meet my death. Just by knowing you and talking to you, I will die before my time.
ANDERSON: Does that scare you?
INGRID: No.
ANDERSON: No. Nothing scares you. Does it make you sad?
INGRID: Perhaps.
ANDERSON: Do you want me to leave?
[Lapse of twenty-two seconds.]
INGRID: What do you want to tell me? Why is this thing so important you need my advice?
ANDERSON: I have this hustle planned. It’s a good one. If I hit, it means a lot of money. A lot of money. If it works out, I can go to Mexico, South America, Europe—anywhere. And live for the rest of my life. I mean, live. I would ask you to come with me. But don’t think about that. Don’t let that influence what you tell me.
INGRID: I won’t, Schatzie. I have heard that before.
ANDERSON: I know, I know. But for this hustle I need money, ready money. To pay people and plan things. You understand?
INGRID: Yes. You want money from me?
ANDERSON: No, I don’t want any money from you.
INGRID: Then the people you will get money from, the people whose cooperation you need—they want something … nein?
ANDERSON: You’re so goddamned smart it scares me.
INGRID: Think of what my life has been. What do they want?
ANDERSON: I have a staff. Five men I can get. But these money people must put their own man in. Okay. This is understandable. I’m a free-lance. It happens all the time with free-lancers. You get permission to operate but they must put their own man in to make sure there’s no cross, so they know definitely what the take is. You understand?
INGRID: Of course. So?
ANDERSON: They want to bring a man in from Detroit. I’ve never met him. I’ve never heard of him. They tell me he’s a pro. They tell me he will take orders from me. I will be the boss of this campaign.
INGRID: So?
ANDERSON: They want me to cut down on him. This is their price. After the hit is finished, I am to burn this man. They won’t tell me why; it isn’t my business. But this is their price.
INGRID: Ah. …
[Lapse of one minute twelve seconds.]
INGRID: They know you. They know you so well. They know if you agree to this, you will do it. Not from fear of what they might do if you didn’t, but because you are John Anderson, and when you say you will do a thing, you will then do it. Am I right?
ANDERSON: I don’t know what they think.
INGRID: You ask me for my advice. I am trying to give it to you. If you say yes, you will then kill this man. Tell me, Schatzie, if you say no, are you then in trouble?
ANDERSON: Not in trouble … no. They won’t kill me. Nothing like that. I’m not worth it. But I couldn’t free-lance anymore. I couldn’t get clearance from them. I could operate, if I wanted to, but it would never be the same again. It would be very bad—penny-ante stuff. I’d have to go back home. I couldn’t operate in this town.
INGRID: Home? Where is home?
ANDERSON: South. Kentucky.
INGRID: And what would you do there?
ANDERSON: Open your robe, will you?
INGRID: Yes. Like this … ?
ANDERSON: Yes. Just let me look at you while I’m talking. Christ, I’ve got to talk.
INGRID: Is this better?
ANDERSON: Yes … better. I don’t know what I’d do. Run some alky. Gas stations maybe. A bank now and then if I could find the right men.
INGRID: That is all you know?
ANDERSON: Yes, goddammit, that’s all I know. Do you think I would become a computer operator in Kentucky, or maybe an insurance salesman?
INGRID: Do not be angry with me, Schatzie.
ANDERSON: I’m not angry with you. I told you, I just want your advice. I’m all fucked up.
INGRID: You killed a man before.
ANDERSON: Yes. But that was in blood. I had to. You understand? He said things.
INGRID: So now it is part of a job. How is it different?
ANDERSON: Shit. You foreigners. You don’t understand.
INGRID: No, I do not.
ANDERSON: This guy I cut kept pecking at me and pecking at me. We had words. Finally I had to put him down or I couldn’t have lived with myself. I had to. I was forced into it.
INGRID: You Americans—you are so strange. You “put a man down,” or you “cut him,” or you “burn him,” or you “put him away” or “take him for a ride.” But you will never say you killed him. Why is that?
ANDERSON: Yes, you’re right. It’s funny. I don’t know why it is. These people who want me to do this thing I told you about, I finally asked the man, “You want me to kill him?” and he finally admitted that was what they wanted. But I could tell from the way he paused and the way he looked that the word “kill” didn’t taste sweet to him. When I was driving for a legger down home we had this old smoke working for us—he could turn out a mighty fine mash—and he said everybody’s got to go—everybody. He said this is the one thing all men are fearful of most, and they invent all kinds of words so as not to say it. And preachers come along and say you’ll be born again, and you grab at the preacher and give him money, though way down deep in your heart you know he’s lying. Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Jew—I don’t care what, they all know nobody’s going to be born again. When you’re dead, man, you’re dead. That’s it. That’s the end. That’s what this old black kept telling me, and boy, was he right. That’s the one thing in all of us—you, me, and everyone else in this world—and we’re scared of dying, or even thinking about it. Look at you there, almost bare-ass naked with your cousy hanging out, and you think that’s going to last forever? Baby, we’re all getting out. Finally. We’re all getting out. Why do you think I keep coming back to you and grabbing at you to get me out? Because you always get me out for a short time, and I always know I’m coming back. And somehow, and don’t ask me how because I can’t explain it or understand it, you get me out for a little while and then I come back, and it makes the big getting-out easier to take. The last getting-out. Like I might come back from that, too. I don’t know. I can’t figure it all—but that’s what I think. I want to get out so I can forget the shit I have to eat every day, but also I want to get out like it’s practice for what’s coming. You know? And this poor, fat, rich East Side bitch I slap around, that’s what she’s looking for, too. Sure, maybe it’s a kick and makes us forget how much crap we wade through every day, but maybe it convinces us that every little time we die—well, then, the big time is no different, and we’ll come back from that, too. Which is a laugh. Isn’t that a laugh, baby?
INGRID: Yes. That is a laugh.
ANDERSON: I didn’t really come here for your advice. I came to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to kill this Parelli guy. I don’t know who he is or what he is or how bad he needs killing. But whether I do it or a bolt of lightning strikes him tomorrow or twenty years from now, it’s going to be done. But I’m going to kill him because maybe I can get a few clean years out of all this. And right now I’m so charged with blood and you sitting there with all your woman hanging out and staring at me, and I can taste the moment when I put that guy down, and what I’m going to do right now is get you out … maybe for the first time in your life.
INGRID: And how are you going to do that?
ANDERSON: I’ll do it. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it. You’ve got all this crazy stuff around for your customers, haven’t you? We’ll do it with that if we have to. But we’ll do it. I’m going to get you out, Ingrid. I swear it. …
INGRID: Yes?