“Cheer up, Sophie. I promise to get more death movies for you.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah. For Halloween, I’m getting Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.”
Sophie scowled at me and cracked her gum again. I walked away, making a mental note to book Beetlejuice just for her. I’m such a soft touch.
I’d have to decide, based on the weather and how tired I was, whether to change the marquee tonight or come in early tomorrow to do it. It’s not hard work, but it takes time, and you have to stand on a ladder, which I prefer to avoid whenever possible. I’d probably end up leaving it until the sun was out.
Sergeant O’Donnell opened the front door and walked in, surveying the place as if it was his name on the deed. And tonight, for fifty dollars and a ride to the airport, I’d have been happy to turn it over to him. The fight was knocked out of me.
It was worse when I saw that he’d brought Leslie with him. We didn’t look at each other as she followed him in.
He walked right past me and made a beeline for Sophie, who didn’t seem to recognize him (she’d spent most of the night Ansella died and the following day staring at her shoes, possibly in the belief that they held the secret to the real human condition) and was reaching for the roll of tickets under the counter. O’Donnell waved his hand to get her to stop, and I moved toward Sophie. As her employer and a really nosy person, I felt I had every right to listen in on the conversation. Besides, it would get me to the other side of Leslie, where we wouldn’t have to make eye contact. It’s hard being a grown-up. Or so I’m told.
“Miss Beringer, I want to know what you know about Anthony Pagliarulo,” O’Donnell was saying as I approached. Sophie looked up to meet his eyes, but hers were not comprehending.
“You don’t want a ticket?” she asked.
“No, I don’t want a ticket!”
I nudged my way into the conversation with my trademark grace and tact. “Back off, O’Donnell,” I said. “She didn’t recognize you, okay? And keep your voice down. I’ve got a full house in there.” In my world, “full” was a relative term. I was showing off. I’m not sure for whom.
“She’s not cooperating, and I’m tired of getting jerked around.” O’Donnell seemed to be taking the argument to me now, and Sophie, staring as if it were happening on a television screen in front of her, seemed less interested than simply transfixed, watching something really awful, but being unable to change the channel.
Leslie started to say, “Why don’t we take this out—” O’Donnell cut her off with a look that said “I’m in charge.” She stopped talking, and the angry look I would have expected on her face never materialized. This was more one of resignation.
“What makes you think Sophie knows anything about Anthony?” I asked him. It seemed a little late in the game for him to be going all bad cop on us out of the blue.
“Her cell phone records,” he said. “Miss Beringer here has been getting calls from Anthony Pagliarulo’s apartment at least once a day since he supposedly disappeared.”
Well, that didn’t make a lick of sense. I knew Anthony was in Utah, but I couldn’t tell O’Donnell that. If Dutton hadn’t made the information available to the county, I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to do it.
“Sophie?”
She looked up, startled, as if the TV had begun to address her directly. Sophie looked at me, but didn’t say anything.
“Have you heard from Anthony?” I asked.
“You mean, like, today?” Wow. Those iPod ear things must really do something awful to a person’s brain. I’m usually a big fan of Apple products, but there was definitely some erosion going on, and I rarely saw Sophie without those buds hanging out of her ears.
“No. I mean, like, since he left.” Now she had me talking like that. “Since we saw him sleeping in the theatre the day after Mr. Ansella died.”
“Mr. who?” Maybe she was playing dumb. Yeah, that was it. And she was doing a really professional job.
“Mr. Ansella,” O’Donnell seethed. “The guy who croaked in your theatre a few weeks ago.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Sophie took on a sad expression, thinking she was supposed to be sorry Ansella was dead. We all stood there, looking at each other. Finally, O’Donnell couldn’t stand it anymore.
“So?”
“So, what?” Honestly, Lisa Kudrow at the top of her game couldn’t play clueless this well.
“Sophie,” I said in my best fatherly tone, “Sergeant O’Donnell here, the county investigator, says you’ve been getting phone calls on your cell from the phone in Anthony’s apartment.”
“Oh. Yeah.” And what was your question?
“So, you have?”
“Uh-huh. I’m dating one of his roommates. But don’t tell my folks, okay? They don’t like me going out with college guys.” So that was it! That was what she and Anthony had been discussing the night he vanished. Sophie looked from me to O’Donnell, worried only that her parents would be upset with her.
O’Donnell looked suspicious, and frankly, given Sophie’s performance, I couldn’t blame him. “You’re dating one of Pagliarulo’s roommates?” he reiterated.
“Yeah. This guy Danton? Although I’m not sure if that’s his first name or his last. We never talked about it.”
I turned toward O’Donnell. “He does have a roommate named Danton,” I said. “I talked to him a couple of weeks ago. Nice enough kid.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “He has a Harley. Anthony made him come here to watch the movies a few times,” she continued. “I gave him free popcorn, and he asked me out.”
“I talked to Danton,” Leslie said. “Didn’t seem to know anything.”
I gave Sophie a glare. “You gave him free popcorn?”
Sergeant O’Donnell’s eyes might have been rotating in their sockets. “Miss Beringer,” he said, “I think we’re going to have to go somewhere where I can question you a little more privately.”
“I don’t think my folks would like that,” she said.
“I can’t say I’m crazy about it, either,” I told O’Donnell honestly. “Plus, she’s a minor, so you can’t do a thing without her parents’ consent, can you?”
“If you don’t want an obstruction charge hanging over your head, Freed, you’re going to stay out of the way. This is a criminal investigation, and I’m the investigator in charge. Don’t worry, there will be a female officer present every step of the way.”
Something clicked in my head. “Officer Levant?” I asked. Could O’Donnell be involved? Nah. That was too stupid.
Leslie, in fact, looked like she’d rather be anywhere than in a car with Sophie and O’Donnell discussing Anthony’s whereabouts. She looked like she was trying to disappear, and doing a very bad job of it.
“I can’t go,” Sophie said. I think she was trying to fight off tears, as the reality of the situation was starting to set in. “Who’ll sell the popcorn?” Well, reality means different things to different people.
O’Donnell responded by trying to take Sophie’s arm, and she pulled away. “Don’t worry about the popcorn, honey,” he said. “Mr. Freed can handle it.”
“Elliot . . .” she pleaded.
"O’Donnell, I’m not letting this girl out of my sight until you get in touch with her parents. Frankly, I think it’s a little weird that you have to bring her in all of a sudden.” I didn’t really think O’Donnell was a child molester, but I needed something to stall with.
“What do you think, Freed? That I’m a danger to this girl?” He was genuinely offended.
“I’ll be there the whole time, Elliot,” Leslie said, but her voice betrayed her lack of enthusiasm. She coughed. “Mr. Freed.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I told O’Donnell. “You stomp in here in the middle of a showing, after weeks of investigation, and the only thing you can think to do is drag Sophie out of here? You’re really grasping at straws, O’Donnell.”
He looked like he w
as about to remind me of his rank, then settled for, “She’s been getting calls from Pagliarulo’s apartment.”
“And she explained that. Go talk to Danton if you want to check the story out.”
O’Donnell’s face was red. “I don’t need to justify my methods to you, Freed. This girl is a lead to Anthony Pagliarulo. The only way I’m walking out of here without her is if you produce Anthony Pagliarulo right now.”
By the Ritz Brothers and all that is holy, I swear that is the exact moment the front door opened and Anthony walked in.
The four of us—O’Donnell, Leslie, Sophie, and me— stood there absolutely immobile, mouths open, staring straight ahead at him.
Anthony strode in with a sense of purpose I’d never seen in him before, and an expression on his face I honestly can’t say I could remember seeing since I’d met him.
Anger.
“What did you do?” he shouted at me. “What did you do?”
I wasn’t sure what I had done, so I didn’t answer. Anthony walked straight past O’Donnell without giving him a glance, and got so close to me I could tell what he’d had for dinner. Airline food: could have been a corn muffin or chicken dinner; it all smells the same.
“What did you do?”
“Anthony,” I croaked when speech became possible. “What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Freed! I talk to you for two minutes and my funding gets pulled! We had two more days left to shoot! Steve Buscemi’s big scene was coming up! What did you do?”
“Anthony,” I said as calmly as possible. “Do you see who’s here?” I gestured with my eyes toward O’Donnell, but Anthony wasn’t buying.
“Hello, Sophie,” he said, icicles forming on his voice. “Now tell me, Mr. Freed. What . . .”
“Remain silent!” Leslie shouted suddenly, as if calling for one of the Miranda warning’s greatest hits. I stared at her for a moment.
“Anthony Pagliarulo, you are wanted for questioning in association with violations of copyright laws,” O’Donnell said. He produced handcuffs from somewhere under his coat, and grabbed Anthony’s right wrist. It was only at that point that Anthony realized there was another person present in the lobby.
“Wait a minute!” I yelled at him. “Chief Dutton said he wouldn’t be arrested!”
“Chief Dutton isn’t in charge of this investigation,” O’Donnell said, “and Mr. Pagliarulo is not being arrested. I’m taking him in for questioning.”
“Then what are the bracelets for?” I asked, but O’Donnell ignored me and started to read Anthony his rights.
As Anthony was cuffed and Sophie began to cry, O’Donnell continued to recite the Miranda warnings to his prisoner, and eventually, to lead him out the front door. Leslie Levant followed placidly, looking like she was being taken to the principal’s office. I saw a few people walk out of the auditorium, stop dead in their tracks, and stare as the young man was more or less dragged from the lobby. This would probably send tomorrow’s box office skyrocketing. Two movies and live theatre!
And all the way out, Anthony’s gaze never left my face. At least four other times as he was being moved out of the lobby, he said to me, with ever-increasing volume, “What did you do?” Finally, the front door closed, and all I could hear was Sophie sobbing.
It was a damned good question. What did I do?
41
Tragedy is if I cut my finger.
Comedy is if you fall into an open sewer and die.
—Mel Brooks
Some Like It Hot (1959)
and What a Drag! (today)
I no longer lived in a world that made sense, and for a guy like me, that can be a problem. I tried to sort out everything that was going on, but it still ended up a jumble, and I continued to be powerless and frustrated. I hate that.
First, I had to call Michael Pagliarulo and give him the good news/bad news treatment: your son is home and safe but, oh yeah, did I mention he’s under arrest? Just what every dad wants to hear. Would Anthony have thought to call? You only get one phone call—Anthony’s would probably be to his film editor.
Then, I managed to get Sophie back into some semblance of usefulness (although the running black eye makeup made her look a little like a slim, timid Alice Cooper), and get through the final showing of Too Many Kids, which was a blessing in that it was the final showing of Too Many Kids.
I rode home that night. I know I did, because I woke up in my own bed in my town house the next day. I don’t remember a thing about the ride, nor going to bed, nor anything else I did after leaving Comedy Tonight. It was a blur of confused thoughts. Confused thoughts are rarely clear and sharp, you know.
The next morning, I honestly couldn’t think of anything to do. I tried to call Carla, because I knew she was worried, but her phone wasn’t answered. She’d probably completed her exams and gone home.
I even tried calling Marcy Resnick, because I couldn’t call Sharon and wouldn’t call Leslie, but Marcy wasn’t taking my phone calls these days, either. Some guys have a knack with women. Next time I meet one, I’ll ask him for advice.
It occurred to me then that I didn’t know if Anthony was still in custody, so I called Dutton in Midland Heights, but he was out of his office, so I left a voice mail. There was no point in calling O’Donnell. Even if he was in his office, he probably wouldn’t have talked to me. I had been right—since she was only sixteen, O’Donnell couldn’t question Sophie without her parents’ consent. (He was probably just trying to scare her.) But Anthony, three years older, was an adult in the eyes of the law.
A really repetitive, thought-free task was just what I needed to clear my head. So I went into the living room and continued checking Vincent Ansella’s vast comedy collection against the list Amy had given me. I spent three hours that way, and made some progress, but not a tremendous amount. Mostly, sitting on the floor, I succeeded in getting my legs to fall asleep. Ansella had been incredibly thorough, and had apparently spent all his retirement money on DVDs. Just as well.
Since I still had no shelves, but acres of floor space, I began organizing the discs in one area and the tapes in another. When I eventually got shelves, the two formats might not fit in the same space anyway, so it made sense to separate them now. Once I separated them, I could begin organizing by groups and classifications: all Bob Hopes in one section, all Red Skeltons in another, Cary Grants cross-referenced by Katharine Hepburn, who also had to be paired with Spencer Tracy. It became more elaborate as time went on, but it was a system that eventually would make sense to me, since I had invented it.
Each time I took a title out of the box, I crossed it off the list. And each time I started a classification by artist or series (the Pink Panthers were missing, but Blake Edwards was otherwise well represented, and I had A Shot in the Dark in my own collection, anyway), I would search for others that would be compatible, to complete the series and make sure all the titles were there. The Monty Pythons alone—both film and television work was represented— took the better part of an hour.
But all the while, I was concentrating on the murder and the film piracy. I couldn’t let go of them, and I couldn’t solve anything, either. Every answer led to another question, and each question simply turned in a circle and led to nothing.
“What did you do?”
Okay, let’s start with that. What did Anthony mean by that question? Clearly, he thought that something I’d done had led to his source of funding being cut off, shutting down production of his dream project. Why would he think it was my fault? Because it had happened soon after he made his one mistake: reaching out to me on the phone.
So. Did that make sense? Could my talking to him have led to the end of his film? I couldn’t know why his funding was cut off unless I knew the source of the money. Where had Anthony gotten two hundred thousand dollars to make Killin’ Time?
Maybe I was approaching this from the wrong end. If contact with me did cause the money to dry up, what did that tell me about the source of the fun
ding? Did it tell me anything ? How could the people (or person) with the money know Anthony had spoken to me? Was my phone tapped?
His Girl Friday (1940) DVD, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Dir: Howard Hawks, Scr: Charles Lederer.
I filed the disc away (cross-referenced with The Front Page (1931 and 1974), but not with its latest incarnation, Switching Channels (1988)—aside from a dozen or so exceptions, Ansella had not been a huge collector of post-1985 comedy—and considered. Maybe my suspicion of Leslie Levant was unwarranted, and I was a bad person. If I was to assume that the rescinding of Anthony’s funding was a result of his phone call to me, and that the person/people responsible for his money were behind the pirated DVDs— which seemed logical, as that amount of money could have easily been generated through the stash I’d seen in the basement of Comedy Tonight—then did the mysterious threading of the projector have anything to do with the pirated movies?
It was, as Zero Mostel had often noted, a problem that “would cross a rabbi’s eyes.” And then he would chant some strange syllables that were meant to indicate he was an observant Jew. But what did Zero Mostel have to do with the popcorn box recently impaled on my kitchen counter, you might ask?
Good question.
The Frisco Kid (1979), DVD, Gene Wilder, Harrison Ford, Dir: Robert Aldrich, Scr: Michael Elias, Frank Shaw.
Now, here was a dilemma. Where do you put a movie about a Polish rabbi in 1850 going cross-country to get to San Francisco in the company of a bank robber? It’s Gene Wilder, so it might go with The World’s Greatest Lover and The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, but some Gene Wilder is cross-referenced with Mel Brooks, as in The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and . . .
And . . .
I checked the box, and, incredulous, referenced the list Amy Ansella had handed me. Vincent had categorized the films much in the same way I was doing (which was eerie in itself), but his list seemed to be incomplete. Because he’d shelved the videos in the categories he’d listed, and Amy had simply taken them off the shelves and put them in boxes, the cartons I was unpacking generally had a theme to them; some link between the films that made it logical to display them together. It was still necessary, though, to check each title off the list and look for doubles, and, in some cases, Vincent’s filing system and mine didn’t mesh.
Some Like It Hot-Buttered Page 22