by Jim Thompson
I climbed up into the booth without saying a word, and the punk didn’t ask me anything. I just took the splicing-knife and the glue pot away from him, tied the film back together, and started the projector rolling again. Then I walked over to him and stood up close. He wasn’t home talent. Any trouble that was made would have to come from him.
“Which way do you want to go out of here?” I said. “Walking or sliding?”
Before he could say what he was getting ready to—that I couldn’t fire him and that if Elizabeth paid him better dough he’d do a better job—I slapped him. I gave him the old cop trick. A slap for taking up my time, a slap for not answering questions, a slap because he couldn’t answer ’em, a slap because it hurt my hand, a slap because he was such a sickening-looking son of a bitch with the blood running out of him. And a dozen good hard ones on general principles.
I shoved fifteen bucks at him, his week’s pay, told him to go out the exit and keep going, and tossed his coat and hat after him. That’s the last I saw of him from that day to this.
When the box office closed and Elizabeth came up, I was still sore enough to tell her what I’d done. The details.
“Do you think that was necessary, Joe?” Her eyebrows went up.
“What the hell can he do?” I said. “He’s too scared to sue, and he doesn’t have any friends or family here.”
“Joe,” she said. “Ah, Joe.”
I drove her home and sat in the kitchen while she made coffee and sandwiches. She’d hardly spoken a word since we’d left the show, and she didn’t say much more until the food was ready. Then she sat down across from me, studying, her chin in her hand.
“How much money have you, Joe?” she said at last.
I told her I had a little over two grand, around twenty-one fifty.
“Well, I haven’t any,” she said. “No more than my operating capital. On top of that I can’t go on much longer without at least a little new equipment, and on top of that there’s a fifteen-hundred-dollar past-due mortgage on this house.”
“I’ll lend you the money,” I said. “You can have anything I’ve got. I’ll get you a decent projectionist, too.”
“For fifteen a week, Joe?” She shook her head. “And I couldn’t take a loan from you. I’d never be able to pay it back.”
“Well—” I hesitated.
“I’m a good ten years older than you are, Joe.”
“So what?” I said. “Look—are we talking about the same thing? Well, then put it this way. I’ll run your machines until we can train some local kid to do a halfway decent job. I’ll get a couple weeks’ vacation and do it. And you can have the money as a gift or you can take it as a loan. Hell, you can’t ever tell when your luck will change. But as far as—”
“Joe, I don’t—”
“—but I’m not buying any women,” I said. “Not you, anyhow.”
She looked at me and her eyes kept getting bigger and blacker, and there were tears in them and yet there was a smile, too, a smile that was like nothing I’d ever seen before or ever got again—from her or anyone else.
“You’re good, Joe,” she said. “I hope you’ll always hold on to that thought. You are good.”
“Aw, hell,” I said. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else. I’m just a bum.”
She shook her head ever so little, and her eyes got deeper and blacker; and she took a deep breath like a swimmer going under water.
“Isn’t it a pity, Joe, that you won’t buy me—when you’re the only person I could possibly sell to?”
I’ve only got a little more to say about us, our marriage, and probably it isn’t necessary.
What smells good in the store may stink in the stew pot. You can’t blame a train for running on tracks. Ten years is a hell of a long time.
So, to get back to the present…
10
When I went downstairs around ten the next morning, Elizabeth was in the living-room and old Andy Taylor was with her. I shook hands and asked Elizabeth why she hadn’t called me.
“I wouldn’t let her,” said Andy. “Just stopped by for a little visit; nothing important. Have a good trip to the city?”
“So-so,” I said.
“How’d you hurt your hand?”
“I cut it on a bottle I was opening,” I said. “It’s nothing serious.”
He’s a sharp old buzzard. A buzzard is just what he looks like, now that I come to think of it. He’s got reddish-gray hair that’s always hanging out from under his hat because he’s too stingy to get it cut, and his nose is like a beak. I’ve never really seen his eyes they’re so far back in his head. And I’ve never seen him in anything but an old broadcloth suit that you could beat from now until doomsday and not get the dust out of. He’s somewhere past sixty. He lives in back of one of his buildings.
“Where’s that hired girl of yours?” he shot out suddenly.
“What?” I said. “You mean Carol? Why, I guess she’s—”
“I let her have a few days off,” said Elizabeth. “The child’s not been anywhere or got to do anything since she’s been here.”
“Saw her down to the bus station. Wondered where she was goin’.”
I laughed and lit a cigarette. “Don’t tell me you didn’t find out.”
“Meanin’ to, but it kind of slipped my mind.” He grinned. He knows that everyone knows how he is, and he doesn’t care. He’s rich enough that he doesn’t have to.
“Believe I’ll take one of your cigarettes,” he said.
I gave him one. Elizabeth excused herself and went out.
Andy sat puffing on his cigarette, puffing on it until I thought he was going to suck it down his throat. He didn’t talk while he smoked. Just kept puffing until there wasn’t anything left to puff.
“Well, what’s on your mind, Andy?” I said, when he had dropped the butt on an ash tray. “Want some passes to the show? I’ll leave them for you at the box office.”
“Thank you, Joe,” he said.
“I guess my customer liability falls due this month,” I said. “I can give you a check now if you want it.”
“Ain’t no hurry, Joe. No hurry at all.”
I started getting fidgety. Waiting isn’t my long suit, and, anyway, I knew what he had on his mind. He’d never given up prodding me about it since it had happened.
“Don’t want to rent me another show for a percentage of the gross, do you?” I asked.
“Well, no. Can’t say as I do.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’m here listening. You can talk when you’re ready.”
“You did give me a raw deal, Joe. Now, you’ll admit that, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Just the kind you’d like to give me.”
“No, I wouldn’t, Joe. I’m pretty tight, maybe, but I never crooked anyone out of a penny yet.”
“I didn’t crook you. I outsmarted you.”
“I wouldn’t brag about it, Joe. It don’t take much brains to outsmart a man who trusts you. There’s another name for that.”
“Hell,” I said, “you brought it up. What do you want to do about it, anyway?”
“I’ll leave it to you, Joe. Twenty-five dollars a month don’t even pay taxes on that building. What do you think you ought to do?”
“Well, I told you before, Andy. I’ll let you out of the lease if you want to remodel the building—change it into something besides a show house.”
“Huh!” he grunted. “An’ what would that cost?”
“Plenty,” I said. “Enough so you couldn’t ever afford to convert back into a show again, no matter what kind of deal was put up to you.”
“That’s your last word, Joe? You’ve made up your mind not to do anything?”
“Not a goddamn thing.” I nodded. “You ought to know that by this time. You don’t need money, so I don’t feel sorry for you. And there’s no way I can be forced to pay you more than twenty-five a month.”
“How about yourself, Joe?”
“Don’t you think you ought to do the right thing for your own sake?”
“You mean so my conscience won’t hurt?” I laughed. “Don’t kid me, Andy.”
“No, that ain’t what I mean.” He scowled and got up. “But I don’t reckon there’s any use talking to you. You mark my word, Joe Wilmot. You better change your ways or—or—”
He turned and stamped out without finishing.
I went into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee.
Elizabeth was having some coffee, too, and I tried to strike up a conversation with her. Because, after all, we had been married for ten years and we didn’t have much time left to spend together.
But she wasn’t having any, and I didn’t care much.
There wasn’t anything girlish about her this morning. She looked plain damned old.
I drove into town yawning, wishing that the whole business was over so I could relax and get some rest.
I fished my mail out of the box office and read it in my car. It was the usual stuff. Confirmation of bookings, advertisements, a copy of the Motion Picture Herald. I put the other stuff in my pocket and opened the Herald.
There was a story in it I was following. Some exhibitor out in the western part of the state had filed suit against the major exchanges to compel them to supply him with pictures. That was two years ago and they were still hearing evidence in the case. My personal opinion was that he’d better turn his house into a shooting-gallery.
You just can’t win against the exchanges. They’ve got too many loopholes on their side. Take substitutions, for example.
Every once in a while I’ll get a picture I didn’t book in place of the one I did. It has to be that way in a business where a highly perishable product has maybe a hundred other buyers.
It happens pretty seldom with me because I stand in well, and I’m an important exhibitor. But if I didn’t and wasn’t—well, see what I mean? I could get substitutes five times out of five. My advertising money would be wasted. My customers would never know for sure what I was showing.
In any small-city house a large part of the patronage comes from the farmers and surrounding villages. I can stand out in front of my house and count people from half a dozen smaller towns. And it’s because I get the pictures ahead of the smaller places.
It’s no more than fair because I’ve got a bigger and better house and I can pay more than the small town—and the exchanges are willing to give me preferred booking. If they weren’t I’d probably have to close up. I’d hate to try to operate with every wide place in the road around me getting pictures before I did. Almost as bad as I’d hate to show in court why I was entitled to pull trade away from another showman.
Jimmie Nedry showed up around eleven, and we went inside. It was Thursday, and our Friday’s product should have been in for screening. But it wasn’t. I called home, and it hadn’t been dropped off there, either.
I put in a call to the city, and got Jiggs Larrimore on the wire. Jiggs is manager of one of the little exchanges. I don’t particularly need him, and he needs me bad.
“I guess there’s been a little mix-up, Joe,” he said. “I’ll tell you what you’d better do. You just hold over the picture you’ve been playing, and we’ll take care of anything extra you have to pay on the option.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Now I’ll tell you what you’d better do. You’d better get that picture here to me and get it here pronto.”
“Now, look, Joe—”
“It’s for my Friday-Saturday show. You know I’ve got to have a Western on Friday and Saturday. The yokels won’t go for anything else.”
“But it’s too late to—”
“Huh-uh. No, it isn’t, Jiggs,” I said. “Craig City’s got that picture advertised for today. They’ve been advertising it here in my home-town paper. You pull their print over to me, Jiggs. It doesn’t make any difference in a town that big whether they play horse opera on the weekend or not.”
“Well, now”—I could hear him gulp—“I don’t believe we can do that, Joe.”
“Why not? Because it’s one of Sol Panzer’s houses?”
“Well. After all—”
“Look,” I said. “How many of those Panzpalace houses are you in? Sol gives you a spot whenever he feels like it, and that ain’t often. I buy the block. You pull that pic over here, Jiggs. You get it here quick. If you don’t I’ll set out every one of your dates and sell you a roll of tickets besides.”
Jiggs sighed. “I hear you talking, Joe. Here it comes.”
I hung up, and turned to Jimmie Nedry. “I guess that’ll show Mr. Big Time Panzer something,” I said. “He’ll do a little thinking before he runs any more ads in this town.”
“Yeah,” said Jimmie. “So what?”
I let it pass, and went on outside. I knew Jimmie was feeling low about his money troubles, and I’d thought it would cheer him up to hear Jiggs Larrimore catch hell. That’s one reason I’d cracked down on Jiggs. But Jimmie didn’t react like he should have. He couldn’t think about anything but his own worries.
The thought flashed through my mind for a second that maybe there was something more to that picture mix-up than Solly Panzer’s trying to pull a fast one on me. And crazy as the idea was it made me shiver to think about it.
It was just one of those things that happen. It couldn’t be anything else. I had the Barclay in a spot that no one could touch and everyone knew it.
Just the same, though, I couldn’t help thinking, Wouldn’t that be hell? Wouldn’t it just be sweet to mix yourself in a murder and then find out that it hadn’t got you anything?
11
I worked my way around the square, shaking hands and slapping backs, and talking about crops and kids until I got to Sim’s Pool Hall. Then I went inside and drank a bottle of beer and bought one for Sim. There were a lot of young bucks in there, and it wasn’t long before most of them were around me. I’d picked up some new stories on film row. After we’d all had a few laughs and they’d bought me a beer or two I moved on again. Well, I did buy a package of mints, first.
About a block down the street I ran into Reverend Connors, the Christian Church minister. I bought a couple of tickets he was selling to a pie sociable, and wrote him out a pass to the show. I knew he wouldn’t use it, and no one else could since I’d put his name on it.
“I’ll tell you what, Reverend,” I said. “If the church ladies would like to set up a table for their stuff in the lobby of the show I’d be glad to have them.”
“Bless you, Brother Wilmot!” he said. “They’ll be delighted to hear that.”
He went away real pleased. I was sort of pleased myself. It would help to draw a crowd, and wherever there’s a crowd there’s business.
A half hour or so later I ran into Jeffery Higginbotham, the high school principal. He and I don’t ever get familiar but we understand each other. He was kind of worried—on my account. The junior class was giving a play next month. They’d picked a Saturday night date to give it. What did I think?
Naturally, I thought it was a hell of a note, but I didn’t say so.
“Why, that’s swell,” I said. “I’ll let you have the show to put it on in.”
“But we couldn’t do that,” he said. “You couldn’t lose your night’s business for us, Mr. Wilmot.”
“I couldn’t afford to, but I would,” I said, “if it wasn’t for sentiment among the town businessmen. You know, a picture show draws a lot of business to a town. I’m afraid they wouldn’t like it if I didn’t run on a Saturday night.”
“No, I don’t suppose they would,” he said. “But—”
“Now, here’s my idea,” I said. “I’ll turn the show over to you after midnight. The kids will love that. You know—having a regular midnight show, big-city style. And you’ll catch a lot of customers you’d miss otherwise. A lot of people that come for the picture will stay to see the play.”
“That’s good reasoning,�
� he said, and his eyes twinkled. “And a lot of people who intend to see the play will come early to see the picture. Or had you thought of that?”
“It never entered my mind,” I said.
We both laughed, and I moved on again. I got back to the show at two o’clock when the matinee was starting.
Mrs. Artie Fletcher, my cashier—yes, and president of the Legion auxiliary—was talking over the telephone with her back half turned to the window. I’ve got a sign on that phone saying No Personal Calls Please, and I’ve given her more than one hint about using it. But it don’t bother her any. I guess she thinks the rules don’t apply to auxiliary women.
I guess they don’t, either.
Several people had to wait around for tickets.
My doorman is Harry Clinkscales, the captain of the high school football team. If I could buy him for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he is I’d retire tomorrow. He’s not even honest like you’d ordinarily expect a big overgrown pie-faced dumbbell to be. I know he knocks down on the popcorn machine, and if I didn’t keep close watch on him he’d pass in a dozen females a day.
I wouldn’t mind if it was just a few.
The day went fast. It was five o’clock before I knew it. I ate supper at the Palace Restaurant, had some pie and coffee at Mike’s Barbecue, and bought some cigarettes at the City Drug.
I suppose that sounds pretty narrow and scheming, that trade-spreading stunt and some of the others I’ve told you about. But when everyone else is the same what choice have you got?
Bower—the guy that used to own the other house—couldn’t be bothered about stuff like that. But look what happened to him. Elizabeth couldn’t be bothered, either, and look at the shape she was in when I first met her.
I didn’t tell you, I guess, but Elizabeth went into the show business in the first place because she knew she wasn’t a mixer and she thought it was one business where she wouldn’t have to be. People would just lay their money down quietly, and pass inside, and that would finish the transaction.
She thought!
At six o’clock I gave Jimmie Nedry a two-hour relief. After that, I went back outside.