"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 goddam 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?"
"How do you mean?"
"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.