Which explains why he looked so dismayed when he saw me, I thought, a weight lifting from me.
“And he knows he should probably get out of there before she blows his cover, but she already thinks he’s a—”
“Scoundrel?”
“I was going to say ‘wanker.’ ”
“Scoundrel,” I said firmly, “and besides, he needs her to help him smuggle something in past the guards, like Kevin Kline in French Kiss.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Plus, he’s got some stuff to tell her, so he recruits her to help him, and in the course of their investigations, he convinces her to forgive him, like Olivia de Havilland forgives Errol Flynn and Julia Roberts forgives Nick Nolte and Whoopi Goldberg forgives—”
“Jack. Because that’s what scoundrels’ girlfriends do.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Which is why you should—”
“Shh,” I said.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Kissing scene coming up,” I said, and switched off the penlight.
“The most fun you can have at the movies!”
—moviefone.com
“How long does Lethal Rampage run?” I asked him a considerable time later. “That sounds like Final Scene music to me.”
He raised himself up on one elbow, said, “It is,” and went back to nuzzling my neck.
“But don’t we have to be out of here before it ends?”
“Yeah, but you’re forgetting, it’s a Hollywood Blockbuster. Remember when we saw the reboot of Speed, how we kept thinking it was over and it wasn’t? Or The Return of the King? That had like seven endings. Lethal Rampage has got at least three more climaxes to go.”
“Oh, good,” I murmured, snuggling into his shoulder, but a moment later he sat up, reached for his jacket, pulled a phone out of it, and flipped it open.
“I thought you didn’t have a phone,” I said, sitting up.
“Not one I wanted to get caught with photos on,” he said, looking at its screen. “Change of plans. There’s something I’ve got to go take care of.” He began buttoning his shirt. “Wait till the next explosion and then slip out into the passage and wait for Lethal Rampage to get out. And don’t leave anything behind.”
I nodded.
“When you get out to the lobby, go over to one of the cafés, not the Polar Express, order a drink, text your friends, and then wait at least a few minutes before you try to leave, and you should be fine.”
He pulled me to my feet. “Look, I can’t tweet or call you—it might be traced—so it may be a while before I can get in touch. All I’ve proved so far is that there’s a blocked-off passageway between theaters and some suspicious activity. I still have to prove the movies don’t exist, which I’ll have to do in Hollywood.” He hesitated. “I feel bad about leaving you here like this.”
“But Peter O’Toole left Audrey Hepburn in a closet and Kevin Kline left Meg Ryan in Paris without a passport,” I said, following him down to the far end of the passage. “And now I suppose I’m supposed to say, ‘It’s okay. Go,’ and you kiss me good-bye, and I stand in the doorway like Olivia, looking longingly after you with my tresses blowing in a wind that smells like the sea?”
“Exactly. Except in this case it smells more like rancid popcorn oil,” he said, “and we can’t afford to leave the door open. It lets in too much light. But I can definitely manage the kiss.”
He did. “See?” he said. “You do like scoundrels.”
“I happen to like nice men,” I said. “How are you going to get out of the Drome without security’s catching you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Look, if you get in trouble—”
“I won’t. Go.”
He kissed me again, opened the wall, and went through it, only to appear again almost instantly. “By the way,” he said, “about the geese and the graduating thing. Remember in How to Steal a Million where Peter O’Toole tells Audrey Hepburn he’s not a burglar, that he’s actually a security expert ‘with advanced degrees in art history and chemistry and a diploma, with distinction, from London University in advanced criminology’?”
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me you have an advanced degree from London University?”
“No, Yale. In consumer fraud,” he said and was gone, leaving me to hurriedly gather up all the telltale trash by the less-than-helpful light of my cell-phone screen, get out into the passage, shutting the door soundlessly behind me, and over to the corridor that led to the theater next door, and wait for the movie to let out.
“A movie experience that leaves you wanting more! An enthusiastic thumbs-up!”
—rogerebert.net
He’d been right about Lethal Rampage. It went on for another twenty minutes, giving me time to make sure the door was completely shut with no seams showing, check again for stray popcorn, and then lean against the corridor wall, listening to a whole symphony of crashes, bangs, and explosions before the lights came up, people started trickling out, and I had to somehow merge with them without being noticed.
It was easier than I’d thought. They were all too intent on switching their cell phones back on and complaining about the movie to pay any attention to me.
Lethal Rampage had apparently been just as awful as it had sounded through the wall. “I couldn’t believe how lame the plot was,” a twelve-year-old boy said, and his friend nodded. “I hated the ending.”
Me, too, I thought, wistfully.
I eased in behind them and followed them down the passage, eavesdropping on their conversation so I could talk about the movie in case anybody asked me about it.
Like the ticket-taker, who I still had to get past. I wondered if he’d remember I’d been going to Dragonwar, not Lethal Rampage. Maybe I should go back to Theater 17 and go out with the Dragonwar audience.
But if it had already let out, I’d have to go out past the ticket-taker alone, ensuring he’d notice me. And what if somebody on staff saw me going back and concluded I was sneaking into a second movie? I’d better stick with this crowd.
I stopped just inside the door, loitering by the trash can till a group of high-school kids came by, and then hastily tossed my popcorn sack and Coke cup and attached myself to them. And it was a good thing because there was a cleaning crew lurking just outside the door with their dustpans and garbage bags, and for all their slouching against the wall, waiting for the theater to empty out, they looked unnaturally alert.
I stuck close to the high-schoolers as we passed them, bending over my phone and pretending to text like they were doing and stayed with them as we merged with the audience from Pirates of the Caribbean 9, which had just gotten out.
From the sound of things, Pirates hadn’t been any better than Lethal Rampage, and it occurred to me that I’d had a better time than any of them even though I hadn’t seen a movie.
The conclusion of that thought was swept away by a bunch of people pouring down from the upstairs theaters, and it was all I could do to keep my footing as the whole mass of people surged past the ticket-taker and out into the only-slightly-less-crowded lobby, which I was relieved to see wasn’t full of security guards and blaring sirens. Jack must have gotten safely away.
But just in case he was still in the Drome somewhere, I needed to do what I could to keep them from getting suspicious.
Which meant detaching myself from the high-schoolers and getting in line to get tickets for the next showing of Christmas Caper. If I were still trying to see it, I obviously didn’t know it didn’t exist.