It Happened One Knife (31 page)

“Oh, Elliot, honestly,” Sharon said. “You’re being ridiculous. ”

“Am I?” I asked. “Am I really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I am being ridiculous. You didn’t have access to the projection booth when the film went missing a second time. You wouldn’t put yourself at risk over something that was between a young man and his parents. You’re much too good a person to dash his hopes and inflict your will over his. I should have realized that, and I’m sorry.”

Her eyes softened a little bit, and she smiled. “Apology accepted,” Sharon said. “But I don’t understand. That means none of the people you invited stole the film, unless Chief Dutton is a suspect.”

Dutton looked at me, amused.

“No, he’s not,” I told her. “This wasn’t so much about naming a thief as it was about returning Anthony’s property to him.” I walked to the console, dropped down into a crouch, and moved the plywood panel out of the way, having removed the screws before I’d gone outside to do the marquee. “I think some of us underestimated him, and he should be given the chance to make his own decision.”

I reached into the storage compartment and in a moment, pulled out a film can marked
Killin’ Time
. Then another. I stood up, and offered them to Anthony.

His mouth dropped open. He grabbed at the film cans and pulled them to his chest. “Mr. Freed,” he said quietly. “You
did
take the film, after all.”

“No,” I said. “It was an even bigger softie than me.” And I took a few steps toward the door, where Vic Testalone was standing. “Go ahead,” I said to Vic. “Tell him.”

Vic had an unlit cigar in his mouth, and it was drooping. “Oh, all right,” he said. “It was me. I hid the film. But it wasn’t to steal it. I just wanted to make sure it was someplace safe.”

“You actually listened to me that night,” I guessed. “You didn’t want to be responsible for Anthony making a rash decision, so when I was talking to Sharon, you grabbed the key from my office, then came up here and stashed the film cans in the storage compartment. You’d been up here enough times to know it was there.”

“Yeah, but you couldn’t have known,” Vic replied. “If you’d seen me coming up or going down, you wouldn’t have waited all this time to get the movie back.”

“I didn’t know,” I told him. “It wasn’t until Chief Dutton asked me who was here every time the film disappeared that it struck me.
You
were here each time the film ‘moved’ somewhere, and the second time the movie vanished, you’d just been up here with Anthony. Coincidence? I think not. Were you planning on giving it back to him?”

Anthony, Carla hanging off his arm, looked overwhelmed. Sharon seemed engrossed in the drama taking place in front of her. Sophie was looking away, bored and disgusted with life. Jonathan stared at his sandals, and Danton, having run out of women to impress, was inching toward the door.

“I
was
going to say I’d have a copy made, and then produce the original, so you wouldn’t know it was me,” Vic said. “But the kid hadn’t used digital video, and the idea of striking another print from the negative was too far-fetched. I would have just held out the two weeks you asked me for and then made the movie appear again. Who knew you were going to call in the cops?”

“And then today, when I was talking to Anthony and Sophie, you snuck back up here to put the film back. You had the time; I made sure of it. You really wanted to do right by Anthony, didn’t you, Vic?” I asked.

Vic looked directly at Chief Dutton. “I never meant for it to go this far,” he said. “I just didn’t want to back off the deal, and then have Anthony cash in with somebody else. If I told the Monitor guys they couldn’t have the movie because the kid couldn’t decide, they’d back off. But if I told them it had been stolen, now they’re more interested. See how that works?”

I turned in Dutton’s direction. Danton had shrugged and left the booth, and Sophie and Jonathan went to sit on the balcony steps outside the booth door. “Chief,” I said, “if I drop the complaint of burglary in my theatre, and the film was never really stolen, has a crime been committed?”

Dutton scratched his head a bit, and sat down on the only available chair in the room. “Only one against logic,” he said. “But I don’t see a reason to file unless Anthony wants to. The film is his property.”

We all turned toward Anthony. His eyes widened a little. “Is the meeting with Monitor Films still available, Mr. Testalone?” he asked.

Vic grinned. “Yeah, kid. I can set it up for early next week.”

Anthony looked at Dutton. “I don’t think a crime has been committed, Chief,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Anthony, thread up the clip reel, and then get the spotlights in order.” He set about the task, but kept the cans of
Killin’ Time
where he could see, and if necessary, touch them.

We all started for the door, a relief from the closeness of the crowded room. Sharon walked out just in front of me, and gave me a smile I’d seen only three days before. It was welcome.

We were just passing Sophie and Jonathan on the stairs when I said, “Come on. We’ve got work to do. People will be here in a little while for a funeral.”

“Memorial service,” Sophie said as she stood.

41

BEFORE
the funeral home delivered the casket containing the body of our fallen comedian to the theatre, I had to make sure the stage was set properly. I had Anthony close the curtains in front of the screen, although during the service they would open for the screening of some of Lillis and Townes’s best bits. (Luckily, just such a reel had been compiled for a television retrospective in 1989, and Vic had managed to track down a copy.)

As I stood there, surveying the empty house, I wondered if I had the nerve to pull this event off. There might be a little danger involved; although I’d taken precautions, nothing is foolproof. Take it from the fool himself.

But I was distracted by the sight, far away through the auditorium doors, of Sophie and Danton having a heated conversation. He put his hand on her arm, and she shook it free. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was clear that Sophie was not pleased.

I stepped down off the stage and headed out of the auditorium into the lobby. But by the time I got there, Danton had dropped his arms, shook his head, and walked out the front doors onto the street. Sophie stood alone, in the middle of the lobby, watching after him, and as I drew near, she turned back toward the snack bar.

She was smiling broadly.

“Now it all makes sense,” I said when I reached her. “Until this moment, I’d forgotten that you and Danton were an item a few months ago.”

Sophie’s amusement was palpable. “An
item
?” she asked.

“What do you call it? ‘Hooking up’?”

She made a face as if I’d squirted lemon juice into her mouth. “We never really hooked up,” she said. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am.”

“Let me see if I can guess, based on what I know about you and what I know about Danton. You went out for a while, then he found some other girl he decided to chase, and he told you it was over. How am I doing so far?”

“A typical male behavior pattern,” Sophie said. “Attract, conquer, and then move on to a newer breeding ground.”

“Don’t generalize. We’re not all like that. Anyway, his dumping you” (Sophie grimaced at the term) “led to your rejection of all things male, and you started reading up on feminism. It makes sense, if you don’t take it as an antimale manifesto, because that’s not how it was meant to be read.”

“You’re oversimplifying,” Sophie told me. “A man broke my heart, so I immediately turned against all men? Now who’s generalizing?”

“For weeks I’ve been getting nothing but ‘men are pigs’ from you, and I’m supposed to think it’s more complicated than that?” I asked.

“Maybe I was a little mad,” she grinned winningly.

I grinned back. “Get back to work,” I said, and returned to the auditorium.

THE
hearse arrived at about four, and some very nice and very strong men wheeled the casket in through the rear entrance and up onto the stage. Only then did it occur to me that we could have done the same thing with Harry Lillis on the night he came to the theatre in his wheelchair. Opportunity lost.

A half hour later, the press started showing up. The
Press-Tribune
and the
Star-Ledger
each sent a reporter and a photographer, as did the
Record
and even the
New York Daily News
. Two New York television stations sent crews, and so did one from Philadelphia, as did the local cable access stations. I did a few quick interviews with the print reporters first, because I used to be a writer, and then gave as much time as I could to the TV people, who weren’t really that interested in me or Comedy Tonight, but thought they could use my comments as cut-ins between shots of the service.

After the interviews, I changed into the suit I’d brought from home (let the TV people see me in jeans). Sharon opened the office door just as I was putting on the tie.

“You know, you should knock on a door,” I said. “I could have had my pants off.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Sharon answered. “This week, in fact.” She saw the trouble I was having with the tie (the bottom part is always too long), and walked over to help.

“What about that?” I asked.

Her eyes widened. “What about it? It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“You know what I mean.”

Her smiled dimmed, and she nodded. “Yes, I do. And I don’t know. We got up the next morning, and we were the same two people who got divorced. What does that tell us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we need more time to sort it out.”

“I think so,” she said. “I’ll see you out there.” She finished with my tie, and of course it was perfect.

Before she reached the door, I said, “Shar,” and she stopped.

I looked at her. “Sit in the front where I can see you.”

Sharon smiled, and nodded.

At a quarter to five, we started letting people in. The crowd was fairly large, especially considering that there had been very little time to publicize the service. From the wings, I noticed Leo Munson, of course, sitting with his captain’s hat in the center of the theatre, and Sharon in the front row, center. Right where I wanted her. My father sat down next to her and patted her on the knee.

The crowd tended toward the not-so-young, of course. A minivan of people from the Booth Actors’ Home, including Marion Borello, had arrived, and were seated by a group of attendants who weren’t Mitchell/Darius. One tall gentleman with a bushy white moustache that made him look like a grandfather walrus wandered in on his own, looked around as if deciding if he’d ever been to this place before, and eventually took a seat near the back. He closed his eyes and seemed to doze off quickly.

Because of the short notice, not many of Lillis’s contemporaries could make it to the service. But I spotted two limousines in front of the theatre before we’d opened the doors, and now, Sid Caesar and Joan Rivers were being seated by a teenage boy in a black shirt, black jeans, and open-toed sandals with black socks. I was awed and humiliated at the same time.

The auditorium was at least two-thirds full (although we had not opened the balcony) when I walked out onstage at about five ten. It made me wish we could have charged admission, and then I was immediately ashamed of the thought. The casket was center stage, with a large photo of Lillis that I’d gotten Vic to bring from Klassic Komedy’s archives on an easel. The TV lights came on.

There was, naturally, no applause.

“Good afternoon, and thank you for coming,” I began. Yes, it was a solemn occasion, and I was more than a little nervous, but my first thought on reaching the podium was—and I’m not proud of this—
Sid Caesar is watching
me!
“Welcome to the memorial service for a true legend of comedy and a remarkable man, Harry Lillis. First of all, please forgive us for the short notice we’ve given you. I realize it was very difficult for some of you to get here so quickly, but it couldn’t be helped, I assure you.”

The man with the bushy moustache got up and wobbled out the back door, probably in search of the men’s room. Or maybe he was already bored. I saw him head in one direction, then the other. He ended up going the wrong way, toward the balcony stairs. I hoped Jonathan would notice and help him get where he was going.

“I’d like to begin by reading some telegrams that have arrived from some of Mr. Lillis’s friends and peers who could not be with us today.” The interesting thing is that these days, telegrams come via e-mail. Western Union won’t come to your door anymore. I read telegrams from Jerry Lewis, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and Edie Adams. The ones from Brooks and Reiner, especially, got the laughs they intended (I couldn’t duplicate Lewis’s delivery or Adams’s legs), while also expressing sadness at Lillis’s passing.

After that, I signaled to Anthony. The curtains opened, and the lights dimmed. Anthony started the projector, and a fifteen-minute smorgasbord of Lillis and Townes’s clips began on the screen.

I couldn’t watch.

I went back into the wings, where a chair was waiting, and sat, head in my hands, eyes closed. The idea of seeing the scenes with those two tremendous comedians was just too much for me on this occasion. I listened to the people in the auditorium laugh, and did my best not to think about what they were watching, or what would come next. It was all I could do not to put my fingers in my ears and say “la la la la la la la” until it was time to walk out again.

When the montage finally ended, there was loud applause in the auditorium. Anthony put the lights back on, and shone a spotlight at the podium. I knew I had to walk back out there. But I wasn’t sure I could do what would come next.

“I’d like to say just a few quick words, and then we’ll ask some people who knew Mr. Lillis for a long time to come up and express their thoughts,” I started. “I only knew them in person for a short while, but Harry Lillis and Les Townes were my lifelong friends. Harry brought me joy when almost no one else could lift me out of a dark mood. He surprised me over and over, even when I’d seen him in the same film a hundred times. Les reached out from that screen and pulled me along with him, wherever he decided to go. And it was always a wonderful ride.”