It Happened One Knife (4 page)

Dutton sat down in the projectionist’s chair, which creaked under his weight. I started to wonder why we hadn’t replaced any of the chairs other than those in the auditorium, and then remembered it was because the insurance paid only for actual damages, and not all the improvements I wanted to make in the theatre. Silly insurance.

“It’s a good question,” he said. “Maybe someone thinks they can hold it for ransom. Is the movie any good?”

I made a face. “If you’re a fan of surgery without anesthesia, you’d really love it.”

Dutton winced. “Not exactly
The Sound of Music
, then?”

The Sound of Music
? What the heck kind of cop is this guy?
“No.”

Chief Dutton sat back and closed his eyes. “So we have a crime in which someone broke into the booth, but we don’t know how. Was the door locked?”

“Yes,” I said, “and only Anthony and I have keys.”

“Okay,” he rumbled, eyes still closed. “They broke in without signs of physical damage, and stole what was probably the least valuable thing in the room. Have I got that about right?”

“Yeah. The projector, the equipment, the other films would probably each get more on any kind of black market than Anthony’s movie. In fact . . .” It had just struck me.

Dutton opened his eyes. “In fact, what?” he asked.

“The only person who would have considered that movie the most valuable thing in the room was . . .”

“Mr. Freed!” Anthony was standing in the doorway, leaning on his arms, which were propped up on ninety-degree angles on the jambs. “What did you do?”

I knit my brow, because I didn’t know anything else I could do with my brow. “What did
I
do? What do you mean, what did I do?”

“I know you didn’t like my film,” he said, breathing hard. “But that’s no reason to stand in my way. Why did you steal it?”

3

My Man Godfrey
(1936) and
Butt-ler
(this week)

“SO
Anthony thinks
you
stole his movie?” my father asked.

Driving through the unfamiliar streets of Englewood, New Jersey, Arthur Freed (home redecoration expert—that is, paint and wallpaper retailer—retired) still knew exactly how to cut to the chase and make me feel uncomfortable, even as he scanned street signs for a clue to our location. It was a good hour from my New Brunswick town house and another forty minutes from Dad’s door, in a part of the state I don’t know like the back of my hand.

“He knows I didn’t think it was the next
Dr. Strange-love
, and he knows I’m the only other person with a key to the projection booth,” I said. “Anthony thinks I’m trying to sabotage his budding directorial career because I need him to run my projector.”

“Well, are you?” Dad asked. Parents always think so highly of their children.

It was my own fault that I had to put up with this abuse. I am the last New Jerseyan over the age of seventeen who doesn’t own a car, because I believe in decreasing our use of oil (foreign and domestic) and cutting back on greenhouse gases (except after I have a heavy lunch). So my usual mode of transportation is a bicycle.

Unfortunately, the state of New Jersey is constructed specifically to deter anyone who doesn’t want to drive a car from living here, and there is precious little public transportation between New Brunswick to Englewood that wouldn’t take about a day and a half in the journey. So, as I often do on such occasions, I had prevailed upon one of the many drivers I know to give me a ride.

Sharon was busy with her practice (as if keeping the populace healthy were more important than driving her ex-husband around; really!), so I’d called Dad. When he heard where we were going, and whom we’d be meeting, I’d barely had time to hang up the phone before he showed up at my door. I didn’t come by my love of classic comedians by chance; it’s a genetic thing.

“No, I’m not trying to sabotage Anthony’s career,” I answered him. “I don’t even think Anthony’s going to
have
a career if he drops out of school, but I wouldn’t stand in his way. I’m not his father.”

“I’ve noticed we don’t have grandchildren,” Dad said.

I exhaled. “Let’s stick to one neurosis at a time, okay? Take a right here.”

He pulled the car into the driveway of the Lillian Booth (no relation to John Wilkes, we’re pretty sure) Actors’ Home, set on a hill overlooking a wooded area and seeming quite serene indeed. Dad parked the car at the top of the hill, about ten yards from the front door of the Home.

I’d called the Actors Fund and arranged the visit through the administrator, an astonishingly young man named Walter Lee. Walt, as we’d been instructed to address him, looked to be about twelve on a good day, but assured me he was in his late twenties.

He took us through the Ed Herlihy Foyer (Ed had done a lot of commercials for Kraft Foods in the 1960s, and apparently they paid well), and inside, explaining that there were actually two homes on the premises: “One is an assisted living facility, for residents who don’t have health issues that demand more extensive care, and the other is a nursing home, where we provide more complete health care.”

At the moment, Harry Lillis was one of forty-two residents in assisted living, Walt said. There were sixty-seven others on the nursing home side. While the Home’s residents were predominantly from the New York stage scene, mostly actors, dancers, writers, technicians, and others, anyone who had spent at least twenty years in the entertainment industry was eligible for a room in the Home, when there was an opening.

“Of course, Mr. Lillis is best known for his film work, and he would have been welcome here because of that alone,” Walt said as we walked through a hallway that I believe was dedicated to Colleen Dewhurst. “But he and Mr. Townes also worked on the stage in New York before they started making movies.” It was true; Lillis and Townes had headlined a Broadway revue in 1950 called
You’re Making It Up
.

Dad was a few steps ahead of us, which was interesting, seeing as how he had no idea where he was going. I’d rarely seen him this excited. “Why don’t we step into the dining room?” Walt suggested.

At eleven in the morning, there were barely any people in the dining room, but the only thing that mattered to us was that one of them was Harry Lillis.

Slightly less tall than (his official-studio-bio-inflated) six foot three, Lillis was leaning against a post in the center of the room, and I knew immediately that Vic had been right: with the sun hitting him the right way, from far enough away, and making allowances for hair color, that was the same Harry Lillis I’d seen play Waldo Krunsacker in the classic
Peace and Quiet
(1957).

He was talking to a small woman, who had surely been very attractive in her day, since today she still looked good, and she had to be in her midseventies. She was seated on a sofa facing away from the large-screen television, and laughing at whatever Lillis said.

“That’s Harry Lillis,” my father said, not to anyone in particular.

Walt nodded, and walked to Lillis. He spoke quietly to the legend of my childhood, who looked in our direction. He must have been reminding Lillis that he’d agreed to meet us today. Harry Lillis nodded, and Walt beckoned to Dad and me.

We stood rooted to the spot. So rooted I wouldn’t have been surprised if leaves sprouted from our arms and heads. I couldn’t move, and I knew Dad felt the same way.

After an eternity or two, it was obvious we wouldn’t be able to traverse the fifteen feet to the great man, so Lillis stood up straight and walked toward us. I had now regressed to the age of eight, and he kept getting taller as he approached.

I’m told that some men have a strong reaction when they meet boyhood idols from the ball field or the gridiron. I like to watch a baseball game now and again, but my heroes have always been comedians. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak. Ever again.

However, I was able to move my arms, which I know because I held out a hand for Lillis to take. He didn’t.

“I’m the decrepit old man,” he said. “You’re supposed to walk to
me
.”

Walt, trying to keep the peace, chuckled, as if we didn’t know Lillis would make jokes, likely at our expense. “Now, Mr. Lillis,” he said. “You don’t have any trouble walking, and you know it. It’s good for you.”

“Yeah, so is broccoli, but you’re not going to find me eating that,” Lillis responded. He looked at Dad. “You’re no kid,” he said. “The younger one clearly thinks I live in a television set. What’s your excuse?”

Dad, always more resourceful than I am, had recovered. “I think you live on a movie screen,” he told Lillis. “I’m still awestruck. Mr. Lillis, I’m a big fan.” He stuck out his hand, and Lillis took it.

“It’s a warm day,” Lillis said. “I could use a big fan. I’d prefer an air conditioner, but you’ll do. You got a name?”

Dad grinned and nodded. “Arthur Freed.”

“I thought you did a great job on
Singin’ in the Rain
,” he said.

My father has the same name as a legendary producer of musicals who worked at MGM in the 1940s and 50s, and Lillis probably didn’t expect us to know that. “Thanks,” Dad said. “Although that Debbie Reynolds was a pain in the ass.”

Lillis laughed loudly and put his arm around my father’s shoulder. Together, they looked like the cast of
Laurel and Hardy Celebrate Rosh Hashanah.
Lillis started to lead my father out of the room.

“I understand you want to show some of my pictures in your theatre, Arthur,” he started. “That shows incredibly good taste on your part.”

They were almost to the door, and I was still feeling like my shoes had been nailed to the floor. I couldn’t even turn to face them.

“Not me,” I heard Dad say. “It’s my son who owns the theatre.” He must have turned toward me. “Elliot!”

I gathered all of my strength and I concentrated on moving my legs. Finally, after a disgusting amount of time, I turned and walked to the door of the dining room, where my father was standing with a comedy legend. I stuck out my hand again.

“Mr. Lillis,” I said very slowly. “I’m very honored, and I’m very nervous.”

This time, Lillis took my hand, and spoke softly. “Don’t worry, son,” he said. “You’re right to be.”

“Honored, or nervous?”

“Both.”

We
accompanied Lillis to his room, where Walt said we could have more privacy, and “Mr. Lillis can be more comfortable. ” (Lillis responded, “If I were more comfortable, I’d be living in a place with better carpets.”) Then Walt excused himself, and we sat down. Lillis sat on his bed, of which he said, “A single, damn it,” and Dad and I took the chairs that were next to his desk. For all the world, you would have thought Lillis was living in a dorm room at some slightly upscale college.

“This place is as much fun as a mortuary,” Lillis began, unprompted. “They all sit around all day and tell me about”—and here, he affected an upper-crust accent that would have fooled Thurston Howell III—“
the thea-tah
, and how grand it all was, you know. Nobody from my business, the picture business, no comics, just
ac-tors
. I’m glad to see a couple of guys who appreciate the art of it.” And then, just because he couldn’t resist, “Even if it has to be the two of you.”

“I think you’d appreciate Comedy Tonight,” I told Lillis. I had regained the power of thought during the walk to his room. “I show a classic comedy, and a new one, every week. Laurel and Hardy, W. C. Fields, the Marx Brothers . . .”

“The Marx Brothers were the ones who knew how to do it right,” Lillis said. “They didn’t ask you to feel sorry for them. They did what they wanted, and dared you to say they shouldn’t. You never see comedy like that anymore.”

“You did it,” I told him. “You and Mr. Townes.”

Lillis suddenly affected a very interesting, if hard to identify, expression. His eyes got a little dreamy, but his mouth twisted into a sneer. It was as if he were remembering an unusually happy moment in which he was horribly insulted.

“
Mr. Townes
,” he said, “doesn’t get the respect he deserves. Les wasn’t just a great straight man. He could do the joke. He could fall on the banana peel and land the right way. I got the headlines because I was the goofy-looking Jew and I had all the smart remarks, but Les . . . Les was a genius.”

“I’m told you guys might be making a comeback.” I sent out a trial balloon.

Lillis’s eyes focused in a nanosecond. “Who told you that?”

“Vic Testalone,” I reminded him. “The man who came up to talk about renting some older movies here.”

“Testalone . . . Testalone . . .” Lillis said, trying to place the name. He snapped his fingers. “I got it: Short? Not so thin? Looks like a beach ball smoking a cigar?”

I grinned, and Dad nodded. “That’s him.”

“Yeah, I told him about it. Don’t know why. When you get old, you don’t feel like you have time to keep a secret.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Dad piped up.

“Neither would I,” Lillis agreed.

“The comeback,” I interjected.

“Comeback,” Lillis sneered. “Where was I? Was I away?
I
knew where I was.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Mostly Cleveland,” he said. “I would have said ‘Philadelphia,’ but that had too many syllables for the joke.”

I decided to be more direct, if such a thing was possible. “Are you and Mr. Townes going to make another movie?”

“Another movement?” Lillis feigned horror. “I’ll thank you not to inquire about my bowels, young man.”

“Another
movie
.”

“Ah. A different question, although there are those who think otherwise. Well, we’ve discussed it. I think it could happen.” Lillis was watching my eyes, gauging my interest. He probably saw more interest there than in his bank account, which (contrary to his “more comfortable” remark) was rumored to be quite impressive.