Audie Ryan, still a little nervous, poured himself a finger of bourbon and offered it to Earl.
'I gave it up soon after the war,' said Earl.
'I should give it up. But if I don't, I see Germans,' Audie said, downing the brown fluid and quickly replenishing it.
'I still see the Japs everywhere.'
'It never goes away, does it?'
'No, it doesn't. And everybody forgets.'
'What I hate most of all is, they think they want to know about it.
And they ask about it. But it turns out they really don't want to know about it. What they want to do is tell you about it. They know more'n you.'
'I get that, too. It does grow heavy on the shoulder.'
'This town is the worst. This picture business was probably a mistake, but since I can't hardly read, and these people think I'm a cutie pie, I guess it's what I'm stuck doing. It's a stinking business, though.
Everybody lies, everybody just wants to git ahead, they'll do any damn thing. New York people run everything, and they talk so fast you can't hardly understand them. But you get along with them or you don't work.
And so much waiting. I may get a big picture made by John Huston. You ever hear of him, Sarge?'
'Can't say I have.'
'Maybe it's that other one, John Ford. Always get them two mixed up, which could hurt me bad. Whichever, it's a war picture. But the Civil War, based on some old book. Of course, they can't really show a war.
They make it all pretty and heroic.'
'That it sure wasn't.'
'So anyhow, don't suppose you care much about the picture business, Sarge, do you?'
'The truth is, it seems silly. A man who's done what you've done, out here with these showy people.'
'The truth is, it is silly. The truth is, I am sick to death of it all right, but stuck to it forever, I suppose. So if you have something to propose, I am all ears. I need a vacation from my vacation.'
'Well, Major Ryan '
'Audie. Everybody calls me Audie. The Mexican boys who fill up the tank on my MG call me Audie.'
'Audie, then. Well, Audie, can't say why you'd say yes to this here thing. It may be sillier than the picture shows. It may even get you killed, and it don't make no sense at all. I don't even know why I'm doing it, except somehow something's got to be set right and nobody nohow no way is interested in doing it. It's gun work, maybe heavy, and you and I both know that you can do everything right and take no chances at all in that game, and still some little piece of metal's going to bounce off a doorknob and park between your eyes.'
'I do. Meanwhile, some guy who never takes cover doesn't get a scratch.'
'That's it.'
'Well, at least I could git some sleep then. You have trouble sleeping, Sarge?'
'Every goddamned night. First year I's back, I almost blowed a hole in my head. Held the gun up to it, pulled the trigger, and the gun went snap. I'd forgotten to jack a shell into the chamber. Never forgot that in my life since, so I guess my number wasn't up that day.'
'I think about it every goddamn night. A few drinks, get the fancy Peacemaker out that Colt's gave me when I toured the plant one time, spin the cylinder a few times, and then at least I wouldn't think about Lattie and Joe and what happened to them. I'd be with them. So go on, tell me.' Earl told him. Told it all, start to finish, up to whom he'd recruited and who he still meant to see, how it would be done, when it would be done.
'Old men,' Audie noted.
'Allof'em'ceptyou.'
'lean see why.'
'That's right. Don't care to see any more young fellows die. These boys have all laid with their women and had their kids and written their articles and gotten ever last thing to be got out of life. If they pass, so be it. But it would a shame if you did.' 'Ah, well,' said Audie.
'They can all shoot, so they don't have to be trained. I can't waste no time on training. But I need one other fellow who's been in action, and who won't panic if we run into heavy automatic fire. They need to look and see someone cool and collected. I also need someone fast as I have it figured out. Who can get from place to place as needed. I can get each boy where he's supposed to be and get him started, but if it gets heavy at some place, I need someone sharp to bounce over there fast.'
Audie poured himself another drink.
'As I said,' Earl went on, 'you'd be a fool to do this. You can stay in this town and make these pictures and lay with all these starlet gals and be the toast of America. Have a house with a pool, a fancy sports car, wear them expensive boots. Don't know why you'd risk that.'
A faraway look played over Audie's delicate features. He sat back beneath a buck's princely head, in his grown-up cowboy outfit, and his eyes focused on something not there. Earl knew where he was. Back in the little ruined towns and the snowy fields, up the heartbreaking, backbreaking ridges and hills, fording the cold, cold rivers, sleeping in mud and shit, hunting men in gray who hunted back.
'Oh, boy,' he finally said, 'it sure beats waiting around for some New York fellow to call you and say you got the picture.'
'Maybe at least it'll give you some new nightmares,' said Earl.
'Hey, I like that,' said Audie. 'Sarge, you know. Yep, sign me up. I need new nightmares to replace the old ones.' but that wasn't Earl's only stop in Los Angeles. He had one more, a brick warehouse building back over the low rims of hills in a part of town near to, but not officially part of, Hollywood. The cabbie dropped him and volunteered to stay, because he knew Earl'd never find another one in this godforsaken patch of nowhere. Earl thanked the guy, and said he didn't think it would take too long.
In he stepped, to air-conditioning, and to a grim foyer of a greenish unpleasant place, where a girl was behind a desk, and behind her many men in ties but not coats worked phones hard. Earl had called ahead; he was expected.
'Mr. Swagger?'
'That's it.'
His fellow was his own age, with the beaten look of too many disappointments. Thinning hair, glasses, no tan, grubby fingernails from a lot of ballpoint work.
Earl sat at his desk in the bull pen.
'Now I can make you quite a deal. You've hit it just right.'
'That's what I understand.'
'The studios have switched over to newer stock. Modern stuff, easier to care for, no disintegration.'
'I see.'
'So right now there's a glut of the old stuff. Our market is usually TV stations who'll run this stuff for kids, fill out their programming.
They call them old-time movies. Ever hear of Johnny Coons, Uncle Johnny, in Chicago? That's all he does, and he banks a fortune.'
'No, sir.'
'You're from the South.'
'Yes, sir. My people would like old-time cowboy pictures, is my belief.
None of this new stuff. They don't care about new stars. They want the old.'
'Well, sir, I can put a package together for you, probably for under a thousand? Is that the budget area you're looking for? I'm not sure how much your chain has to spend.'
'I was thinking more like half that.'
'Five. I can work with five. I'll throw some extra in, because I like you.'
'You're a fine man.'
'Not really. Okay, let's see, I think I could do Hoppy. Lots of Hoppy.
Hoppy's still big in the South, I'd bet. Hoppy's moving to TV and so nobody's going to pay to see him on- screen when they can see him on the television. You like Hoppy? Hoppy Sees a Ghost. Hoppy and the Riders of the Purple Sage. Hoppy and the Indians. Hoppy and the Mystery of the Bar X Ranch.'
