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This is what family is for, Ed! This is when ya come together! |
Yeah. |
Close ranks! Goddamnit! Those sons of bitches! |
Frank, uh, you know I'll try to contribute, but, uhFreddy Riedenschneider |
I don't care what it costs! This is when ya come together! |
That's very generous. |
The hell with it, Eddie! |
They're just people like you and me, Ed. Remember that. |
Uhhuh. |
Just people. They gotta put up the big front so that people will trust them with their money. This is why the big lobby, Ed. But they put their pants on one leg at a time. Just like you and me. |
Uhhuh. |
They too use the toilet, Ed. In spite of appearances. And their money will be secured by the barbershop. A rock. A *rock*, the barbershop. I mean, how long has *this* place been here? |
...Did you make that up? |
Oh, no. That was written by Mr Ludwig van Beethoven. |
That was quite something. |
He wrote some beautiful piano sonatas. |
That was something. I'm Ed Crane. |
I know who you are, Mr Crane. |
...I'm Rachel Abundas. Everyone calls me Birdy. |
Sorry, I just didn't remember. |
...Huh? |
Haven't I seen you up in ladies' wear? |
I don't work here. My wife does. |
Uhhuh. Some beat, huh? |
Yeah. |
Check out the rack on that broad in the angora. |
Uhhuh. |
Thanks. Thanks for seeing me, at home. |
Oh, hell. Drink? |
No thanks. |
Sure you don't need one? |
I'm fine. |
OK. Boy. Jesus! |
Yeah. What do I, uh... |
Well, of course, I, uh, it's out of my league, criminal stuff. I do, uh, probate, real estate, title search, uh... I'd be absolutely worthless, something like this. Absolutely worthless. |
'Scuse me, just finished dinner. Um. Frankly, Doris'd be better off with the county defender. |
He a good man? |
Bert's OK, sure, he's a good man. I won't kid you though, Ed, nobody around here has any experience with this kind of, er... And I hear they're bringing a prosecutor up from Sacramento. Capital offense. Taking it seriously... Hmm... |
So |
Taking it seriously. |
So, who should I |
Coffee, Ed? |
I'm fine. Thanks. |
No thanks, honey. |
...So, uh, who should I |
Well, there's Lloyd Garroway in San Francisco. Probityyou know, no one ever said anything iffy about Lloyd Garroway. Conservative. Jury might like that. Might like that here. |
...Probity. |
Uhhuh. Is he the best then, for, uh... |
Well, the best, the moneyisnoobject best, for a criminal case, any lawyer would tell you Freddy Riedenschneider. Out of Sacramento. 'Course, I don't know how you're fixed for money. |
Uhhuh. He's the, uh... |
Yeah, the best. |
Ed, how're you holding up? |
I'm OK, Walter, thanks. |
I'm so damn sorry about your loss. Terrible thing. Just damn terrible. |
Yeah. |
Birdy's in the parlorI'm on long distance here. |
Sure, Walter. Thanks. |
Look, I don't wanna waste your time so I'll eat while we talk. Ya mind? *You* don't mind. So while I'm in town I'll be staying at the Hotel Metropole, the Turandot Suite. Yeah, it's goofy, the suites're named after operas; room's OK though, I poked around. I'm having 'em hold it for me on account of I'll be back and forth. In addition to my retainer, you're paying hotel, living expenses, secretarial, private eye if we need to make inquiries, headshrinker should we go that way. We'll talk about appeals if, as and when. For right now, has she confessed? |
No. Of course not. She didn't do it. |
Good! That helps. Not that she didn't do it, that she didn't confess. Of course, there's ways to deal with a confession, but that's good!one less thing to think about. Now. Interview. I'm seeing her tomorrow. You should be there. Three o'clock. One more thing: you keep your mouth shut. I get the lay of the land, I tell *you* what to say. No talking out of school. What's out of school? Everything's out of school. I do the talking; you keep your trap shut. I'm an attorney, you're a barber; you don't know anything. Understood? |
...OK. |
Good! Any questions give me a ring Turandot suite; if I'm out leave a message. You sure you don't want anything? No? |
I knew about it. Big Dave told me about it, and the spot he was putting himself in by getting the money. |
Terrific. Your husband backs you up. That's terrific. |
...You've gotta give me something to work with. Freddy Riedenschneider is good, but he's not a magician. He can't just wave his little wand in the air and make a plausible defense materialize. Look. Look at what the other side is gonna run at us. They got the company books, prepared by you*cooked* by youthat's Motive. They got a murder scene *you* had access to. That's Opportunity. They got that little trimmer thing he was stabbed in the throat witha *dame's* weapon |
It was Big Dave's. |
don't interrupt methat's Means. They got a fine upstanding pillar of the business community as a victim, and then they got *you*, a disgruntled numberjuggling underling who on the day in question was drunk as a skunk and whose alibi for the time in question is being passed out at home, alone. |
*I* was with her. |
OK, we forget the blackmail. *You* killed him. How come? |
He and Doris... were having an affair. |
OK, how did you know? |
I... just knew. A husband knows. |
Will anyone else say they knew? |
I don't know. I don't think so. |
How did you get into the store? |
I took Doris's keys. |
Will anyone say they saw you there? On your way there? In there? On your was back? |
...I don't think so. |
Will anyone corroborate and goddamn part of your story at all? |
...I don't get it. |
Look, chum, this is a guy, from what I understand, told everybody he was a war hero, right? Island hopping, practically liberated the Pacific all by himself with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other and twenty yards of Jap guts between his teeth. |
Yeah. |
And now it turns out this dope spent the war sitting on his ass in some boatyard in San Diego. You asked for blackmail, let me give you blackmail: Mr HaleFellowWellMet, about to open his own business here, has been lying to everybody in this town for the last four years, probably including half the people sitting on that jury. Well, it finally caught up with himthese dopes, it always does; someone threatened to spill it. Somebody knew his dirty little secret, just like your wife says. They called, they demanded money... |
...Did Big Dave mention that it was something about his war service? I don't know, I wasn't there, *you'll* have to tell *us*. Maybe he specified, maybe he didn't; I'm not putting words in your mouth; the point is that this liar, this cynical manipulator, this man who through his lies sneered and belittled the sacrifice and heroism of all our boys who *did* serve and bleed and puke and die on foreign shores, and who made a fool out of this entire town, turns to *you* to help him out of his jam. Fatassed sonofabitch! |
So... who... who actually |
Who? *Who?!* I don't know who! But the point is that if Mr Prosecutor over there had devoted half the time he's spent persecuting *this* woman to even the most cursory investigation of this schmoe's past, then we might *know* who! But we can't *know* what really happened! Because of Fritz, or Werner, or whatever the hell his name is! And because Me Prosecutor is *also* a lazy fatassed sonofabitch who decided it's easier to victimize your wife! Because it's easier *not* to look! Because the more you look, the less you know! But the beauty of it is, we don't *gotta* know! We just gotta show that, goddamnit, *they* don't know. Reasonable doubt. Science. The atom. *You* explain it to me. Go ahead. Try. |
Not guilty, your honor... |
I tried to tell him the whole story, but Riedenschneider stopped me. He said the story made his head hurt, and anyway he didn't see any way of using it without putting me on the hot seat for the murder of Big Dave... |
...I gotta hand it to him, he tossed a lot of sand in their eyes. He talked about how I'd lost my place in the universe... |
...a puny player on the great world's stage... |
...how I was too ordinary to be the criminal mastermind the D.A. made me out to be, how there was some greater scheme at work that the state had yet to unravel, and he threw in some of the old truth stuff he hadn't had a chance to trot out for Doris... |
...who among us is in a position to say... |
...He told them to look at melook at me close. That the closer they looked the less sense it would all make, that I wasn't the kind of guy to kill a guy, that I was the barber, for Christ's sake... |
...and inflame the passions of these twelve fine men and women... |
...Well, he got his mistrial, but the well had run dry. There was nothing left to mortgage; Riedenschneider went home and the court appointed Lloyd Garroway... |
...My first instinct was, no, no, the whole idea was nuts. But maybe that was the instinct that kept me locked up in the barbershop, nose against the exit, afraid to try turning the knob. What if I could get the money? |
Honey? |
Mm. |
Where you going? |
Me? Us! The party at Nirdlinger'sI told you last week, for the Christmas Push. |
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