“Did you?”
Bunny didn’t answer.
“You don’t know her. She could walk away from it tomorrow.”
“No one ever does,” Bunny said, turning. “No one.” He took out a cigarette. “You’ve been scarce. I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Come have a smoke.” He drew them away from the temple courtyard into the lobby, waving away some ushers who darted over. “I wanted you to hear it from me. We’re not picking up Rosemary’s option.”
“Why?”
“The picture’s doing nothing.”
“You dumped it.”
“Now you’re an expert on distribution, too. We didn’t dump it. It’s last year.”
“So put her in something this year.”
Bunny took a drag on his cigarette. “Look, I don’t know what she is to you. But you’re a big boy now. That’s the way it is.”
“You know what this is all about. You’re going to let him tell you who to hire? He’s finished.”
“He’s embarrassed. He’s calling off the hearings. For now. He may even be in a little trouble next election. But he’s still in office. He’ll regroup. When this starts up again, Continental’s going to be absolutely clean. No associations, not even relatives.”
“Or close friends. If they’re alive.”
Bunny said nothing at first, squinting through the smoke, reluctant to cross a line. “That’s right. If they’re alive.”
They looked at each other for a minute with the weary familiarity of an old couple, stuck together by everything that had happened, too tired to untangle it.
“Hal tells me the picture’s finished.”
“Some dubbing.”
“You’ll be thinking, what next? They were wondering at Fort Roach.”
“They called you all by themselves.”
Bunny stuck the cigarette into the sand of the standing ashtray. “They’re winding down. The exhibitors don’t want any more information films. The training films—”
Ben shrugged. “My separation papers’ll come through any day.”
But Bunny was going somewhere else. “They’ve agreed to a limited distribution. The Nuremberg picture didn’t do what they hoped. This would be the last anyway.”
“How limited,” Ben said, alert, listening to code.
“Limited. Strictly speaking, we don’t have to distribute at all. There’s no agreement.”
“Sol agreed.”
“Well, Mr. L—”
“Is still head of the studio.”
Bunny looked up. “Keep your socks on.”
“You can’t do this,” Ben said, his throat suddenly tight. “Dump it. Not this one.”
He saw the pan shot of the guards’ faces, the slow walk into the camp, evidence.
“I’m not dumping it. And you’re leading with your chin. Anybody ever tell you not to do that here?”
Lasner on the train, clutching himself, never weak.
“Show them what you really want?” Bunny finished.
“I really want this,” Ben said, his voice steady. “It’s important.”
To whom? The dead, the survivors? It occurred to Ben that he had become a believer in images, their power to change things, even though of course they didn’t. Show the faces. Maybe that’s all it was, a record too late, but at least it was there. The dead are never avenged. All we can do is leave markers.
“I said limited. Major cities. After Christmas. Don’t worry, you’ll get your credit.”
“It’s not about that.”
Bunny raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Sol wants this picture.”
“So you keep saying. And I wouldn’t want to disappoint him. He knows what the exhibitors are like, but if we can sell it as—”
“What do you want?”
“Want?” Bunny said, raising both eyebrows now. “I’m not a pawnshop. It’s a picture, not a watch. I said I’d do what I could.” He paused. “What I’d like, though, is a little favor from you.”
Ben waited.
“I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time at Cedars. Little chats.”
“He likes to tell stories,” Ben said carefully, wondering where this was going. “The old days. My father.”
“Funny how that happens. He never used to dwell on the past.” He looked up at Ben. “I know Mr. L pretty well. He gets—enthusiastic. He’s likely to think things can happen that can’t happen. That people can do things—and they can’t, really. They don’t know enough. They’d be in over their heads.”
“They could learn.”