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“Quiet,” said Crumley, sotto voce

And Arbuthnot’s tomb door, with flowers inside, and the body of the Beast, slammed shut

74

I went to see Manny Leiber

He was still sitting, like a oyle, on the ri chair behind him

“Well,” he said “Caesar and Christ is done Maggie’s editing the da”

He looked as if he wanted to shake hands, but didn’t kno So I went around, collected the sofa cushions, like in the old days, piled them, and sat on them

Manny Leiber had to laugh “Don’t you ever give up?”

“If I did, you’d eat me alive”

I looked beyond hie shut?”

Manny slid off the desk, walked over, and lifted the mirror off its hooks Behind it, where once the door had been, was fresh plaster and a new coat of paint

“Hard to believe a h there every day for years,” I said

“He was no monster,” said Manny “And he ran this place It would have sunk long ago without him It was only at the end he went lass”

“He never got used to people staring at him?”

“Would you? What’s so unusual about hi in that chair? Nooff theatre screens to run the world Every da to look like us crazy Americans, dress, look, talk, dance like us Because of films we’ve won the world, and are too da true, what, I say, is so unusual about the given creativity of a man lost in the ork?!”