Woman with a Blue Pencil (3 page)

But none of this happened.

Not even two seconds passed before the projector hummed back to life and the screen was again filled with light and motion.

But the picture did not pick up where it had left off. This happened among inexperienced projectionists. Sometimes they ran the wrong reel. For a moment, Sumida watched, trying to place the action on the screen into the story of
The Maltese Falcon
as he knew it from the book. But this was something different—Katherine Hepburn hit long, arching drives on a golf course while Spencer Tracy observed her affectionately, all as a wry musical score lent the scene an ambiance of humor and romance.

“Hey, what's going on?” Sumida muttered.

“Shhh,” responded those seated around him.

“But look, it's Spencer Tracy,” he whispered to no one in particular. “What happened to our movie?” he asked, raising his voice.

He expected others to be asking the same question, perhaps even whistling at the screen or up to the projectionist's booth in derision.

“It's
Woman of the Year
,” a burly man in the row behind him said, matter-of-factly. “What do you think you been looking at the last half-hour?”

Sumida had never even heard of the movie. “They put on the wrong picture,” he said.

“Shush,” said a woman seated beside him. “We're trying to watch.”

“What happened to
The Maltese Falcon
?” he muttered.

“Just shut up,” said the burly man.

Sumida stared at the screen a moment longer. Hepburn and Tracy . . .

Was this some kind of gag that the whole audience was in on? He didn't get it.

Confused, he settled back in his seat. His natural impulse was to pipe down, to watch this new movie to its end and then, perhaps tomorrow or the next day, to see
The Maltese Falcon
elsewhere. He never courted the attention of strangers, particularly as the confusion he felt now could leave him open to the sort of public humiliation he'd sought to avoid ever since his difficult days as the only Nisei student in his elementary school. Still, he didn't understand why all the others in the audience seemed undisturbed by the switching of the films. But he was a rationalist and assumed it was either an elaborate joke (but how and why?) or someone's simple mistake. If he was being tricked, then his instinct was to deny his tormentors the satisfaction of his showing distress. Or, alternatively, when others made mistakes, Sumida often found himself feeling so embarrassed on their behalf that he'd opt to underestimate or, if possible, deny that any mistake had occurred at all. “No, rye bread is what I ordered,” he'd reassure the forgetful deli worker, despite having asked for sourdough.

Either way, staying silent was the most natural strategy for him.

But tonight needed to be different, he thought.

After all, would Sam Spade have remained in
his
seat, watching a movie he hadn't chosen to see? Sumida was embarked on the murder investigation of his wife, for God's sake. What kind of man was he to shrink into the darkened audience now, when the stakes were so low? Besides, he
needed
his questions answered about what had just happened here—why everyone else in the audience seemed satisfied with this “other” movie. A true detective did not let such matters lie, even in his private life.

So he stood and scuttled sideways out of the crowded row.

He'd take this up with the manager.

You don't pay to see one movie and wind up in another. With all the things in life that were beyond one's control, choice of movie ought not to be one. (Kyoko doubtless would have preferred the romantic comedy, but that was neither here nor there, he reminded himself.)

As he started up the aisle, he heard whispers:

“Hey look, is that loudmouth a Jap?” the woman seated in front of him asked, her face illuminated by the light of the film as she turned back.

“What, a dirty Jap?” the burly man who'd sat behind him growled menacingly, staring down his row at Sumida, who'd started up the aisle.

Sumida paused. He had been born at LA County General Hospital, attended public schools, and run the 100 and the 220 on the track team at Long Beach Wilson High School. He didn't have to put up with abuse. But he kept walking, bursting through the double doors and into the lobby.

A teenaged usher, who was leaning over the counter of the snack stand, whispering to the blonde girl who sold candy and pop, turned and looked at Sumida with wide eyes.

“I need to see the manager,” Sumida said. “Now.”

The usher's Adam's apple moved up and down before he answered. “He's in his office.” He pointed to a shadowed corner and up a narrow flight of wooden stairs, which looked like an architectural afterthought in the otherwise plush lobby.

Sumida crossed the lobby and walked up the stairs, stopping at the door. A nameplate read: “Manager,” which he reflected could not have inspired much confidence in the otherwise nameless man who came to work each day knowing he could be replaced without his employers even having to change the nameplate. Sumida knocked but didn't wait for an answer before walking in. Bogart wouldn't have waited.

The office had no windows—likely a converted storage room. Movie posters from closed engagements were carelessly taped to the walls (including, strangely,
The Maltese Falcon
).

“Say, what's this?” asked the middle-aged manager. He sat at a metal desk piled on one side with lobby cards and on the other with requisitions, likely for candy and popcorn and soda pop.

“Question, sir,” Sumida said, forcefully.

The manager straightened in his chair and narrowed his eyes. Still not satisfied with what he saw, he picked up a pair of eyeglasses from beside an open box of Milk Duds. When he got a clear look at Sumida he strained his eyes again, this time for other reasons.

“Are you a Jap?” he asked, incredulous.

Sumida didn't understand the vehemence of racial deprecations over the past few minutes. Sure, there were places Japanese immigrants and their Nisei offspring were unwelcome—for example, the LA Country Club (except as gardeners).

And plenty of others.

Most places, actually.

But he'd never felt unwelcome in a downtown movie house. He wasn't a Negro, after all.
They
seemed to be quietly unwelcome everywhere, excepting the neighborhoods around Central Avenue.

“Look, what's going on here?” Sumida asked.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” the manager answered. “Are you a Chinaman or Korean?”

“My name's Sam Sumida.”

The manager's eyes narrowed. “Sumida . . . What do you want?”

“I want to see the movie I paid to see.”

“What?”

That's when Sumida noticed the calendar hung on the cheaply paneled wall behind the manager's desk. It was a give-away from Adohr Dairy. A bucolic farm scene featuring contented-looking cows decorated the top half, dated squares checkered the bottom. The manager had crossed off days, presumably leading to this one. But the date indicated wasn't December 6, 1941, as Sumida knew it to be.

January 22, 1942?

“What movie did you pay to see?” the manager asked.

“
The Maltese Falcon
.”

“That closed last month,” the manager answered, contemptuously. “Can't you read a marquee? You no ‘speak-y' English?”

Sumida said nothing.

The manager shook his head in disgust. “Look, I don't need no crazy Jap on my premises.” He pushed aside a pile of papers and picked up his telephone. “I'll call the cops.”

“What day is this?” Sumida asked.

The manager indicated the calendar behind him. “Look for yourself.”

“Your calendar's wrong.”

“You going to leave on your own or do I call them?”

“Is this all some kind of joke?” Sumida asked.

“Why would anybody joke with the likes of you?” the manager responded. “Everybody knows your kind is born without a sense of humor. That would explain why you don't like
Woman of the Year
. Tracy and Hepburn are hilarious. But you wouldn't understand. Besides, the movie don't end until after the curfew for your kind.”

Curfew?

“Look, if you want a refund for your ticket I can give it to you,” the manager continued.

“I didn't come here for money.”

“Then what'd you bust into my office for?” The manager didn't wait for an answer but spoke into the receiver. “Operator, give me the LAPD.”

Sumida knew the cops weren't going to help him get to the bottom of this.

He left the manager's office, descended the stairs, and passed through the lobby. It wasn't true that he had no sense of humor. But whatever kind of prank the movie house was playing wasn't so damn funny. He stepped outside, almost running straight into an entering patron (small boned like a boy and dressed unusually in a cloak and cowl). “Sorry,” he muttered without turning back. He continued to the sidewalk. Broadway was crowded with traffic and pedestrians, as usual. But now it was raining hard. Sumida pulled his hat down over his eyes and his suit jacket tighter around his shoulders. He'd left his raincoat at home. He hadn't needed it. Forty minutes earlier, when he'd bought his ticket to see
The Maltese Falcon
, there hadn't been a cloud in the sky. And that wasn't the only difference. On the sidewalk outside the Rialto, he noted that the lighted Christmas decorations strung across the street at fifty-yard intervals when he had entered the theater were now, like the decorations in all the store windows, gone.

Not turned off.

Gone.

Excerpt from a letter dated February 17, 1942:

. . . I'm delighted and mightily impressed that in the face of such adversity you've not only managed to overcome your six-week writer's block (who wasn't knocked on his or her backside on the morning of December 7?) but that judging from your latest submission you have so effectively reworked the synopsis and introduced not only a more acceptable protagonist in Jimmy Park, but also the intense patriotism that will appeal to today's readers. And all this in just the past couple of weeks!

Turning your book from a conventional detective story into a spy thriller is also clearly the right decision. And, yes, choosing an Anglo pen name will obviously be a necessity as well. If you'd like to send me a few names to choose from, feel free. In all, I am greatly impressed by your professionalism. I think we're going to make a great team, young man!

My most pressing suggestion, as you move forward, is that you maintain the modern feel of the revised first chapters while
also
introducing more traditionally exotic, “foreign” elements, such as one finds in Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu series (and yes, I'm aware that Rohmer's villain is Chinese rather than Japanese, but I think he still serves as a good example of pure villainy—besides, I'm sure you recall that Dr. Fu Manchu headed a criminal organization, the Si-Fan or Yellow Menace, that included all Orientals, including East Indians, Burmese, Persians, Arabs,
and
Japanese, so draw liberally from his wildly imaginative example, even as you continue to focus on the specifically
modern
Japanese villains infiltrating our nation today.

On the basis of this latest submission, we'll get your contract out to you in the next couple of days. Sign and return to us and then our accounting department will draft you a new check for $350 as an advance against royalties.

Now, how can we most effectively work together? My thought is that we should work closely on this book right from the start (rather than employing the more traditional approach of my offering suggestions and edits
after
you complete a first draft). I say this for two reasons: first, you're a young man new to this game and this
is
professional New York publishing. Consider: rather than my waiting the better part of a year for you to draft your way into numerous dead ends that will entail your having to wipe out whole chapters or storylines (the usual fate of beginning novelists), why don't you send me each chapter as you finish it so I can comment, mark it up with my trusty blue pencil, and return it to you for revisions. That way, any missteps you make will be correctible before much narrative damage is done (and first-time novelists, even the best, always make missteps). The second reason I suggest this approach is that I believe the sooner we get this title on the market the better. After all, a quick victory by our forces in the Pacific will render this book far less marketable than if we manage to get it out while war against the Japanese persists. Naturally, like every American, I hope for a quick victory. But that is why I want to shepherd this book as efficiently as possible. Does that make sense to you? We two can form a kind of assembly line, wherein, for example, you'll write chapter three while you're waiting for my edits on chapter two, and then you can revise chapter two and move on to chapter four while I edit chapter three, etc. Believe me, I rarely make such an offer to my authors.