Lee searched Ripley’s eyes for signs of warmth or irony or even jaded savoir-faire, but all he came away with was a hint of an abyss. “Standing up,” he whispered. He remembered his sergeant yelling at him to focus his breathing. He breathed through his nose. Lavender, grass, oaky smells, earth, and the way he himself always smelled: damp wool and gasoline.

They were surrounded on three sides by walls. The wall straight ahead had cross-braced doors, like a barn. The doors were padlocked. But a man could dodge left or right and scramble into the holes made by the bombs. “He hasn’t shot us yet,” Lee noted. He yawned; it was contagious.

“Perhaps he hasn’t got a gun.”

“Then we shouldn’t be afraid of him,” Lee said. “We have guns.”

“I have a gun,” Ripley said, which chilled Lee into silence. Ripley continued, “But there might be gas. Somewhere.”

“We have respirators, I guess.”

“Another reason for going forward. Zero for leaving.”

They needed an immediate plan. So: Lee would go through one of the holes in the near wall. Ripley would circle around the back of the building and find another entrance. They would meet inside, and attempt to subdue anyone they found there.

“Does that sound fine?” Ripley asked.

“Yes, sir.” It was a terrible plan.

“Good.”

“Sir—when you get to the other side of the building?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful if you shoot.”

“Of course.”

“Because—”

“I understand,” Ripley said. “You’re worried I’ll accidentally shoot you. Where’s your knife?”

It was on his belt. Leland looked at it for a moment. “How will you start the plane?”

“Pardon?”

He had been so tense for so long he was almost drunk. “We might be able to turn the propeller over together. But without me, how would you get back home? You couldn’t.” This was like snapping a puzzle piece into place; it made him feel crafty.

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Ripley whispered. He hunched down and, with a spiderlike hunched-over scramble, trotted away, out of the courtyard. He was gone.

15

The screening room was spartan. Pushed to make it as plush and extravagant as Zukor’s, with overstuffed velvet seats, perhaps four rows of them, a mixing bar, tasseled ropes, carpets, a mural or two, Chaplin scrapped all those plans. He didn’t want responses to his films at all governed by how grand the setting was. Plus, there was the expense to consider. When the Galaxy opened on Fairfax, they had ordered too many seats, so Chaplin bought several of the extras. Sixteen chairs, two projectors, wooden floors, and in back, for mood music, an old church organ that you could pump with your feet, no fuss.