Just before they left the house, Annie spoke to Mrs. Corrigan, the limping woman who had directed her to Jake’s room. “You can have the room, I guess,” Mrs. Corrigan said. “Why not? They come and they go. There are nothing but wanderers in this town. …” She appeared to have sewn another stitch in her mouth. Annie could hardly hear her.

She suggested they go to the Greek’s. The food was cheap and good. Over their coffee, she admitted to him that she was not quite eighteen. He laughed and called her San Quentin quail, and when she asked what that meant, explained it had something to do with taking underage girls across state lines.

“Carson Brody, that buddy of mine with the criminal mind, he comes from Boston, your part of the country. You’ll have to meet him. He knows so much—I never knew anybody had so much information. You know why the movies are out here? Carson told me. It’s because of the Mexican border being so close. Movies really started in New York, before the World War. The biggest outfits got special patents. But a lot of little companies couldn’t afford them and made movies anyhow. So those little companies came out here and kept on making pictures, figuring they could get away to Mexico before they could be stopped with injunctions. Carson’s always reading law books.”

“He wants to be a lawyer?”

“Carson? He doesn’t want to be anything. He’s just waiting for a chance…he says you have to know everything, then people won’t do you in. I don’t see it quite the same way. You want to see a Jimmy Stewart movie? There’s one a few blocks from here.”

“I don’t like him much, that lower lip of his…”

Jake laughed. “Listen, he’s made a fortune out of that lower lip. Well, I’ll take you to Ivan’s. That place is as good as any picture. Since you told me your real age, I’ll tell you that my name’s really Jack. Carson told me to change it to Jake. He said I’d do better because people would think I was Jewish and there’s so many Jews in the picture industry.”

He put down his coffee cup with extreme care, then bent toward the table, his hands flying toward his belly. Alarmed, she reached out to him with her hand. He shook his head, his eyes closed, his mouth gripped with pain. “It’s okay,” he gasped. “All the cigarettes and coffee. I shouldn’t go near coffee.”