I shook my head.
He glanced at me shrewdly. In that moment, I knew he knew how it was with Monica and me.
He could read me like a book. I could never hide anything from him.
"Too bad," he said. "I'd like to have met her."
I looked at the other man to change the subject.
Nevada caught himself quickly.
"Oh, this is Dan Pierce, my agent."
We shook hands and I came right to the point.
"I saw your picture last night," I said. "I liked it.
Too bad you have to make it over."
"I thought talking pictures wouldn't last," Nevada said.
"That’s not the whole story, Nevada," Pierce broke in angrily. He turned to me. "Nevada wanted the picture silent, sure, but by the time we'd started shooting, he saw he was wrong.
We tried then to turn it into a talkie but we couldn't."
"Why?"
"Norman wouldn't let us," Pierce said. "He only had one sound stage at that time and he was using it for one of his own pictures.
He insisted we start shooting right away or he'd withdraw his guarantee."
The picture was clear now.
The whole thing had been a sucker play from the start.
I looked at Nevada. I didn't understand it. He was a better poker player than that.
Nevada read me again.
"I know what you're thinkin', boy," he said quickly.
"But I wanted to make this picture.
It said something that none of the other phonies I’d been in even came close to."
"What about Norman?" I asked.
"How come they won't advance you the money to shoot it over?"
"They've run out of credit," Nevada said. "That's why the bank is calling the loan."
"That's a lot of crap!" Pierce exploded again. "We're caught in a squeeze play.
Bernie Norman makes the bank call our loan and the bank turns the picture back to him. He gets it for peanuts – about a third what it would have cost him to make it."
"How much would it take to make the picture over?" I asked.
Nevada looked at me.
"About a million bucks."
"Plus the loan the bank is calling," Pierce added quickly.
I turned to him.
"Would you still have Norman release the picture?" He nodded.
"Sure. They've got ten thousand contracts on it an' if it's a talkie, not a theater will cancel out."
"If it’s silent?"
"We'll be lucky to get fifteen hundred," he said.
"They all want talkies."
"What do you think I should do?"
Nevada hesitated a moment, then his eyes came squarely on mine.
"I wouldn't do it if I was you," he said frankly. "You could blow the whole bundle."
I saw the look that Pierce threw him.
It was filled with anger but also with a peculiar sort of respect.
To Pierce I was just another sucker. But to his credit, he recognized that I was something more to Nevada.
I stared at him for a moment, then turned and looked down at Rina, sitting on the couch.
Her face was impassive. Only her eyes were pleading.
I turned back to Nevada. "I'll take the shot," I said. "But only on one condition.
I’ll buy you out and it will be my picture.
And when we make it again, we'll make it the way I want it.
There'll be no arguments; everybody will do as they're told. You included.