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“Where’s the bloody drink!”
“Want some coffee?”
“Don’t be fatuous. I want another drink.”
“Have some coffee.”
“Come along, now. One for the road.”
“The Lincoln Highway?”
“That’s ugly, and I loathe an ugly drunk. Come along, dammit, fill it!”
He shoved his glass across the bar and she poured more gin.
“I guess maybe I should ask a couple of them over,” Shirley murmured.
“Ask who?”
“Well, whoever.” She shrugged. “The big wheels; you know, priests.”
“They’ll never leave; they’re fucking plunderers,” he rasped, and gulped his gin.
Yeah, he’s starting to blow, thought Shirley and quickly changed the subject: she explained about the script and her chance to direct.
“Oh, good,” Thompson muttered.
“It scares me.”
“Oh, twaddle. My baby, the difficult thing about directing is making it seem as if the damned thing were difficult. I hadn’t a clue my first time out, but here I am, you see. It’s child’s play.”
“John, to be honest with you, now that they’ve offered me my chance, I’m really not sure I could direct my grandmother across the street. I mean, all of that technical stuff.”
“Come along; leave all that to the director, the cameraman and the script girl, darling. Get good ones and they’ll see you through. What’s important is handling the cast, and you’d be marvelous, just marvelous at that. You could not only tell them how to move and