Alis stopped at the gated grille of A Star Is Born and fumbled with her key, trying to insert the card without putting any of her stuff down. The two tourates wandered over.
“Here,” I said, taking the key. I opened the gate and took the Digimatte from her.
“Do you have Charles Bronson?” one of the oldates said.
“We’re not open yet,” I said. “I have something I have to show you,” I said to Alis.
“What? The latest puppet show? An automatic rehearsal program?” She started setting up the Digimatte, plugging in the cables and fibe-op feed, shoving the Digimatte into position.
“I always wanted to be in Death Wish,” the oldate said. “Do you have that?”
“We’re not open,” I said.
“Here’s the menu,” Alis said, switching it on for the oldate. “We don’t have Charles Bronson, but we have got a scene from The Magnificent Seven.” She pointed to it.
“You have to see this, Alis,” I said, and shoved in the opdisk, glad I’d preset it and didn’t have to call anything up. On the Town came up on the screen.
“I have customers to—” Alis said, and stopped.
I had set the disk to “Next, please” after fifteen seconds. On the Town disappeared, and Singin’ in the Rain came up.
Alis turned angrily to me. “Why did you—”
“I didn’t,” I said. “You did.” I pointed at the screen. Tea for Two came up, and Alis, in red curls, Charlestoned her way toward the front of the screen.
“It’s not a paste-up,” I said. “Look at them. They’re the movies you’ve been rehearsing, aren’t they? Aren’t they?”
On the screen, Alis was high-stepping with her blue parasol.
“You talked about Singin’ in the Rain that night I met you. And I could have guessed some of the others. They’re all full-length shot and in one continuous take.” I pointed at her in her blue bustle. “But I didn’t even know what movie that was from.”
Hats Off came up. “And I’d never seen some of these.”
“I didn’t—” she said, looking at the screen.
“The Digimatte does a superimpose on the fibe-op image coming in and puts it on disk,” I said, showing her. “That image goes back through the loop, too, and the fibe-op source randomly checks the pattern of pixels and automatically rejects any image that’s been changed. Only you weren’t trying to change the image. You were trying to duplicate it. And you succeeded. You matched the moves perfectly, so perfectly the Brownian check thought it was the same image, so perfectly it didn’t reject it, and the image made it onto the fibe-op source.” I waved my hand at the screen, where she was dancing to “42nd Street.”
Behind us, the oldate said, “Who’s in this Magnificent Seven scene?” but Alis didn’t answer him. She was watching the shifting routines, her face intent. I couldn’t read her expression.
“How many are there?” she said, still looking at the screen.
“I’ve found fourteen,” I said. “You rehearsed more than that, right? The ones that got past the ID-locks are almost all dancers with the same shape of face and features you have. Did you do any Ann Millers?”
“Kiss Me, Kate,” she said.
“I thought you might have,” I said. “Her face is too round. Your features wouldn’t match closely enough to get past the ID-lock. It only works where there’s already a resemblance.” I pointed at the screen. “There are two others I found that aren’t on the disk because they’re in litigation. White Christmas and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”
She turned to look at me. “Seven Brides? Are you sure?”
“You’re right there in the barnraising scene,” I said. “Why?”
She had turned back to the screen, frowning at Shirley Temple, who was dancing with Alis and Jack Haley in military uniforms. “Maybe—” she said to herself.
“I told you dancing in the movies was impossible,” I said. “I was wrong. There you are.”
As I said it, the screen went blank, and the oldate said loudly, “How about that guy who says, ‘Make my day!’ Do you have him?”
I reached to start the disk again, but Alis had already turned away.
“I’m afraid we don’t have Clint Eastwood either. The scene from Magnificent Seven has Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner,” she said. “Would you like to see it?” and busied herself punching in the access.
“Does he have to shave his head?” his friend said.
“No,” Alis said, reaching for a black shirt and pants, a black hat. “The Digimatte takes care of that.” She started setting up the tape equipment, showing the oldate where to stand and what to do, oblivious of his friend, who was still talking about Charles Bronson, oblivious of me.
Well, what had I expected? That she’d be overjoyed to see herself up there, that she’d fling her arms around me like Natalie Wood in The Searchers? I hadn’t done anything. Except tell her she’d accomplished something she hadn’t been trying to do, something she’d turned down standing on this very boulevard.
“Yul Brynner,” the oldate’s friend said disgustedly, “and no Charles Bronson.”
On the Town was on the screen again. Alis switched it off without a glance and called up The Magnificent Seven.
“You want Charles Bronson and they give you Steve McQueen,” the oldate grumbled. “They always make you settle for second best.”
That’s what I love about the movies. There’s always some minor character standing around to tell you the moral, just in case you’re too dumb to figure it out for yourself.
“You never get what you want,” the oldate said.
“Yeah,” I said, “‘there’s no place like home,’” and headed for the skids.
VERA MILES: [Running out to corral, where RANDOLPH SCOTT is saddling horse] You were going to leave, just like that? Without even saying good-bye?
RANDOLPH SCOTT: [Cinching girth on horse] I got a score to settle. And you got a young man to tend to. I got the bullet out of that arm of his, but it needs bandaging. [RANDOLPH SCOTT steps in stirrup and swings up on horse]
VERA MILES: Will I see you again? How will I know you’re all right?
RANDOLPH SCOTT: I reckon I’ll be all right. [Tips hat] You take care, ma’am. [Wheels horse around and rides off into sunset]
VERA MILES: [Calling after him] I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me! Never!
I went home and started work. I did the ones that mattered first—restoring the double cigarette-lighting in Now, Voyager, putting the uranium back in the wine bottle in Notorious, reinebriating Lee Marvin’s horse in Cat Ballou. And the ones I liked: Ninotchka and Rio Bravo and Double Indemnity. And Seven Brides, which came out of litigation the day after I saw Alis. It was beeping at me when I woke up. I put Howard Keel’s drink and whiskey bottle back in the opening scene, and then ff’d to the barnraising and turned the pan of cornbread back into a jug before I watched Alis.