Tiny didn't follow a word of that. Joinville's nod said he figured Luc would do things the way Bordagaray always had. Luc wouldn't have to work hard if he did. We'll see, Luc thought again. MOVIE THEATERS IN SHANGHAI WERE… well, different was the first word that came to Pete McGill's mind. You could watch a flick in English or French or German or Russian or Chinese or Japanese. Pete had no interest in films in anything except English, but he noticed the other places the way a man happy with his woman (which the Marine sure was at the moment) will notice others: he doesn't intend to do anything about them, but they're there, all right.
The ones that catered to Japanese soldiers in and around Shanghai or on leave in town amused him most. He couldn't read word one of the squiggles the Japs wrote with, but the posters at those joints always seemed more hysterical than any of the others. The colors were brighter, the action more fervid, the actors' and actresses' faces more melodramatically contorted.
From across the street, he nodded towards one of them. He wasn't showy about it: he didn't want the tough little men in yellowish khaki who were buying tickets to notice him. But his buddies got the message. "I'd almost like to see what that one's about. It looks exciting."
"Yeah, well, how come you don't walk over and put down your ten cents Mex?" Herman Szulc said. "You can sit with all the lousy slant-eyed sonsabitches. Boy, I bet you'd see all kinds of stuff you never saw before."
Pooch Puccinelli laughed. "Starting with stars. Then you'd see their boots, when they stomped the living shit out of you."
"Cut me some slack, okay?" Pete said irritably. "I said almost, didn't I?"
"You couldn't pay me enough to sit down with a bunch of Japs," Szulc said. "I had my druthers, only way I'd ever look at 'em was over the sights of a Springfield."
"You can sing that in church," Pooch agreed. "Day is coming, too. Soon as those mothers finish off the Reds, they'll jump on our asses next."
"One guy might get away with it," Pete said. "They'd think he was crazy or something, and leave him alone. Or they'd figure their own brass knew he was there, and they'd get in Dutch if they worked out on him."
"My ass," Szulc said succinctly. "I wouldn't go over there for a hundred bucks."
"Me, neither," Puccinelli said.
That put things in a different light. Pete had drunk a couple of beers, but he wasn't remotely bombed. He didn't think so, anyhow. But what came out of his mouth was, "I would-if you clowns got a hundred apiece. I come out in one piece, you pay up."
"Yeah? What happens if you don't?" Szulc said. "What do we tell the officers then?"
"Tell 'em I died for my country." The words sounded grand. Then Pete realized he might have meant them literally. Killed-for a movie? Nah, he thought. For two hundred bucks.
Maybe he'd get lucky. Maybe Szulc and Puccinelli wouldn't have a hundred apiece, or two hundred between them. They put their heads together. Pooch laughed. It wasn't what you'd call a pleasant sound. He stuck out his hand. So did Herman Szulc. "You're on, Charlie," the big Polack said.
If Pete didn't cross the street now, he'd never be able to hold up his head again. He shook hands with the other two leathernecks. Vera would think he was nuts, too. If this went wrong, he'd never find out what Vera thought about it or anything else. He'd never feel her nipple stiffen under his lips, or her tongue teasing the bottom of his…
He stepped out into the street to keep from thinking about stuff like that. Brakes screeched. A furious horn blared. A taxi driver shook his fist. A car could mash you even better than the Japs. Well, faster. Pete advanced again. He made it to the other side without getting run over. Was that good news or bad? He'd find out pretty damn quick.
The Japanese soldiers gaped at him as he took a place in their queue. He towered over most of them, though they did have a few guys large even by American standards. One of them said something he didn't get. It had to mean What the hell are you doing here?, though.
Pete spread his hands and smiled and bowed. They liked it when you bowed. "Take it easy, pal," he said in English. "I just want to watch the movie." He pointed to himself, then to one of the lurid posters.
Something astonished burst from the Jap. If that wasn't Oh, yeah?, Pete had never heard anything that was. He nodded and bowed again, doing his best to show he didn't want any trouble. If the foreign soldiers decided they wanted to, they'd mop the floor with him, and that would be that. Boy, would it ever!
They batted it back and forth among themselves, the way he and Herman and Pooch had on the far side of the street. The other Americans stood there watching. If the Japs jumped on him right now, they'd both run over here to try and help, and they'd get creamed, too. If any of them lived, they'd really thank him for that.
But then the Japs started to laugh. One of them thumped him on the back. Another grabbed his hand and shook it. They led him up to the ticket-seller. A chunky guy who looked like a sergeant laid a coin on the counter for him-they wouldn't even let him pay. All he could do was bow his thanks. That got him pounded some more, but in a friendly way.
Once he got inside, somebody bought him a snack-tea without sugar and some salty little crackers that weren't too bad even if they did have a funny aftertaste. They escorted him to the best seat in the movie house. "Good show!" said one who knew a little English. "Good show-you see!"
"Thanks! Hope so!" Pete figured his best chance was to act like a happy moron. They'd think he was squirrely, or at least harmless. He grinned till the top half of his head threatened to fall off.
Down went the lights. The projector whirred. As in American theaters, a newsreel came first. Japanese soldiers escorted Russian prisoners through pine woods. The men around Pete howled cheers. The camera focused on a downed bomber, a big Soviet star on the crumpled tail. More cheers. The narration was just gibberish to Pete, but it had to mean something like We're knocking the snot out of the Reds.
The scene shifted. Now Japanese soldiers and little tanks moved across an obviously Chinese landscape. An aerial shot showed bombs dropping from a plane onto a Chinese city. More excited narration-We're kicking the crap out of the Chinks, too. The soldiers in the theater ate it up. One of them lit a cigarette and handed it to him.
After the newsreel, the feature. Everybody wore samurai clothes. The haircuts and the armor looked ridiculous to Pete. He understood no more of the dialogue than he had of the newsreel narration. After about fifteen minutes, he realized it didn't matter one goddamn bit. Give them ten-gallon hats and six-shooters instead of helmets and swords and it would have been a Western back home at the Bijou.
There was the villain, a fat, middle-aged guy with a mustache who wanted to run things-a four-flushing ham. He had the hots for the heroine. By now, Pete had seen enough Oriental women to know she was plenty cute. If he'd had any doubts, the Japs' reactions to her would have straightened him out in a hurry. But she had eyes only for the hero, the young sheriff-um, samurai-who rode in to clean up the place. He did, too. The climactic swordfight was more exciting than a gun battle would have been. The villain lost his head at the end, even if you didn't see it bounce from his shoulders. And boy and girl would would live happily ever after. What more could you want from a movie?
Everybody looked at Pete when the lights came up. "Good show!" he said with a big nod-and damned if he didn't mean it, too. "Real good show!" The Jap who knew scraps of English translated for his buddies. They all clapped.