Table for Two: Fictions

Finnegan thinks about New Year’s Eve, 1934, when he participated in a raid on Ainsley Fuller’s casino, organized by Chief of Police “High Collar” O’Connor. That same night, Tommy Torrino, one of Fuller’s competitors, chose to rob Fuller’s casino, leading to a shoot-out between the police, Tommy’s men, and Fuller’s men. In the end, Fuller was not present, which disappointed High Collar, and one of six bags of cash was stolen, though Finnegan does not know by whom. Finnegan deduced that everyone present was guilty, and he realized that he needed to find an opportunity as well. He to quit the police and took the job as head of security at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Opportunity presented itself the day the envelope of photos was delivered to the hotel. Finnegan opened the envelope, saw the nude photos of Olivia, and decided to track the movements of Olivia, Eve, and Charlie. Finnegan is not sure what Eve’s situation is, but he knows Olivia is panicky, so he decided to avoid getting too involved with Olivia directly. Finnegan finds Charlie comical—a Don Quixote foolishly trying to save a damsel in distress. Finnegan follows Charlie to the diner, and then to Wendell’s house. Finnegan knocks Charlie unconscious, storing him in Charlie’s car, then interrupts Litsky and Wendell. Finnegan shoots Litsky in the foot as a warning, and retrieves the full collection of Wendell’s photos of other actresses. Wendell dies of a heart attack in fear. Finnegan shoots Litsky three times, shoots Wendell once, pulls Wendell’s pants down to confuse the police, and takes the $5,000 in a paper bag along with the photos.

Finnegan returns to the hotel, establishes an alibi, and starts for home. Finnegan likes his house, which used to belong to an architect, for its simplicity. However, when Finnegan arrives at his home, Eve is waiting for him on his couch.

Charlie wakes up in the trunk of his car, and realizes he was ambushed and forced into the trunk. His head is not bleeding, but he cannot get the trunk open. Every five minutes, Charlie taps the end of the flashlight he keeps in the trunk against the trunk to call for help. As he becomes more disoriented, he regrets being out of practice—he should have been on his guard, ready to fend off the attack. Hallucinating his house and a toy he bought for his grandson, Charlie imagines opening the trunk with a key, just as Billy opens the trunk, looking shocked. Charlie briefly explains what happened, and Billy reveals the registration sticker he took from Wendell’s car. Charlie goes to investigate Wendell’s home.

Charlie notes the vomit outside, Wendell and Litsky’s dead bodies, Eve’s empty purse, and the open drawer that contained the photos. Charlie realizes that a third party must have attacked him, killed Wendell and Litsky, and taken the money and photos—and that this new person is a professional. Charlie takes Eve’s purse and calls Eve, who tells him to come back to the hotel. Charlie continues to lament his poor performance and asks Billy to keep the events of that day a secret. At the hotel, Prentice tells Charlie that Eve left to get the other photos.

Finnegan notes how unbothered Eve seems, sipping a glass of his liquor and slowly turning toward him. Eve invites him to join her, and he excuses himself to put away what he calls his groceries—really the money and photos that he stashes in his kitchen. Returning to the couch, Finnegan asks how Eve got in, and she tells him she broke a window. Eve asks about the photos, and, when Finnegan denies knowing anything, she explains that she can pay for the photos legally, saving Finnegan from blackmailing the actresses. Finnegan is impressed, feeling a similarity between himself and Eve. Eve pours herself and Finnegan another drink, and they each down their glasses in one gulp. Finnegan plans to wait a while, and then sell single photos to Eve, saving Olivia’s for after the release of Gone with the Wind. Finnegan is about to ask Eve out to dinner to get to know more about her, when Charlie breaks in the door with his crowbar, armed with his revolver.

Charlie realizes Eve went to Finnegan’s because the only other person who knew about the time of the cash drop was Finnegan. Charlie is ashamed that Eve figured it out first. At Finnegan’s house, Charlie sees Eve and Finnegan smile and drink together, and he worries for a moment that Eve has switched sides. Deciding Eve would never betray Olivia, Charlie breaks in through the front door, but he is dismayed when Finnegan laughs and Eve looks irritated. Finnegan previously emptied Charlie’s gun; now, he takes out his own gun and forces Charlie onto the couch with Eve. Finnegan implies that his deal with Eve is no longer in play—instead, Finnegan will need to kill Eve and Charlie. However, as Finnegan moves to turn off a lamp, he stumbles and falls, losing his condescending smile as succumbs to the Rohypnol Eve used to coat his drinking glass.

Charlie and Eve spring to action, gathering and cleaning any evidence of their presence at Finnegan’s home. Charlie takes five of the nude photos and Finnegan’s gun, puts four photos in an envelope, and tapes the envelope under Finnegan’s desk. Charlie tells Eve to wait at Finnegan’s while Charlie drives Finnegan’s car back to Wendell’s house.

At Wendell’s, Charlie hides the remaining photo in the open drawer, and stages the scene with evidence that shows that Finnegan killed Litsky and Wendell. Charlie calls Finnegan’s house—Eve answers and says she is glad to still be in Los Angeles—and adds Finnegan’s phone number to Wendell’s address book. Noting that Finnegan pulled down Wendell’s pants, Charlie pulls them back up, knowing homicide detectives take crimes less seriously if they think those involved are gay. Charlie puts his own gun, with Finnegan’s prints on it, in Finnegan’s trunk, then he fires six shots from Finnegan’s gun to alert the neighborhood before peeling out of Wendell’s driveway in Finnegan’s car. Back at Finnegan’s, Charlie hides the keys to Finnegan’s car and walks a distance before hailing a cab to take him home.

Eve is waiting for Charlie at his home, and they have a drink together. Eve is tired of people lying; she asks Charlie to tell her the whole story. Charlie complies, concluding by saying he is also glad to be in Los Angeles.

Following the incident at the Hacienda, Hollywood is alarmed by the possibility of nude photos of famous actresses circulating around town, as no photos were recovered from Freddie’s home. However, the five photos Charlie planted serve as evidence to convict Finnegan and to show that more photos exist. Marcus is in constant contact with legal counsel at all major studios, and he is thrilled to receive a call from Eve, in which she tells him she has all the photos. Eve refuses to meet with Selznick, so Marcus sends his secretary home to meet with Eve privately. When Eve arrives, she notes the straw hat still present on Marcus’s shelf, and she hands Marcus a box with $4,900 in it, noting that $100 was for expenses. Marcus is impressed. Eve also gives him a small envelope with the photos. However, the photos have been cut to only show the actresses’ faces; Marcus realizes that Eve must have destroyed the nude parts of the photos to protect the actresses’ privacy. Marcus is impressed again, and informs Eve that many studios will want to compensate her. Eve suggests compensating Prentice and Billy instead. Marcus plans to return to Arkansas after living in Los Angeles for four years; he lets Eve know that Jack Warner intends to cast Olivia as a side character in his upcoming Errol Flynn film. Eve is upset at how powerless Olivia is under her contract with Warner.

Eve leaves Marcus’s office upset about Warner’s betrayal of Olivia and thinking about all the different ways we describe powerful people. Eve goes to the set of Gone with the Wind, which is being intentionally damaged to show the aftermath of the Civil War; she is impressed by the workers’ methods for creating the illusion of years of damage. Eve crumpled her list of places to see, but she feels relief, thinking that those places are all just palaces. She remembers reading the poem “Ozymandias,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, in high school, in which a traveler finds a buried statue inscribed with praise for a grand empire, which is now destroyed. Eve thinks the poem is incorrect, as many of the structures built by powerful people have already stood the test of time. A dedicated team of workers, like those damaging the movie set, needs to dismantle the structures built by the powerful.