Original subtitles

Thank you.

Well, looks like all the boys got up earlier than we did.

Hey, Sheriff!

Any sign of the body?

Nope. Probably never will. Mine and that boat was blown to smithereens.

Any idea what caused the explosion?

Your guess is as good as mine.

That dog.

What's that?

This engine's stoned cold.

Sherry didn't want me to come up last night because she said she couldn't get

the negatives until this morning.

But if she went somewhere before we got here, she didn't drive.

Maybe she used a boat.

Could be.

About the security bank.

Two days ago.

Come on, guys. We have a serious problem. I want to hear some solutions.

Well, is this my lucky day?

I hope to catch one of you, and here you all are.

I hope I'm not interrupting.

What is it this time?

Well, I got an idea of why Eric Gaston was killed, and I wanted to run it by

since you were all such good friends.

Mr. Medlock, Eric was killed because your client owed him $25 ,000.

No, he wasn't.

He was murdered because he was blackmailing all of them.

Now, keep going. Don't lure your pulse rate on my account.

He wasn't blackmailing us. Oh, yes, he was.

And then when he died, Sherry Brown started blackmailing him. That's why she

killed this morning.

Sherry Brown is dead?

I don't believe that.

You seem surprised.

As if you hadn't tried to kill her before.

At first, I thought you were trying to kill me.

But then when I realized it was her, I thought you were after Eric Sledge.

Wrong again.

It was the negatives.

That's what you were after.

What the hell is he talking about? Do you have any idea what he's talking

Not me.

Well, those negatives will surface pretty soon.

In the meantime... I wouldn't go anywhere for the next week or two except

court.

I'll see you there.

Find out anything, Clank?

Now, don't I always find out something? No, not always. Most of the time,

though. Well, a lot of times. At least 75 % of the time. Conrad!

Two days ago, Sherry Brown cleaned out all of her bank accounts.

Withdrew every last cent.

Well, that probably explains why they still found no trace of her body out at

Wheeler Lake.

And why all the boys went slack -jawed when I told them she was dead.

Weren't bluffing, were they? No.

Looks like she faked her own death so she could skip town and nobody would

follow her.

Think she took the negatives with her?

Might have.

Well, they might still be in there.

Well, they might be, yeah.

Why don't I take a look around?

You gonna break and enter?

The window was already broke the other day, remember?

Well, that's strange.

Hey, mister.

Yeah? Aren't you going to leave anything for Ms.

Brown? Oh, no. She's having all her mail forwarded.

Forwarded? Yeah. To who?

They don't tell me that.

Oh, okay.

You get something?

Now, don't I always find something? Come on, man.

She had her mail forwarded to 9070 Lakeshore Drive.

Lakeshore Drive? I never heard of it.

Lakeshore Drive? That's in Chicago.

Come on, baby, if you want to

go. Gonna hop on that train to Chicago.

Come on, baby, if you want to go.

Gonna hop on that train to Chicago.

Give me

rain all day, rain all

night. In Chicago, gonna be all right. Come on, baby, if you wanna go.

Gonna hop on that train to Chicago.

that you want to come.

Come on, baby, if you want to go. Hop in that train and kick off.

Oh, gee, hey, I am so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking about. Are you

okay? Just hold it. Okay, look, give me your name and your phone number, and let

me call my insurance agent. No, that's not necessary. No, no, please, I insist.

Look, you may feel fine now, but you get home, your neck could be sore, your

alignment could be off. All right, all right, it's Henry Macklin. Hey, nice to

meet you, Henry. I mean, not like this or anything. Yeah, I know.

My name's Henry, M -A -C -K -L -I -N.

I'm Conrad McMasters.

Henry Macklin is a friend of mine. I've known him and Gloria for a year.

That's up.

Well, anyway, I just got into town. He suggested I come by.

He said his friends are my friends.

My bet?

Three hundred.

Three hundred?

Raise your three hundred.

I'll just call.

What do you got?

Three tenths.

Two pair.

Yeah.

Mr. Davis wants to buy you a drink.

Mr. Davis?

Yes, Mr. Davis.

All right, Mr. Davis.

Where is he?

Mr. McMasters. Nice to meet you. How you doing? Don Davis.

Thank you.

I try and meet all my new guests.

I hear you're from out of town. Yeah.

But you have friends here. Oh, yeah. I did some business with Henry Macklin a

couple of years ago.

And so he and I have been friends ever since.

How about a drink? Another, uh, oh, soda water and lemon or you want something

harder? No, I'm fine. Thank you.

You're very observant, Mr. Davis.

You're on quite a roll. Yeah.

So does that mean it's going to end?

I never cut winners off.

Never? Sure you do, Mr. Davis.

The easy way.

What do you mean?

You got a deck of cards?

I beg your pardon?

Do you have a deck of cards?

card at all?

Two queens.

Right?

Yeah.

Which beats the hell out of my two five.

You know my rule is going to end as soon as you tell that dealer down there to

make it end.

You're good.

Very good.

I'm also available.

Why don't you come back Saturday night?

I'll let you deal with some blackjack.

If your work is as good as it looks, we'll talk about your cut.

And your future.

Okay.

Don't worry, bro. Everything is cool. Yeah, don't worry. Right.

Don't worry about it. Take care of them, guys.

All right. Drive safe.

You owe

me, Ty.

I'll break you, man. Look, I'll pay you tomorrow. I swear.

That's great, buddy. But this time, I don't want you to forget.

Give him something to remember.

I'll break you.

You've been gambling. No. You promised you wouldn't gamble. Here.

Call somebody from Gambler's Anonymous right now. Ben, I don't... No more lies.

No excuses.

Call. You're whipped and you know it. Yeah, I know.

Well, call. I already have.

You did?

I did.

You don't have a good track record, you know. Are you going to stay with it? I

promise. Are you sure?

I'll leave you eight to five.

Hello, Sherry.

Looking pretty fine for a dead woman.

The mail came for you.

What is he doing here?

His name's McMasters.

He's a new dealer. He's a private investigator.

Hey!

All right, hey!

You don't have to be ugly.

I just came to find Sherry. Now that I've found her, I'll just leave.

And head straight for the police. I got no reason to do that.

You lie a lot, you know that? Hey, if you're so worried about the cops, you

should do something about her, not me.

What does that mean? It means as soon as the police in Atlanta find out she

cleared out her bank account, they're going to be on your doorstep.

Or didn't she tell you? He's out of his mind.

Tell me what?

Tell you that Sherry's gotten herself into so much trouble in Atlanta that she

faked her own death.

To get everybody, including the police, off her back.

Is that true?

No.

Hey, Lightning's going to strike you.

Shut up! I said I'd help you because Eric and I were old friends.

Now, did you lie to me, honey? No.

No, he's lying.

Kick him out of here, Don.

Yeah, well, one of you is lying. And being around liars makes me

Hey, Bella.

Now I have no place to go. I'm just trying to find out who killed Harry.

well, I didn't. Why don't you just leave me alone? Harry!

You're the only one that can help me.

Jerry.

Murder has got to be one of the three guys you've been blackmailing. Aren't

the genius? Hey!

You are playing a very dangerous game. No more. Game's over. I've gone into

retirement. Think.

Think. They're not going to let you off the hook until they get the negatives

and you're dead.

I'm telling the truth. They're going to find you just like I did. And when they

do, they're going to take their time killing you.

The negatives are in a locker in the airport.

Feed concourse.

But the negatives, what are they of?

You'll figure it out.

Please, nobody go outside.

What happened? Somebody jumped.

I probably led him right to her.

I should have just walked her to her room, huh?

She knew what she was into.

She knew it got Eric killed.

That didn't stop her. You couldn't have done anything.

But I was right there.

So was the killer.

He ought to be feeling bad, not you.

Let's see here.

John Delaney, Tom Romanski, Roy Stevens, three suspects.

A little younger, though. Yeah. Judging from the car, I'd say about 15 years

younger, wouldn't you? Yeah, that would put them in college. Yeah.

What have they got in their hand?

Paintings?

Looks like it. What would a bunch of jocks want with a bunch of paintings?

You don't suppose they paid Eric Gaston all that money just to keep,

you know, that?

Speak between us.

You know, if memory serves me, I would say this is the untitled

Brock.

And I would say this one is the early Picasso.

They're valuable?

Well, that depends.

On what?

On how well the buyer of the stolen paintings took care of them.

I knew it. Okay, when were they stolen and where from?

The Metropolitan Gallery in Atlanta.

About 15 years ago.

Unless I'm mistaken.

But then you see, I really am.

Were the thieves caught?

No.

But something else happened that night.

What happened?

The security guard was shot and killed.

This meant it wasn't only a burglar.

It was murder.

So now we know why Eric Gaston was able to blackmail us three guys for so long.

Yeah.

Murder, that makes a difference. If it hadn't been just simple robbery, those

negatives would be worthless.

Why?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Statue of limitations. Yeah. Run out a long time ago.

Wonder which one of them pulled the trigger.

Well, they could have hired somebody.

I don't think so. It feels like one of them, don't you think?

Yeah.

Why an art gallery?

Why not a bank or a sporting goods store or a liquor store?

Yeah. Three football players robbing an art gallery.

Strange, isn't it?

Art majors.

Are you kidding?

Hasn't been an art major in Baxter University football team since 1968.

George Stolberg.

Yeah, he thought it was going to help him avoid the draft.

Well, maybe one of them was an art minor.

Yeah, not a chance.

Not those three. The closest they ever got to art was the Sunday morning

funnies. What about part -time jobs?

Well, Stevens worked at a radio station.

And it seems to me that Delaney worked tables at one of the sorority houses.

Tom Romansky.

Tom, yeah, he made a career out of dating rich girls.

You know, I think one of those guys used to go with an art major.

Yeah, her daddy owned an art gallery or something.

Big mucky muck at some museum.

Who dated her, you remember?

Well, now, let me think about that.

Time to make a change.

Time to pick my duff up.

Get up off the floor.

Cause I've been there, baby.

I've felt all the pain I can.

No more till the blues come back knocking at my door.

How's it

going, Ben?

Pretty good, Ty. How about you?

So far, okay.

Have you any idea what we're looking for?

Anything that'll tell us who killed Eric Gaston.

You know, none of our suspects are in any of these team pictures.

Well, they didn't make the team until Eric was a senior. Remember, that was

year he got expelled.

He must not have ordered a picture then that year.

Well, he probably wasn't in any of them. He only played half a year.

I'll bet you that made him mad getting kicked out like that.

Not being able to enjoy all that stuff that goes along with being in a

championship team.

What?

Well, Mr. Delaney, how's business?

Just fine.

Your secretary, Mrs. Harrison, showed me your client list for each of the last

five years, and, uh, you know, it's getting smaller.

Well, it's only because my client's salaries keep getting bigger.

Yeah, and she told me that you recently sold your house and moved into an

apartment, and that you sold your Porsche that you used to drive, and that

did have two secretaries, but about a month ago you let the other one go.

That sounds like considerable belt -tie -ing to me.

I prefer to call it streamlining.

The last thing you needed was for Eric Gaston to... Blackmail you for more

money, wasn't it? Never been blackmailed, Mr. Matlock.

Not by Eric.

Not by anybody.

Are you going to deny that that's you in that picture?

All I know is I couldn't possibly have taken part in that art theft.

Why not? Well, I did a little checking, Mr. Matlock.

Seems to me that robbery took place late on a Saturday afternoon in November.

Is that right? That's right, it was. Now, hold it.

It was November 11, 1975, between 2 .30 and 3.

Sorry. Couldn't have been involved.

Why?

Well, I was doing the same thing I did every other Saturday afternoon back

Playing football in front of several thousand Baxter University fans.

Nice try, but no cigar.

You remember Martin Kravitz? Remember him? Trainer over there at Baxter.

Biggest football fan I've ever seen.

You ask him the score of any Baxter game,

No matter how long ago, he'll give it to you. If he's not sure, he'll get out

his scrapbook and newspaper clippings and look it up.

Hey, you played football that afternoon, but only nine minutes of the first

quarter when you and Roy Stevens were ejected for fighting.

That means you had to leave the field, didn't you?

And interestingly enough, Tom Hermanski hit the showers with some kind of

shoulder injury.

Now, The Metropolitan Art Museum is only a ten -minute drive from the stadium.

You could have gone over there, used the information that Tom Hermansky got from

his girlfriend, helped yourself to a couple of paintings, put them in the

of the car, and been back to the stadium by halftime with no one the wiser. And

that's exactly what happened, isn't it? Of course not. That's ridiculous.

How did Eric get on to you? Did he hear you whispering in the locker room about

your plans?

Famous scam.

I did not steal any paintings, and Eric was not blackmailing me.

Okay.

Where were you between 9 .30 and 10 .30 the morning Eric was killed?

I was in my office.

I got there at 9. I didn't leave till almost 7 that night.

Can anybody verify that?

Absolutely. My secretary.

No.

Now she was running an errand for you, remember?

You called her at her house at 7 o 'clock that morning and asked her to go

the box office, get you some baseball tickets, remember?

I do remember that.

Yeah, she didn't get in until almost 10. 11.

And that would have given you plenty of time to return to the office after you

killed Eric Gaston. That's not true.

I was in my office that morning and you can't prove otherwise.

I'm afraid I can.

You remember that big coffee stain on the chair in your office?

Well, your secretary had arranged with Gold's Cleaning Service to come over at

.30 that morning and steam it out. I guess she forgot to mention it to you

you called her at home because it was so early.

Anyway, when Mr. Gold got there at 9 .35, he couldn't get in.

Nobody was there. The lights were out. The doors were locked.

Here's his invoice two days later. It says,

Unable to render services at 9 .30 a .m. Tuesday the 17th because of no one was

at the office to let him in.

Well, he charged you $30 anyway.

Highway robbery.

Well, now, we know you were not at your office at the time of the murder.

You care to tell us where you were?

This ring was found on Eric's finger by the police when they arrived at the

scene. Do you recognize it?

No. You don't?

Well, rings like this were given to all the Baxter players in 1975, the year you

won the championship. See, it says so right there.

I don't know. It's kind of hard to recognize without the stone.

Yeah, the ring is a mess.

The police think that maybe, that maybe...

Eric struggled with his killer, and just before he died, hit him so hard that he

crushed the stone.

But I have a couple of problems with that.

I have a couple of problems. The coroner found a long, jagged cut along Eric's

left jaw, and his report said it was inflicted just moments before his death.

That would suggest that Eric was the one that got hit rather than vice versa.

And the other thing is, Eric didn't have a ring.

Of course he did. He was a star running back, remember?

No, no, no, no.

That was the year he was expelled for gambling, remember?

He only played a half season. He didn't get a ring. Look at this picture.

Now, this picture was taken at Eric's club the night before he was killed.

Now, look here. All of them have rings. See there? All have rings.

But Eric, no ring.

Hey, no ring.

No ring. What... What's happened to your ring, Mr. Glenn?

I, uh, lost it recently.

Yeah?

Are you sure this isn't your ring?

You sure you didn't struggle with Eric just before you shot him and hit him so

hard that you crushed the stone in his ring into hundreds of pieces?

You knew my client would be walking through the door any minute.

You sure you didn't take that ring off your finger and put it on Eric's finger

so everybody would believe it was his instead of yours?

Look, you can twist things all you want, but that is not my ring.

Conrad?

You recognize her?

I don't know.

That's Robin Martell, the girl you went with in college.

The girl who wore your ring for two years.

She'll testify that she had it cut down so it fit her finger.

And when you took it back two years later, you had to wear it on your pinky

finger because it was too big for the other fingers.

In other words, she will testify that this is indeed your ring.

And when she does that, I'm going to enter it into evidence.

And when I do that, two things will happen.

We will have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that my client over there did not

commit this crime.

And we're going to make you look awfully suspicious.

Not only for what happened to Eric.

What happened to his girlfriend, Sherry Brown, in Chicago?

Later on down the line, what happened to that guard during the art theft?

Mr. Delaney, do you remember once you told me gambling is for losers?

And it is. It seems almost trite to say now that murder is always a gamble.

You took it and lost.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?

We find the defendant, Tyler Mullins, not guilty.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

This court is adjourned.

Thank you, Ben.

Thank you, Barbara.

I'm speechless, Ben. All I can say is... Let's have some fun!

You're only there for once and when you're dead...

Oh, that's a good time. Oh, yeah.

We don't care. Oh, let's get together. And there's a good time.

Hey,

the bartender.

You expecting somebody?

Yeah. A friend of mine.

He's a member of Gamblers Anonymous.

I asked him to come down here and maybe spend a little time with Chai.

He's also a record producer.

New York.

I sent him an airplane ticket.

Told him to come down here.

Give Chai a listen.

contract. That's really nice of you, Beth. I'm a nice man.

I figured that's

the only way you'd ever get paid, huh? I do.