Read Killer On A Hot Tin Roof for Free Online Page B

took a five dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the man. “Sober up and get something to eat.”
    “Sure thing, Chief. I’ll sure do that.”
    As Will and I resumed walking, I said, “You know Jake was right about one thing. That guy will just go drink up that money.”
    “I know,” Will said with a sigh. “I can’t help it. When I see somebody who’s down on their luck, even when it’s their own fault, I want to help.”
    It was debatable whether giving the panhandler money actually helped him or not, but it was also a debate I didn’t want to have right now. I was more interested in getting to the reception, and then to the opening ceremony of the festival, and then to that late supper with Will.
    We turned the corner. The theater was on the next block, on the right. People were streaming into the impressive red brick building. I spotted Drs. Paige and Jeffords, who seemed to always be together. I wondered for a second if Dr. Paige had taken up with Dr. Jeffords after breaking up with Michael Frasier, but that seemed unlikely to me. For one thing, he was a good thirty years older than her and, for another, he looked like somebody’s kindly old grandfather or a popcorn pitchman, take your pick.
    The reception was being held in the theater lobby. As Will and I went in, I saw Lawrence Powers talking to a couple of women I recognized from the movie screen. As far as I knew, they hadn’t been in any movies based on Tennessee Williams’s plays, but they might have performed in them on stage. His son and daughter-in-law stood nearby. June looked like she wished Papa Larry would introduce her to the movie stars while Edgar wore the distracted, slightly bored look that engineers often display when they are out of their element. But, to be fair, a playwright would probably have the exact same expression if he found himself in a roomful of engineers.
    A cash bar was set up on one side of the lobby where the harder stuff could be purchased, while waiters circulated through the crowd with trays bearing glasses of complimentary champagne. There was also a long table with cheese, crackers, and other finger food. I was hungry and thought about nibbling a little, but I was willing to wait until Will and I had supper.
    The lobby was already crowded and full of talk and laughter. We wandered past the two professors who had done the bulk of the arguing at the airport in Atlanta and during the flight. One of them was saying, “How can you defend the editorial acumen of Farnsworth Wright? He rejected story after story that Lovecraft submitted to him!”
    “Yes, but he published ‘The Vengeance of Nitocris,’ ” the other one insisted. “That was Williams’s foot in the door.”
    The first one snorted. “Some foot! It was just a lurid story by a high school kid that made no lasting impression at all. Williams might as well not have sold it to
Weird Tales.”
    “It was his first work in print. Wright saw something there.”
    “Then why didn’t he buy anything else from Williams?”
    “Thank God he didn’t! If that had happened, Willliams might be just another forgotten pulp writer today!”
    “So you praise Wright on one hand and damn him on the other, all because of a story that has absolutely no place of importance in the rest of Williams’s oeuvre?”
    “There always has to be a first story and, anyway, the prevalent themes are already there, right from the start.”
    Will had paused to listen to the exchange and, as I watched him, I said, “You’re just itchin’ to get right in the middle of that, aren’t you?”
    “No, I’m fine,” he said. “I think both of their positions are extreme and that the truth lies somewhere in between. As S. T. Joshi has commented about Farnsworth Wright–”
    I held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t know who any of those folks are, darlin', so why don’t you just get us some champagne?”
    I was afraid for a second that I’d insulted him, but then he laughed