never did eat your lunch, did you.
call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off. it's friday anyway.  and hot.
we could laze around here a while longer.
i've heard of married couples who deliberately spend occasional nights in cheap hotels. they say it.
you sure talk like a girl who's been married.
i'm sorry, mary. my old dad used to say 'when you can't change a situation, laugh at it.' nothing ridicules a thing like laughing at it.
the only girlish thing you have lost.
for what?
okay. what do we do instead, write each other lurid love letters?
and i'm a working man! we're a regular working-class tragedy!
you can't laugh at it, huh?
sure. it's like laughing through a broken jaw, but.
and besides, when you say i make tax- deductible excuses you make me out a criminal.
i wish i were. not an active criminal but.  a nice guy with the conscience of a criminal. next best thing to no conscience at all.
i can come down next week.
not even just to see you, to have lunch.  in public?
and after the steak.  do we send sister to the movies and turn mama's picture to the wall?
all right.
mary, whenever it's possible, tax- deductible or not, i want to see deductible you. and under any conditions. even respectability.
i'm all for it! it requires patience and temperance and a lot of sweating- out.  otherwise, though, it's only hard work. but if i can see you, touch you even as simply as this.  i won't mind.
i'm fed up with sweating for people who aren't there. i sweat to pay off my father's debts.  and he's in his grave.  i sweat to pay my ex-wife alimony, and she's living on the other side of the world somewhere.
a couple of years and the debts will be paid off. and if she ever re- marries, the alimony stops.  and then.
yeah, but when you do.  you'll swing.
and live with me in a storeroom behind a hardware store in fairvale. we'll have a lot of laughs. when i send my ex-wife her money, you can lick the stamps.
you know what i'd like? a clear, empty sky.  and a plane, and us in it.  and somewhere a private island for sale, where we can run around without our.  shoes on. and the wherewithal to buy what i'd like. mary, you want to cut this off, go out and find yourself someone available.
how can you even think a thing like that!
hey, we can leave together can't we?
yes?
sure.
lila.
is something wrong?
here?
where?
what's the matter?
what should i know?
no. i take it you don't either? how long?
and you thought she'd come up here, to me? if she had, what reason would she have for not calling you?
well what do you think, we eloped or something? or we're living in sin and.
i was getting to that!
nothing! you're putting me on the defensive.
bob? run out and get yourself some lunch.
run out and eat it.
what thing?
what thing could we be in together?
is mary.  in trouble?
well why didn't she come to me.  call me?
never mind my ego. let's talk about mary.
who are you, friend?
what's your interest?
somebody better tell me what's going on and tell me fast! i can take so much and then.
why?
what are you talking about? what is this?
she isn't!
did you check in phoenix.  hospitals.  maybe she had an accident.  a hold-up.
i don't believe it. do you?
you might have doubted for say five minutes or so, sister.
it was her boss' idea not to report it to the police?
he must have had a darn good reason for wanting them kept out of it.  all that cash.
no.
how could i go away? i'm in debt up to my.  if she did steal that money.  it's hard to believe she did because it's hard to see why she would. unless she had some wild idea that it would help me.  us.
i didn't see her.  and i didn't hear from her! believe that!
you've led a charmed life.
maybe we can handle it together.
i think she'll contact me if she contacts anybody. why don't you stay here. when she shows up.  or calls.  be here.
she'll need both of us.
first rate hotel, fifty yards up the street. come on. after we check you in we'll go to the drugstore and get you a sandwich. then we'll come back here.  and wait.
sometimes saturday night has a lonely sound. ever notice, lila?
it's been three.
he'll be back. let's sit still and hang on, okay?
hundreds! which one is your pet?
i feel better when you feel better.
you want to run out there, bust in on arbogast and the sick old lady, shake her up and maybe spoil everything arbogast's been building for the last three hours.
that wouldn't be a wise thing to do.
arbogast said.
got the number of the motel out on the old highway? bates, i think.
and maybe pass arbogast on the road? thanks.
probably on his way back right now.
you'll never find it.
stay here.
i don't know.  one of us has to be here in case arbogast's on the way.
contemplate your.  panic button.
arbogast?
he didn't come back here?
no arbogast. no bates. and only the old lady at home.  a sick old lady unable to answer the door.  or unwilling.
maybe he got some definite lead. maybe he went right on.
in a hurry.
yes. i think he would have.
let's go see al chambers.
he's the deputy sheriff around here.
our deputy sleeps.
nothing. just.  all the lights out.  must be asleep.
no. i'm just procrastinating. people hate when the doorbell rings in the middle of the night. come on.
sorry, mrs. chambers. i hate bothering you.
we have a problem.
i don't know where to start.  except at the beginning.
this is lila crane, from phoenix. she's been here for a few days, looking for her sister. there's a private detective helping.  and, well, we got a call tonight, from this detective, saying he'd traced mary.
yes. he traced her to that motel, out on the old highway.
he traced her there and called us to say he was going to question mrs. bates.
no. an old woman, his mother. that was early this evening. and we haven't seen or heard from him since. i went out to the motel, just got back. no one was in the office, and.
they thought she'd be coming to me.
yes.
everyone concerned thought.  if they could get her to give back the money.  they could avoid involving her with the police.
he was out when i was there. if he's back he probably isn't even in bed yet.
i've only been here five. right now it feels like ten, but.
was that all?
you mean that old woman i saw sittin' in the window wasn't norman bates' mother?
i'd know the difference between mary and an old woman.
yes! in the house behind the motel. i pounded and called but she.  just ignored me.
we thought, if you didn't mind, we'd go out to the motel with you.
you didn't find anything.
no mother.
maybe i am the seeing-illusions type.
want me to drop you at the hotel? or you want to come over to the store?
neither will i.
of course we will.
where'd you go to college?
she was willing to lick the stamps.
we were going to get married. are going to get married!
this is the old highway.
watch your tenses.
she always tries to be proper.
i'm going with you. but we'd better decide what we're going to say and do when we walk in.
you won't believe it.  but this will be the first time i've ever pulled one of those man- and-wife-renting-cabin capers!
i wonder where norman bates does his hermiting?
come on.
just coming up to ring for you.
we'd hoped to make it straight to san francisco, but we don't like the look of that sky. looks like a bad day coming.  doesn't it.
better sign in first, hasn't we?
uh, uh! my boss is paying for this trip.  ninety percent business.  and he wants practically notarized receipts. i better sign in and get a receipt.
haven't any.
first time i've seen it happen. check in any place in this country without bags, and you have to pay in advance.
that receipt?
don't bother yourself.  we'll find it.
i'm glad we didn't.
i know. do you think if something happened, it happened there?
how could we prove.  well, if he opens a new motel on the new highway.  say, a year from now.
what makes you sound so certain?
we'll start with cabin one.
if he sees us.  we're just taking the air.
bates?
sorry.
what?
what is it?
bates never denied mary was here.
do we simply ask him where he's hidden it?
you can't go up there.
bates.
wait a minute. if you get anything out of the mother.  can you find your way back to town? if you do get anything, don't stop to tell me.
yes, matter of fact. the wife's taking a nap and.  i can never keep quiet enough for her.  so i thought i'd look you up and.  talk.
fine.
i've been doing all the talking so far, haven't i?
i always thought it was the people who are alone so much who do all the talking when they get the chance. yet there you are, doing all the listening! you are alone here, aren't you? it would drive me crazy.
just an expression.  what i meant was.  i'd do just about anything.  to get away. wouldn't you?
i'm not saying you shouldn't be contented here, i'm just doubting that you are. i think if you saw a chance to get out from under.  you'd unload this place.
and now that your mother's dead?
i didn't think so.
you look frightened. have i been saying something frightening?
i've been talking about your mother.  about your motel. how are you going to do it?
buy a new one! in a new town! where you won't have to hide your mother!
where will you get the money to do that, bates.  or do you already have it.  socked away.  a lot of it.
forty thousand dollars!
i bet your mother knows where the money is. and what you did to get it. and i think she'll tell us.
it's regular. okay?
want to?
why was he.  dressed like that?