Free The Devil's Puzzle by Clare O'Donohue

used to have silly promotions all the time. He had as much trouble keeping the bills paid as I seem to. I guess I’m as crazy as he was, wanting to own a movie theater, but I love it, and he loved it.”
    “And the poker chips?” Jesse asked again.
    “It must have been in ’74 or ’75, he had these coded poker chips he handed out to patrons. You got one when you saw a movie and one if you bought a combo of popcorn and a soda. If you collected ten, you got into a movie for free.”
    “What stopped people from just buying a box of poker chips and handing those in?” I asked.
    “Dad had the chips specially made. There’s a code on the back of each one of them.” Ed pointed to the poker chip in the evidence bag. Engraved into the chip and painted a faded gold were two small letters : “‘B.C.’ It stands for ‘Bryant’s Cinema,’” Ed continued. “Each movie was a different color chip. Young Frankenstein was yellow; The Sting was green . . .”
    “What movie was red?” Jesse asked.
    “ Towering Inferno .” Ed smiled. “I loved that movie. I must have watched it at least a dozen times.”
    “That would mean the chip is from 1974,” I said. “Do you know what month it played here?”
    “Not off the top of my head. I know it wouldn’t have played right when it was released. We got movies after they had played at the bigger theaters.” He thought for a moment. “It was the summer. I remember that because I was off school. If you give me a minute, I can look at the records. I have all my dad’s files in my office,” Ed said, and then frowned. “I’d offer you a Coke while you wait, but . . .” He pointed toward the broken soda machines.
    Jesse shook his head. “If you can tell me when that poker chip was handed out, it will be a big help.”
    “Anything for you, Chief.”
    Ed seemed like a nice man. He was almost completely bald and kept what hair he did have almost military short. He had a bit of weight around the middle, but he was quite tall so he carried it well. Most of all he was friendly, and Jesse seemed to like him, so that counted for a lot.
    Once Ed went to his office, Jesse turned to me. I could see he was about to speak, so I spoke first.
    “I know what you’re going to say,” I said, assuming he would kid me about asking Ed questions when I’d promised not to.
    “I was going to ask how you knew Towering Inferno came out in 1974.”
    “I like disasters.”
    “I know that,” he said. “And I know you. Which one did you have a crush on—Paul Newman or Steve McQueen?”
    “So I only could have liked the movie if I liked one of the actors?”
    “Enough to know when it was released? Yes.”
    I shrugged. No sense in pretending he was wrong. “Robert Wagner.”
    Jesse looked at me for a minute. “No kidding?”
    “No kidding. He’s very suave.”
    “Like me.” A wide grin spread across his face.
    I laughed. “Exactly like you.”
    A few minutes later, Ed returned. “We had the movie for two weeks in the summer of 1975. It opened here on the Fourth of July.”
    “And that’s the only time your dad would have given out this particular poker chip?”
    “I think so. He had lots of colors, maybe thirty different chips. He figured it would encourage people to buy popcorn and stuff, to get a free movie faster.”
    “Did it work?” I asked.
    “It did. In fact, that promotion did well enough to keep the doors open that summer. Dad was going to have to shut down if he didn’t fix some things in the building and get it up to code, but he did well enough that year to fix everything and take home a salary. But then things slid downhill and he was barely hanging on after that. He was like me. He even looked like me.” Ed ran his hand across his balding head. “Big guys with big hearts and no brains.” He laughed. “At least that’s what my mother used to say.”
    “Do you know how many of these chips he would have given out?” Jesse asked.
    “No idea. Maybe a hundred or