[narrating] Come think of it, the whole place seemed to have been stricken with the kind of creeping paralysis... out of beat with the rest of the world... crumbling apart in slow motion. There was a tennis court... or rather the ghost of a tennis court... with faded markings and a sagging net... And of course she had a pool. Who didn't then? Mabel Norman and John Gilbert must swum in it ten thousand midnights ago... It was empty now. Or was it?
[cut to close-up of rats]

Joe Gillis