it's the heat

"My defense was evolving. You guys got scared. Costanza doesn't like me. ..."
In the film Body Heat, there's a lunch place called Stella's which is patronized by the courthouse crowd (policemen, lawyers, clerks, etc.).

A window air conditioner is buzzing and blowing -- little flippy things, streamers, are flying and flapping in the generated air stream.

Ned Racine (the lawyer, played by William Hurt) sits at this crowded lunch counter and lights up a cigarette -- ! (From today's perspective it seems pretty funny: he blows the smoke right out over the counter, over the food of the person sitting on his left, the snack of the person at his right, his own food, & the food they're preparing and transporting behind the counter!)

Now it's like our laws are screwed-down so tight, people who want to smoke have to get into a spaceship, fly to Mars, smoke their cigarette, and then get back in the spaceship and fly back to earth.

Ned's friend, the prosecutor Lowenstein (Ted Danson) kids him, "Ned I don't know why it's taken me so long -- you've started using your incompetence as a weapon."

"My defense was evolving. And you guys got scared. Costanza doesn't like me. What'd I do to him?"

"He's an unhappy man. Thinks he should be in circuit court by now, Here he is in a state with really top-notch corruption and he's stuck with the county toilets. I'm surprised you weren't in on that toilet caper. Could have been that quick score you've always been searching for."
"Maybe Costanza was in on it. That's why he was mad."

"Stella when are you going to get a real air conditioner in here?"
(she eye-levels him.) "If you don't like it, there are lots of other places."
"They don't have you." ...

--------------------------------------
About twenty-five or thirty-five minutes in,
there's another scene in Stella's.
The same two guys are there at a table; their friend Oscar Grace (J.A. Preston), a policeman, comes in.
Oscar: "Whatcha got in pie today, Stella?"
"Cherry, cherry, and -- cherry."
What do you recommend?"
"I like the cherry."
"Bring it on. And a gigantic Coca-cola."

Lowenstein: "I'm really disappointed, Racine...."
Ned: "There's nothing to tell. I lead a lonely life."
Oscar: "Right. And it's gonna snow later today --"
Lowenstein: "...And people are basically decent. ... Oh wait a minute, I know -- you finally got to Glenda. How was it? Did she let you into the no-parking zone?"
Stella: "I happen to know Glenda is seriously involved with a narc from Palm Beach."
Lowenstein: "A narc from Palm Beach. What is that, his hobby?"

...Ned: "How's the cop business, Oscar?"
"Real good. Always starts hoppin' in weather like this. When it gets hot, people try to kill each other."
Stella: "It's true. I could tell you some people who'll be dead if we don't get a break soon."

Oscar: "We've got more of everything bad since the wave started. It's the crisis atmosphere. People dress different, feel different, sweat more. They wake up cranky and never recover. Look at Lowenstein. (smiles) -- Everything is just a little askew.
Pretty soon people think the old rules aren't in effect. They start breaking them. figure no one'll care, cause it's emergency time...time out.

Lowenstein: "Oscar, I just don't understand how you could be doing advanced theoretical thinking like that and still be stuck in our little town."

Oscar -- (grins): "Lowenstein dreams of bigger things!"
"Assistant County Prosecutor isn't the end for me, fellas."
Ned: "Hell, no. Someday -- Deputy County Prosecutor."
Lowenstein: "When the truth comes out..."

-30-