Johnny Gunman

Shortly after midnight in a Greenwich Village coffee shop, Leona, the owner, is celebrating her twenty-fifth year in business with one of her very first customers, Max. Another regular, lecherous playwright Sydney Wells, joins the conversation until they are interrupted by the arrival of a young hoodlum, Johnny G., who hides out in the coffee shop and seeks their cooperation in providing him with an alibi for a crime he has committed. Shortly thereafter, a young woman, who has also been a regular customer, comes in and tells Leona that she is taking the bus home the next morning. She had come to New York seven months earlier with the dream of becoming a writer but has, instead, wound up in a soul-destroying job as a typist with a large insurance company. After Johnny tries to strike up a conversation with the girl and asks her name, she rebuffs him and says that she just wants some coffee, so Johnny decides to call her "Coffee." As she has six hours to spend before her bus leaves, Wells suggests to her, in the hope of restoring her writing ambitions, that he and his male companions each spend two hours showing her a little of their respective worlds. The men draw straws as to who will be first and Johnny wins. He and Coffee leave after agreeing that, after two hours have elapsed, she will phone Wells, then Max. As they travel to a nightclub, Johnny explains to Coffee that his boss, Lou Caddy, the head of the local crime syndicate, is about to start serving a three-to-five-year prison term for tax evasion and has decided to turn over his operations to either Johnny or to Johnny's cousin, Allie. Johnny expects a physical confrontation with Allie to determine who will be the leader. Johnny has already been chased by Allie's thugs, but assures Coffee she will not be involved in any of the anticipated violence. In an effort to understand Johnny better, Coffee asks him about his past, but he reveals little. Mickey, one of Lou's men, finds Johnny and tells him that Lou has heard that he and Allie are warring and has ordered them to meet him at a bar to talk it out. While Johnny meets with Allie in a back room, Coffee waits in the bar until Johnny emerges and tells her that Allie has agreed to split up the territory between them. Coffee, however, tells Johnny that she had glimpsed a gun in a handbag belonging to Mimi, Allie's girl friend. It is now time for Coffee to phone Wells and, wishing Johnny good luck, she moves on to her next experience. After Wells invites Coffee to come to his apartment, he attempts to assault her, but she escapes. Later, Mickey finds Coffee and tells her that Allie has double-crossed Lou and Johnny and that Johnny has been stabbed by one of Allie's thugs. While being patched up by a doctor, Johnny informs Coffee that now, with Lou's approval, he and Allie are going to have a knife fight in front of Lou's house. After Johnny explains that normally Lou's businesses are run with very little violence and that he would like to discourage youngsters from becoming involved with guns and knives, Coffee decides that she has found a theme she can develop into a significant writing project. Coffee then decides to keep her appointment with Max and Johnny promises that after he gets through with Allie, he will drive her to the bus terminal. Max, a wise, well-read elderly man, takes Coffee to the plant where he manufactures dolls and explains the process to her. Coffee learns that Max learned his trade in his native Nuremberg before emigrating to America and had hoped to bring his wife and children to America, but lost them during World War II. Max is pleased when, upon offering Coffee a doll as a souvenir of her visit, she selects his favorite creation, a ballerina. Meanwhile, Allie informs Mimi that he deliberately had Johnny wounded in his right hand, his fighting hand. Although Johnny is ultimately victorious in the fight he is mortally wounded, but keeps his appointment to drive Coffee to the bus terminal at the end of her tumultuous evening. Unaware of his condition, Coffee tells him that she intends to write his story. Promising to come back as soon as possible, Coffee assures Johnny that she will remember him all her life.