Columbo (TV Series)

Now You See Him (1976)

Nehemiah Persoff: Jesse Jerome

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jesse Jerome : No, no, dear man, we've been over this before.

  Santini : Jerome, I'm bored with you bleeding me. I'm afraid we're going to have to make a change in our little arrangement.

  Jesse Jerome : There are no changes... Sergeant Mueller! You see how the very mention of that name renders you completely helpless. You keep forgetting that I know who you are, and where you came from.

  Santini : I was 21. I was merely a boy.

  Jesse Jerome : No one in the SS was "merely a boy," Mueller. No one in the camps was just a boy. Unless he was being taken into the oven. Don't misunderstand me. If you push me, I will tell. The newspapers, the immigration service, the Israelis - yes, the Israelis! Oh, how they'd love to get their hands on you!

  Santini : I think not. I'm far too valuable to you.

  Jesse Jerome : You call that value?

  Santini : Mmm-hmmm.

  Jesse Jerome : I'd do much better turning you in right now, while I still have the chance, before you break in here again, trying to find the old man's letter, and don't deny that it was you!

• Jesse Jerome : Tell me, Santini, last month before you left for New York, you didn't by chance break into this office and search through my effects?

  Santini : What a silly question. Of course I did. And I stole your Manet, your Picasso, and got a lovely price for your Reubens. You know I didn't.

  Jesse Jerome : I thought not. It was dreadful of me even to, uh, suggest it.

  Santini : Thank you.

• Jesse Jerome : Um, speaking of New York, uh, I take it that...

  [taking a wad of cash out of an envelope] 

  Jesse Jerome : ...this too is, uh, some sort of joke?

  Santini : Five thousand dollars is hardly a joke.

  Jesse Jerome : Come, come, dear friend, I've assimilated the rudiments of arithmetic. Your recent tour netted 100,000 dollars, fifty percent of which is...

  Santini : Five percent of which is five thousand dollars.

• Santini : Jerome, you really are an animal.

  Jesse Jerome : You're lucky! I'm a businessman. When that old man recognized you last year, didn't I give you the money to keep him quiet? That was good business. And when he died and I realized that I was the only one who knew, well, that was very good business, too. That's why we're such a good team, you and I. You know, you do rather well, considering the circumstances. Certainly better than spending the rest of your life in an Israeli prison. I urge you to look at it realistically. Have the other 45,000 for me tonight before the performance, or believe me, it will be your last performance... anywhere.

  [as Santini gets up to leave, Jerome gives a Nazi salute] 

  Jesse Jerome : Heil Hitler! Have the money for me before the show.