- It's time for Joe to make some calls. He phones some folks—like his friend Artie—who all aren't able to help him with a loan. He keeps striking out.
- Then he visits his agent, Morino, who's out playing golf and not getting Joe work. He says he could give Joe three hundred bucks, but he won't—hunger should help Joe write.
- Things gets testy, and Morino tells Joe that he should maybe get a new agent. We'll say.
- Driving away from the golf course, Joe decides to go back to Ohio and the newspaper where he used to work.
- But the two repo men spot him from their car at a stoplight and chase him.
- Joe pulls into the driveway of what appears to be an abandoned mansion on Sunset Blvd. to evade them.
- It's a creepy place. He marvels at the mansion's state of decay, planning on hiding his car in the garage.
- But a woman's voice calls him, and he's invited into the mansion by her and her servant.
- They apparently think he's an undertaker for the funeral of the woman's pet monkey, whose corpse is lying on a table upstairs. Just another day in L.A.
- The woman asks him for advice, and he has to explain he's not really the undertaker.
- Suddenly, Joe recognizes her. She's a famous silent-screen-era star, Norma Desmond.
- When he calls her out, Norma rants about the current state of the movie industry and how she's still big even though she's not acting anymore. See, according to Norma, talking has ruined movies, which she thinks were better in the silent era when she had more star power.
- She almost kicks Joe out when she discovers he's a writer, but then tells him to stay, realizing that he can help her edit her screenplay.
- It's about the Biblical figure Salomé, a princess who helped kill John the Baptist, and Norma wants Cecil B. DeMille to direct it.
- Joe starts to read it and discovers that it's terrible. But he also realizes that he can make some money by offering to edit and improve Norma's script, adding more dialogue. The man knows an opportunity when he sees one.
- She agrees, and insists that Joe stay the night at the mansion.